If the bulk of your community were making $150,000 - $300,000, which I expect is not an uncommon picture for churches in the LA area, I believe the idea of paying leaders would seem a lot more reasonable, as it would be a much smaller piece of the resources available to the whole community.

Through fellow Fuller alum Erika Carney Haub (whose husband Douglas is a fellow current Fuller worker), I learned of a conversation online regarding the question of whether or not ministers should be paid. Like Erika, I’m not unbiased on this matter…..

One of the most important conclusions I have come to on this topic is that it is not an either/or choice. What we are feeling is the need for a more flexible and diverse approach to church leadership and governance. To that end, it isn’t about one model replacing another, but calling for contextual, intentional and responsible freedom to function in ways that serve the mission and community best.

Therefore, I think there will always be paid clergy (and I think there should be), but I also think we will see more examples of alternatives. The trick will be to allow for a gracious and understanding attitude within the larger Body that will not extend value judgments or hierarchy on any particular approach.

Thanks for this great and very honest post.

Peace,
Jamie

But I’ve never been in doubt about the importance of paying some people in organic Christian settings to do important ministry roles full time.

Seems like gender, class and marriage v singleness issues play an important role in the discussion.

Some of the best social science research (and everyday common sense) seems to indicate that men tend to like hierarchy and regard money as a symbol of their power. Women seem less interested in hierarchy and regard money primarily as something potentially useful. The NT, in both spirit and word, obviously leans toward the flat and the idea that money is dangerous and at best a useful tool to serve others.

I think institutional religious hierarchies that pay their male leaders serious scratch are probably more a result of gender imbalances in Christian leadership than biblical teaching. It’s a waste of resources that could go to something more useful. Change the gender imbalance in Christian leadership and I think you’ll see a better distribution of financial resources and potentially more money invested in Christian leaders of all genders that are getting it done.

Re class, it’s true that Latino and African-American churches tend to have a lot more self-supporting pastors. But I think that’s largely the result of the relative economic weakness of those communities. Many of those churches simply can’t afford to support a full time Christian worker. From my years in inner city ministry and from a cultural point of view I think a surprising number of those churches are even more hierarchical and less open to the Christian anarchical priesthood of all believers than institutional white churches. Add money and I think you might get something fairly close to the same old same old institutional thing.

Re singleness vs marriage and kiddies, I think Jesus and Paul were straightforward in strongly supporting singleness for Christians. I think they encouraged singleness, in part, in order to make Christian leaders less dependent on making money and more flexible in leading what I think was meant to be a fairly anarchical and maneuverable community.

I wonder if fighting for more women and single people in leadership might play an important role in re-distributing resources away from traditional religious institutional hierarchies to communities that look a little more like what Jesus and Paul seem to have intended.

I think it will be true that more non-paid and bivocational pastors will emerge within white churches. Non-paid and bivocational pastors are the norm in many Latino, African-American, and Asian-American churches. I’m not sure how it works in multi-ethnic congregations. Also, I think the dominant size and economic class of the congregation are significant determinants whether and how much a pastor is paid.

What I think will be equally interesting is if churches decide that paying a pastor’s salary is not the best use of their resources, will they also change their expectations of what they want from those pastors?

It seems the Free Church (no pun intended) polity has grown in recent years and this tradition questions the paid pastorate more than other traditions do. But a lot of the matter is still theological and ecclesial. The Bible seems to make room for both paid and unpaid church leaders and what texts a congregation looks to seems to shape their understanding of the pastorate.

There are a slew of other issues to address in this discussion. Cost of living increases seem to make depending on a pastor’s salary as the sole provider for a family less likely. A related matter is the tenstion between consumerism and tithing — if church members actually gave 10% (which I’m not saying is the biblical way of giving) rather than spend money on a new gadget, our congregations could probably support those pastors, missions, and youth groups.