Let’s revisit my childhood, since that is probably where this misunderstanding originated. In my church, our pastor was never a full-time pastor; he always had a full-time job along with being the pastor, and the church gave him a little bit of money each month (not much at all). For a long time I wasn’t even aware that full-time pastors existed.
When I became aware of their existence, I thought it was really odd. I wondered if many full-time pastors were mostly doing it for the money; after all, they didn’t have to have a “real” job*, the church gave them plenty of money, and in many cases a house. I looked around at many of the full-time pastors here and saw expensive houses and cars, and thought surely the church’s money could be put to better use. After all, look at all the people out there who don’t even have a place to live, and the pastor has an expensive home in a prestigious neighborhood?
Just like the last topic I wrote about (planning services ahead of time), paying pastors can absolutely be taken to an extreme. I will admit, I still have a very hard time with the idea of making the pastor rich while other people (even people in the congregation) are barely making it. I think that’s taking it too far. And I still think it’s possible that there are some pastors out there who don’t love it, who realize that being a pastor is not their passion, but are getting good money. I hope I’m wrong; I desperately hope that there is no one out there who fits these descriptions.
But I have started to realize that having a full-time pastor can be a very good thing indeed, both for the pastor and the rest of the people. When the pastor does not have to commit 40+ hours per week to a job that isn’t even his passion but is just paying the bills, it frees him up to spend those hours focusing on what he is passionate about—following God and leading a church. It gives him time to read and study, it gives him time to go out into the community and build relationships, it gives him time to focus on people in his church who are struggling for various reasons. He is able to spend more time focusing on his church and his community, and both will benefit tremendously from it. But as beneficial as it is for a pastor to be able to focus on his passion full-time, he also needs to be able to support his family financially. This is where paying your pastor can be a wonderful thing. I think it’s reasonable for a church to show their love and appreciation for their pastor by paying him a decent amount of money for him and his family, and I think this can be backed up scripturally.
I know that not all churches can afford to pay their pastors. Some pastors simply have no choice but to work a full-time job; looking back, that was very likely the case in my childhood church. I know that is the case in our church currently—but I will go on record as saying that I hope that one day we will be able to show our love and appreciation for our pastors and their families in this way. Right now they work full-time jobs on top of pastoring, and I know it is not easy. I hope one day we can meet their financial needs and free them up to focus on their passion full-time.
*About the “real” job comment- I could hardly even stand to write that, and I apologize for ever thinking that pastoring a church isn’t a “real” job. Being a stay-at-home mom, I know how frustrating it is to pour my whole being, my life, my energy, my passion, into something only for others to characterize me as not having a “real” job. My job as a mom is real—and so is your job as a pastor.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Things I Never Understood About Church, Part 1: Planning Ahead
Lately I have been thinking about some of the things I never understood about church. Many of them stem from how we did things at the church I grew up in; some are just things that didn’t make sense to me. Some of them still don’t make a lot of sense to me; there are others that I’m starting to understand.
I’ll start with one of the biggest things I remember hearing when I was growing up. In my church, it was considered pretty ridiculous to plan sermons or services ahead of time. Things like having a church bulletin with an outline of the service, planning which songs we would sing, or doing a message series were looked down upon. This sort of planning supposedly left no room for God to work. Most of the time, the choir director decided on the songs at the last minute or as they came to him; this wasn’t a problem because the songs were easily accessible in the hymnal, and the choir was small and informal anyway. During the middle of the service, different families or other groups would sing a few songs if they wanted to, and the pastor sat on the front pew thumbing through his Bible and figuring out what God was telling him to preach.
When I started going to different churches in my mid-to-late teen years, I took some of these attitudes with me. “How can they plan their service ahead of time like that? What if God wants to do something different? What if God wants the pastor to preach about something different one Sunday morning; will the pastor just go ahead with part three of his five-part series and ignore God?”
But over the last few years, as I have experienced services at different churches, and especially over the past year of being a part of a church that is just getting started, the concept of planning ahead has started to make sense to me. I still believe it’s possible to go too far by ignoring God in order to stick with the plan. So if you’ve planned to sing these three songs but you get up in front of the church on Sunday morning and feel like God wants you to sing a song you hadn’t planned for—I think you should do it anyway. Likewise, if you’re in the middle of a message series and you feel that God wants to take you in another direction—follow him. Let God’s plans take precedence over your plans.
Done correctly, I think planning ahead is beneficial. If you know what you are going to sing ahead of time, the musicians and singers can prepare. The person running the media can get the words on the screen so everyone can see them. The pastor can spend the week praying and preparing, rather than throwing something together during the twenty minutes before he stands up to speak. Preparation allows the message to be clear and focused. And from the point of view of a visitor, a church that is obviously not prepared often comes off looking as though they have no idea what they’re doing. Being unprepared shows, and can make it more difficult to get the point across or to make a positive impact.
As with anything, preparation can be taken to the extreme—both by strictly sticking to the plan no matter what, and by not preparing at all. But prayerful planning that is open to God changing things at the last minute is often a positive thing. In fact, isn’t that how we should strive to live in all areas of our lives—prayerfully planning while acknowledging that God may change those plans and we will follow him?
I’ll start with one of the biggest things I remember hearing when I was growing up. In my church, it was considered pretty ridiculous to plan sermons or services ahead of time. Things like having a church bulletin with an outline of the service, planning which songs we would sing, or doing a message series were looked down upon. This sort of planning supposedly left no room for God to work. Most of the time, the choir director decided on the songs at the last minute or as they came to him; this wasn’t a problem because the songs were easily accessible in the hymnal, and the choir was small and informal anyway. During the middle of the service, different families or other groups would sing a few songs if they wanted to, and the pastor sat on the front pew thumbing through his Bible and figuring out what God was telling him to preach.
When I started going to different churches in my mid-to-late teen years, I took some of these attitudes with me. “How can they plan their service ahead of time like that? What if God wants to do something different? What if God wants the pastor to preach about something different one Sunday morning; will the pastor just go ahead with part three of his five-part series and ignore God?”
But over the last few years, as I have experienced services at different churches, and especially over the past year of being a part of a church that is just getting started, the concept of planning ahead has started to make sense to me. I still believe it’s possible to go too far by ignoring God in order to stick with the plan. So if you’ve planned to sing these three songs but you get up in front of the church on Sunday morning and feel like God wants you to sing a song you hadn’t planned for—I think you should do it anyway. Likewise, if you’re in the middle of a message series and you feel that God wants to take you in another direction—follow him. Let God’s plans take precedence over your plans.
Done correctly, I think planning ahead is beneficial. If you know what you are going to sing ahead of time, the musicians and singers can prepare. The person running the media can get the words on the screen so everyone can see them. The pastor can spend the week praying and preparing, rather than throwing something together during the twenty minutes before he stands up to speak. Preparation allows the message to be clear and focused. And from the point of view of a visitor, a church that is obviously not prepared often comes off looking as though they have no idea what they’re doing. Being unprepared shows, and can make it more difficult to get the point across or to make a positive impact.
As with anything, preparation can be taken to the extreme—both by strictly sticking to the plan no matter what, and by not preparing at all. But prayerful planning that is open to God changing things at the last minute is often a positive thing. In fact, isn’t that how we should strive to live in all areas of our lives—prayerfully planning while acknowledging that God may change those plans and we will follow him?
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