I don’t think there is a single class
of men in the world that have my respect more than bi-vocational pastors.
Perhaps our soldiers fighting in combat overseas, but other than that I cannot
think of a group whom I esteem more highly. They work incredibly hard. They
carry the weight of great burdens with little to no rest. They sacrifice
themselves selflessly to minister to the needs of people and advance the cause
of Christ. Because of the size of their churches they often serve unnoticed by
the brethren who operate larger ministries. They struggle to make ends meet
both at home and at church. Their very lack of ministerial 'success' breeds in
them a constant struggle with discouragement. Yet they just keep on going.
Such men are rarely bi-vocational out
of choice. They do so out of necessity. Most of the time their church is too
small to afford to pay a complete salary package. Sometimes the pastor inherits
a financial mess and the only way to get the church past it intact is for him
to throw all the money available at some debt or other. Other times the church
is financially lazy, used to living off the sacrifice of such men, and in thus
taking advantage of their pastor they ignore their scriptural responsibilities.
It is here that I wish to begin.
I have zero patience with the position
which states pastors should serve without pay. Scripture is repeatedly and
emphatically clear upon the point. The plainest passage in the Word of God in
this regard has to be I Corinthians 9.
7 Who goeth a
warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of
the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the
flock?
8 Say I these
things as a man? or saith not the law the same also?
9 For it is
written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that
treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen?
10 Or saith he it
altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he
that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be
partaker of his hope.
11 If we have sown
unto you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we shall reap your carnal
things?
12 If others be
partakers of this power over you, are not we rather? Nevertheless we have not
used this power; but suffer all things, lest we should hinder the gospel of
Christ.
13 Do ye not know
that they which minister about holy things live of the things of the temple?
and they which wait at the altar are partakers with the altar?
14 Even so hath
the Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel.
From this passage I pull several
applications:
-The pastor should not have to run church ministries or bear church expenses out
of his own pocket. At the very least, they should be promptly reimbursed. (v7)
-As the church grows numerically the pastor ought to reap the financial fruits
of this growth. (v7)
-This was not just Paul's self-serving opinion. The principle was established in
the Torah. (v8)
-It is normal that a pastor who gives his life to feed the flock spiritually
should, in turn, find his physical/financial needs met by that flock. Indeed,
the church should take as conscientious an approach to their responsibility in
this as they expect the pastor to take in his sermon preparation, his
counseling, his discipleship, and his spiritual oversight of their souls. …and
I dearly think some of you reading this need to stop a moment and ponder the
implications of that last sentence. (v11)
-In turn, the pastor must never forget his responsibility to be willing to
sacrifice whatever is necessary financially in order to help the church. (v12)
-God's design does not include a pastor permanently being bi-vocational. He is
supposed to live of the things of the
temple. God has ordained this. It is often temporarily necessary to be
bi-vocational for a variety of reasons – starting a new church from scratch,
ministering in a rural area with little population where growth is slower,
accepting the pastorate of a declining work, picking up the pieces after a
split, etc. – but the operative word here is temporary. A pastor that does not
understand this threatens the spiritual and emotional health of his family as
well as the spiritual health of his church. At some point his willingness to
sacrifice produces a welfare type of mentality in the church. Such churches
never develop the internal strength to stand on their own two feet because they
are always walking on crutches. Not only that, but he will be a better pastor
when his mind and time and energy are freed up and devoted entirely to the
church. The goal must be eventually to wean him from the necessity of working
other jobs. He needs to know that. His family needs to know that. His church
needs to know that. (v13-14)
From these applications then I would
offer the following practical suggestions:
1)
The pastor should always be paid something. When I realized the financial mess
my little church was in a few weeks after I became the pastor I cut my salary
by 75% but I kept something. The principle of this was more helpful to the
church in the long run than the extra $200 they could have applied to some
current need.
2)
The pastor should teach the people that he needs to be completely supported
when the church is healthy enough to afford it. I will speak more to this
later, but entirely too many pastors are loathe to frankly discuss their own
pay package with their church. For the sake of the church, for the sake of his
family, and for the sake of his own long term ministry the pastor must get
beyond this. I have known more than a few men who greatly desired to become
full time in the ministry but they shrank from telling their church.
Consequently, the church got used to not paying the pastor much. As the church
grew they found, as churches always will, some other good use for that money. When
the church got big enough to support the pastor these men faced great
resistance because they had not gradually and carefully laid the groundwork for
their request to be paid.
3)
The church should be ruthless about starting ministries that soak up money
until the pastor's needs are amply provided. Perhaps ruthless is too strong of
a word but it does get my point across. Ministries should not be started simply
because there is a need. There is always a need. That need is always greater
than what the church can afford. Ministries should be started, maintained, and
extended because the church needs to do ministry in order to be like Jesus. The
difference between those two approaches is that sometimes one need takes
precedence over another. And what a young or small church needs most is a
pastor.
