I understand churches as being called to be an alternative society, a “new society in the shell of the old” as Peter Maurin used to put it. This means (in part) a redistributive economy where whoever needs it in order to fulfill their calling (whatever that calling might be) has the money shared with them. Engineering and pastoral work are both necessary for the church to function well, but pastors aren’t remunerated by the world in the same way as engineers are, and therefore need others to share their resources. If someone who is part of the church is fulfilling their calling to be an artist and this is not making enough money for them to live on, then the church should enable them financially. If someone’s living out their calling developing alternative fuels and they miss out on a funding grant that would enable their work to continue, then the church should enable them financially. Same goes for any other calling, and the pastor is no different. Then it is seen as the enabling of the church to function best rather than a ‘job’ or ’employment’. No one is separated from anyone else, no one is more ‘spiritual’ than anyone else, we just have different roles. To this extent, I see a pastor as very much an insider.

Ideally pastors (like every other person in the church) should also have a practical role to people outside this particular group of believers. As I think I’ve posted before, I reckon Wendell Berry was right when he said, “It seemed to me that one of the most important things in ministerial training would be to teach them to do something besides be a preacher. Because it’s a bad thing to be professionally trapped and I can’t think of a worse trap to fall into than total dependance on being a minister. They ought to be taught to garden, farm, carpenter, take care of themselves in some other way. And then they can tell the truth. So if I were going to be in charge of training ministers I’d try to see to it that they got a practical education. There’d be always something else they could do. Because churches are quarrelsome places. I know everybody knows it but I noticed it. And I think that a certain amount of thinking ought to start with that. A person ought to be able to say ‘Alright, ok. There’s this other thing I can do. So I’m gonna tell you what I think.'” More than enabling us to be more independent in saying what we think, it would also mean the rest of the church was less dependent on pastors to make the church happen.

So at the moment I’m working part time for Urban Seed, and I have a role as pastor in a church. And my church enables me to devote a day a week to having a particular role in their midst, because if I were working in paid employment on that day then I would not be able to contribute what I do. But I don’t see it as employment, but the way I am enabled to live out my calling and role within this group of people. If someone else were in need we would share with them to enable them to live out their calling.

It’s interesting that pastoral ministry is singled out as the only Christian ministry that gets paid (or even called ‘Christian ministry’ in most cases), with the exception perhaps of administrators (who often do the modern day equivalent of the dirty work of foot-washing – the necessary stuff no one else wants to do). I reckon that only reinforces the professionalisation of discipleship, and the clergy-laity distinction.

Simon Moyle