Netfriend 1:

Paul was a tentmaker. Why can’t modern clergy also have a real job like Paul?

2:

I have been “full time” clergy and also a “tentmaker”.

Rowland (3):

So have I – and a combination of the two…

2:

I currently have a “real job” and earn nothing from my work as clergy other than being paid for funeral services and weddings outside the congregation (which I did not ever do when I was a full time clergy person being paid by a congregation).

3:

folks who are receiving a service offer a gift in return. Pastoral care, preparation, counselling the people concerned… all take time, especially if the pastor spends a useful amount of time preparing – both professionally and specifically – for these events…

2:

No love offerings, donations, free help, subsidised housing, subsidised car, phone etc.

3:

Middle-level-to-upper-level managers receive most or all of these (for love offerings substitute bonuses)…

2:

What my congregation loses out on is my undivided attention. They also don’t get unselfish ministry. They are not welcome to anything more than I choose to give and, as I need to maintain my own health, emotional and spiritual, what is given is often much less than what is needed. Sometimes they don’t know what is not been given. Sometimes I don’t even know what is needed.

3: Which means that only the urgent pastoral cases (or noisy ones) get the gift of professional pastoral time…

2:

I think that what the congregation lose by not spending the money is infinitely more than the benefit of the small salary it would take to get me there full time. We’ve talked about it as a congregation. I assume they’ve discussed it plenty without my presence. I know there are some people who consider that my full time service would be more than worth the money, but I also know that there are some that don’t feel like that.

3:

I talk to pastors every week. When the ‘worker pastors’ tell me of being up late at nights (and occasionally all night) counselling in difficult/conflictual/traumatic situations, then having to ‘go to work’ the next day to a ‘real job’ I understand the ancient-to-modern wisdom of religious groups of all kinds in separating ‘clergy’ to give the best service to their people…

And yes, the few who abuse that privilege (and there are some) or those I put into the ‘witch-doctor’ category, don’t take away from the wisdom of this practice…

— Shalom! Rowland Croucher

“If only it were so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and it were necessary to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

http://jmm.org.au/ – 17,400 articles; 4000 jokes/funnies