An Emerging Profession
So I was invited to participate in a blogging project today on the emerging view of paid clergy. To find out more about the project and the driving questions behind it click here. Other bloggers participating include Adam walker Cleaveland, Anthony Smith, Josh Brown, Carol Howard Merritt, Wess Daniel, and Jonny Baker.
For many believers in the emerging church the call to “be the church” and have flattened leadership structures have caused many to question the need for paid church staff at all. The idea is, shouldn’t we all be doing the work of the church? In all truth I’m torn on this issue. That may seem really strange since I make my living as a paid church worker, but there are aspects to the system that trouble me (as well as reasons why I think pastors should be paid). There are a lot of factors that go into this discussion, and I will just highlight a few that have been the most significant in defining the conversation for me. (and yes this is long and rambling…)
Let me say upfront that I think there are serious issues with the churches who do pay a minister to be the “professional Christian.” He is the one with all the answers, he is seen as more holy than others, he is the one that does all the work of (or makes all the decisions for) the church. A system is created that separates the paid leadership from the rest of the believers. In fact in some churches this separation is codified and the necessity of not allowing the laity to access the Pastor ever is stressed. A cult of personality usually forms around these guys and the future success of the church rests on the continued success of him. This is not church. This is a business or more accurately a circus. Sure some good things might come out of these churches, but they should be classified as “Christian organizations” instead of churches imho. Unfortunately the way most churches are these days, they could not exist without someone in that roll. In order to alter the perception that there is a paid guy to be the professional Christian, the entire structure of church would have to change. So even having this conversation without rethinking church structure is impossible.
But even if church structure is rethought, there still is work that needs to happen within the church. If you are going to have church, you have to be doing something. Do you gather as a group? Who prepares that gathering space? Do you have some sort of service? Who plans the elements, who leads people into worship, who prepares to teach, who buys the communion supplies? Do you engage in missional outreach? Who handles those logistics, who gets the supplies, who connects with other groups? There are basic everyday things that take place in churches no matter how emerging or flat or whatever they are. The question is who does the work? The obvious choices are a paid pastor, an unpaid pastor, or everyone (or some combo thereof).
I personally like the idea of the whole church working together as the body of Christ. I like the idea of everyone pitching in to do the work of the church, to handle the details, to engage in mission, to lead us into worship, to instruct us in our faith. And maybe if all the planets aligned and frogs had wings such a community could exist. And maybe it could even be sustainable. But it would be hard to grow. It’s a great idea, but I just don’t see it happening. This church would have to consist of the perfect group of people who can all get along and work together, who all are willing to do work equally, and who have just the right numbers (not so many people can’t be involved and not so few that people eventually get burned out). To grow this sort of church, the community would require that every new person that walked through the door was on board already with the whole “be the church” idea. That instead of having any preconceived assumptions about church being a place where they get fed, these people believed from the get go that church was a place where they served and served hard. They would have to be willing to devote all their free time to making the church happen (in however that works for the church). And all that would have to be done without resentment, without complaint, and without burnout. The community would need enough people with ample freetime during the workweek in order to connect with the missional organizations they partner with and to handle the business of the church. Churchmembers would need to live close to one another and be in constant contact. The would need to not care about developing sound doctrine or growing intellectually in their faith as any reflections on the scripture would be the untrained personal thoughts of plumbers, housewives, and engineers or whoever else attends.
Not that such things listed above would necessarily be bad, they just don’t fit our culture as I know it. Yes I am very cynical, but after the past two years of trying to create a “new kind of church” I am doubtful that such carefree utterly committed people exist. Maybe in artistic communities in hip cities, but from what I’ve heard even that hardly ever happens. We have a fantastic core group at our church, but they are tired. And most new people who show up freak out and leave once they realize that they can’t show up with a “here we are now, entertain us” sort of attitude. Being the church and having a flattened out leadership is hard work. Do we sacrifice outreach and evangelism for the sake of flattened unpaid leadership? Do we say that Biblical and historical truth is unimportant? Do we burn out the average attender who still exists in the normal suburban world of life, house, kids, and job? It’s a hard call.
Another approach that I’ve seen taken quite often is for a church to still have a Pastor who bears the brunt of the work, but who doesn’t get paid or who gets paid very little. not getting paid somehow makes him or her less set apart from the rest of the church. The Pastor is expected to have a “real job” (and yes, it is always phrased that way) in addition to doing the church work. This is becoming the trend these days. Missional/tentmaking pastors, or whatever the current term is. And I know that this is the situation for many pastors, but in reality it isn’t humanely possible to work a real job, a church job, and still have time for a family. Sure lots of people attempt it, but given that there are just so many hours in a week, at least one of those three things usually suffers and suffers badly. The need for money forces one to keep up at “the real job,” passion for ministry (or fear of failure) drives one to keep up the church work and since the family is often seen as the most disposable, that is usually the first to go. When I hear testimonies from Pastor’s kids who say “I had to learn that the people at church needed my father more than I did. So I just got used to never having a daddy,” I have to say that there is something seriously wrong with the system. No wonder so many PKs are messed up and leave the faith. Sure this scenario avoids created a paid professional Christian, but at what cost? Is it really worth destroying a person’s family just to avoid creating a professional pastor?