When I accepted the pastorate of those
eleven people in the summer of 1997 I inherited a church that supported eight
missionaries at a cost of about five hundred dollars a month. The intentions
behind such decisions were awesome. In practical terms, it was killing us. We
could not pay our rent. The few remaining people were nervous. We were inches
away from closing. I realized that while supporting missionaries was a good
thing the best thing was a stable, healthy church. It was the best thing for
our community while simultaneously being the best thing for our missionaries. I
asked our church to rework its missions support. We did not cancel any of our
eight missionaries. Instead we decided to stop subsidizing the insultingly low
Faith Promise missions giving from the pitifully empty general fund. We decided
instead to take whatever came in through Faith Promise, divide it up eight
ways, and send it out.
As a young pastor with great dreams I
found this singularly embarrassing. The first year we sent checks of two and
three dollars a month to these dear people. But I wrote them all, explained the
situation, and told them that the best thing I could do for them was to grow a
healthy church. To a man, they wrote back with nothing but kind and
understanding words. Over time, as our church got healthier, our missions
giving grew accordingly. Before I left we had even grown past the initially
disastrous starting point and added some additional missionaries. But I do not
think it would have happened that way if we had not made the hard decision to
dramatically decrease in the short term a wonderful and wonderfully expensive
ministry.
4)
The pastor should not permanently stay in a situation in which he is forced to
remain bi-vocational. I think, of everything I have said in this post, this
will produce the most disagreement but it is honestly what I both believe and
feel. I believe it because the Scripture teaches it but I feel it because of
life experience.
In
my own case I can remember assembling the men of my little Pennsylvania church
relatively early on and informing them that I would not stay there forever as a
bi-vocational pastor. Let me hasten to add that this was NOT the reason I left
but it would have been if things had not improved over time as they did.
I am not alone in my marriage in growing
up in a poverty stricken preacher's home. My wife did as well. Her father was
an assistant pastor when she was born and then started a church in the same
area when she was just a little girl. It never got big enough to support their
family and this forced her father to work a variety of side jobs constantly.
Ministry drains a person, beloved. When there is not sufficient time or mental
space for recuperation that drain eventually sucks the life out of a man. It
breaks my heart to say it, but after years of this my wife's father walked away
from his own pulpit and his own family all in the same day. Twenty five years
later he has not been back to either. Certainly there were other contributing
factors but only an idiot would insist that the strain of being bi-vocational
for years without an end in sight played no part in this.
Additionally, having been bi-vocational
for five years myself and now for thirteen years being full time in the ministry
I know the difference between the two. By this I mean the difference in my own
life and mind. It is so incredibly freeing, mentally, to have your ministry be
your sole focus. My preaching immediately got better. My study, over time, got
exponentially better. This in turn only continued the improvement in my
preaching. I do not mean that arrogantly; I mean that I know I am a better
preacher when I am free to be just the pastor. There is a direct correlation
between the two. And since this is my main task (I Peter 5.2) it is a great blessing to the church itself when the
pastor is free to just be the pastor.
5)
A struggling church should be creative in supporting their pastor. If they do
not have the sheer dollars with which to do so they should look for some other
way to provide. Perhaps they could team up with another struggling church and
together share a pastor. One could have a service Sunday morning and the other
Sunday night. One could have a mid-week service on Wednesday and the other on
Thursday. In pioneer days this worked for the Methodist circuit riders and I am
not quite sure why we do not do much of it now. Perhaps the families in the
church could take turns being responsible for hosting the pastor and his family
for dinner three nights a week. This fellowship would grow the pastor-people
relationship as well as decrease a grocery bill. If there is a mechanic in the
church he might offer to work on the pastor's car at no charge. If there is a
stylist in the church perhaps she might offer to care for her pastor's wife's
hair. If there is an accountant in the church perhaps he might offer to do the taxes
at no charge. Each person might give a little of what they are and do. In the
long term a pastor ought to be able to afford to buy his own groceries and pay
for his own car repairs but in the short to medium term this would be a
blessing to both sides.
In conclusion, let me say that I do not
believe that I alone have the only valid opinion in this area. I do believe my
experience gives me an understanding of such a situation but I do not claim to
be the only person worth hearing on the matter. If you are a bi-vocational
pastor or a member of a church with a bi-vocational pastor I am perfectly glad
to hear your own thoughts even if they disagree with mine.
And let me say again, for I cannot say it
too forcefully or too often, such men have my greatest respect. Many an earthly
story of Christ likeness displayed to us only in Heaven will involve the story
of a dedicated, selfless, diligent, persevering, patient bi-vocational pastor and
his sacrificial family. May God bless them. May He bless them richly.
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