When considering leaving the pastorate, the first thing to think about is why you are a pastor in the first place. And you need to be brutally honest.
The main pitfalls in pastoral ministry, and some of the main reasons that pastors remain pastors, include three things: money, popularity, and power. I know, we all deny that these hold any sway over us, and yet pastors all around us keep falling for them. Maybe you are immune, but over the next few posts, I want to pose a few diagnostic questions to help you determine where your heart might be at.
If it becomes clear that one or more of these pitfalls do hold sway over you, one of the best ways to defeat them is to resign as pastor. But we’ll get to that.
In this post, we want to look at the issue of Pastoral Pay.
Very few pastors who would say they are in pastoral ministry for the money.
How could they be, since most pastors don’t get paid all that well?
However, a pastor should always ask himself, “If I was not getting paid to do this, would I still do it?” Søren Kierkegaard proposes the following experiment:
Let us make the thought-experiment—if somebody were able to prove conclusively that Christ never existed at all, nor the Apostles either, that the whole thing was a fabrication—I should like to see how many priests would lay down their office.
The sad fact is that while many pastors are not in it for the money, they would not be in pastoral ministry at all if they were not getting paid. We think that getting paid is being practical, and that a worker is worthy of his wages, but the secret truth is that if it weren’t for the money, few pastors would actually be pastors.
We will look at the Scriptural support (or lack thereof) for pastoral pay later in this chapter where we will see that there is little-to-no evidence for a pastoral salary. This doesn’t mean that it is wrong to pay a pastor, only that we cannot use Scripture to support the practice.
So ask yourself: if it weren’t for the money (small though it may be), would you still be a pastor? If the answer is “No,” it might be time to consider leaving the pastorate. I will write some later about how you can do this.
Let me conclude this post with one caveat. Though I believe that in general, pastors should not receive a full time salary from the church, no church that has a salaried pastor should ever ask him to stop taking a salary. Unless there are budgetary reasons for asking a pastor to step down, the decision to not take a salary should be fully in the hands of the pastor himself. If a pastor does feel compelled to free himself from the church salary, there are steps he can take to move in that direction, and it is too painful and too difficult to do overnight, especially when forced upon you from the outside.
You know, I think this holds true for just about anything. I had a counselor once that asked me “what is that *thing* that you would do if you were not getting paid for it? That is your passion. Pursue your passion and provision will follow.” I have been guilty of pursuing a paycheck by doing something because it “paid”. For me, it is teaching. Noble as it is, if I didn’t get paid for it, I wouldn’t do it. However, there are things I love to do that I would do whether I got paid or not. Playing the violin and writing for example. While I’m a “professional” violinist and do get paid for it, I’ve logged countless hours of playing “gratis” and didn’t complain nearly as much about not getting paid for it as I’ve complained about teaching. So I think that test is good for any profession/vocation or what have you, don’t you?
I would be really interested in what you would have to say about the need for “pastors” in general. I did a search once of the word “pastor” in the Bible (KJV I believe) and only came up with a few references, and some of those were actually negative. So I wonder even if this modern model we have of “church” today that is built on the foundation of a “pastor” is even biblical? These are questions I’ve hidden in my heart, and never dared ask anyone…until now, lol! In the New Testament, pastors didn’t lead the church…apostles did. In Eph. 4, pastors are listed with other ministry roles: evangelist, prophet, teacher, apostles…and yet why does the pastor seem to be the main one that churches today are built on?
Kimberly,
Those are GREAT questions.
Ironically, I am currently working at my job pretty much just to pay the bills. So I am chasing a paycheck. I am trying to work toward writing, which is what I love to do, but as you found out with your violin and with writing, it takes time to get to the place where you can get paid to do what you love.
When I was a pastor, I loved doing it. I really did. I think many pastors love it also.
Regarding pastors in the NT, there is the gift of “pastor-teacher” which is one of the foundational gifts of the church (Eph 4:11-16). But I am not convinced that the way it looked when Paul wrote about it resembles most of what is called “Pastoral Ministry” today.
Maybe I will write some more on this sometime.
interesting read… now, i am trying to reconcile the understanding that all ministry is God’s ministry… and trying to pay somebody to do God’s ministry… or maybe they will never reconcile… I need to pray on this…
Good questions. Paying some people for the ministry they do while not paying others for their ministry does seem a little strange, right?
Stranger than strange… Hehehe… I made some reflections on this and posted it at http://pastors-kid.blogspot.com/2013/10/cheap-ministry-for-pk.html… thanks for sharing your thoughts…
1 Timothy 5:17-18 ESV / 192 helpful votes
Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching. For the Scripture says, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain,” and, “The laborer deserves his wages.”
Galatians 6:6 ESV / 177 helpful votes
One who is taught the word must share all good things with the one who teaches.
1 Corinthians 9:14 ESV / 152 helpful votes
In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel.
(and more from https://www.openbible.info/topics/paying_the_pastor )
We have to remain balanced. I affiliate often with Churches whose leadership never takes a salary. So I’m with you on that. But The Bible does leave room for teachers and preachers to be paid. . I have to reconcile that with what I am used to because The Bible simply says it. Balance is good!