So that brings us to having a paid pastor who does the everyday work of the church and actually gets paid for doing so. Sometimes I do wonder why it is considered such a bad thing for people to be able to do what they love and what they are gifted at? Honestly. There is an underlying assumption given often that states that if you are serving God or serving others you shouldn’t be paid for it because you should just be doing it anyway (and apparently only in your free time when you are not working a real job). Hence all of those Pastors who are passionate about teaching others, about sharing the good news, about caring for people’s lives, about organizing missional outreaches should not be allowed do it with their lives but only after they have put in long hours doing some other job that has no connection to who they are. We live in a world that to survive we have to make money. Most people are allowed to make money doing the things that they are good at. But when Pastors do that, it is suspect and they are told that they need to do so out of the goodness of their hearts. I always wonder where the line is drawn on that one. Should pastoral Bible professors at Christian colleges stop being paid as well? What about the office staff in relief organizations? Are those places any less the church just because they do not call themselves church? Beyond creating false hierarchies between laity and clergy, I don’t understand why paying pastors for the work they do is wrong. (and what I find most amusing is that I hear that sentiment from atheists just as often as I hear it from Christians. They don’t think anyone should get money from promoting a delusion like faith, we all should instead make money from jobs that actually contribute to society. Like making big bucks by writing books about how belief in God is a delusion.)
I think the position of Pastor needs to be seriously reconsidered in light of what we think church is to begin with. But I am too cynical about human nature to think that we can do away with having paid pastors altogether. I think Pastors can do their job and equip the church without being separate and above the church. They can handle the day to day details and still encourage everyone else to be the church. Sure it will require smaller churches, greater transparency, and running far away from traditional church programs. But I still think its possible.
But all that said, we are still paid pastors, but that most likely will not last for much longer. Our church plant is small and there just isn’t the money to continue paying us. We have to explore our options. Will we continue as is with the church, get different jobs (Mike already does work another job), and sacrifice our family (nice for the rest of the church, sucks for us)? Will we restructure church and place more burdens on an already heavyladen group? Will we stop doing anything organized as a church and just meet together to share meals (which we do every so often, leading to much grumbling at the stressful hassle and expense of preparing potlucks for community…)? Will we just shut down because being the church is just too much work and isn’t sustainable amidst busy lives? For all the talk about being missional and being the church the day to day practical realities of life often stand in the way of dreams and ideals. And yes one of those practicalities is money. The church exists in real life and real life takes money. Somedays I wish “being the church” wasn’t like that, that I could just serve God without the constraints of money, but the realities of life don’t let me fantasize too long.
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julieclawson(at)gmail(dot)com 
I was right with you all the way through this reflection Julie. I’m in paid ministry in a parish just outside of Melbourne Australia. It’s a traditional (Australian) ministerial posting – I’m it, I’m the minister – but honestly I see it as a missional opportunity for nurturing the next generation of disciples. The age of the folk averages at about 65, and a large part of my role is to find ways of connecting with people under that age. There’s no way I’d survive if I had to do what I currently do in ministry and keep up my previous career as a Graphic Designer. I couldn’t give myself to both (and then also to a family) with any integrity.
The way I frame it is that rather than being ‘the expert’ I’m simply the one ’set aside’ by this community to do the community building stuff – to be the connective tissue between already gifted people… etc… and I’m paid so that I can be ’set aside’ to do this work on behalf of the community.
I could write more, but that’s enough for a ‘comment’. Thanks for the post, and blessings on your discernment for your future.
=) B
Julie,
Thanks for the realistic, important, and honest portrayal of the real work you’re doing.
Great post and blog.
I traveled the same road you did with blogger verses wordpress. I ran a google blogger blog (say that 3 x fast ) for about 4 months, but really desired to have my own url to make it easier for people to remember.
I’ll tell you what I do miss however, I miss the ease with which you could do things under the blogger platform. I get frustrated with how difficult it is to change things in wordpress and even how hard it is to add simple photographs. I now use a little software called ‘blogjet’ that makes it brainless to write a post, place links, add photos, the whole deal. You may find that you don’t need the remedial help that I did, but there it is nonetheless.
Question, How in the world have you gotten your authority so high in technorati? I have close to 1,000 readers a day, but a pitiful authority. Do you ever help people out with advice or a shout out or anything like that?
Obviously, I’m frustrated with my blog. As a pastor of a large church (3,000), I have close to 1,000 readers a day on my blog, but still have a very low authority on Technorati. I want people to see this beyond the Charlotte, North Carolina area, but I guess I don’t know how to get people to link and that seems to be the issue. I mean, I’ve learned that this is because I don’t have enough on my blog site.
Why does this matter? Because I want to start reaching out to people beyond just the church, and to do that I need to get this blog up higher on the search engines.
Would be willing to put in a link exchange with me at http://www.robsingleton.net? Or at least check it out to see if there is a fit? If so, you could send me an email to robtherev@gmail.com showing me where you’ve linked it and I will do the same. I know you will want to make sure we are on the up and up, so please check out our church, http://www.southbrookchurch.com and my blog to see if you would be comfortable with doing this. I’ve seen enough and know that I am.
Look forward to hearing from you!
Pastor Rob Singleton
Oops, I forgot something…
I noticed you weren’t on blogger anymore, so perhaps you wouldn’t mind linking to your old blog if you determine the fit isn’t as close as you like?
Would that work?
julie.
great insights as always. sorry i missed the podcast with nick btw.
i think you make a good point with it being hard work. in all honesty, it’s my excuse for not being more active in creating something more “organized” among my friends. because the other model is so much easier to exist in, create, perpetuate, model, build, finance, etc. but just because it’s easier doesn’t mean that it’s the most useful. i really struggle with this thing. and i think most people just think to be the pastor of an emerging church just means a bunch of artistic people painting and teaching one another and skipping through fields picking daisies all day. but it has to be a lot of work. and hard work at that. i’ve got massive respect for people like you who are doing it. plowing through the difficulty and trying to create something new against the grain. thanks for sharing honestly.
Thanks for the comments. I’m learning more and more that it is the practical outworking of things that matter more than the ideals. It’s in the living out of the emerging faith that the difficulties arise.
Julie–
Thanks for this. I think the importance of lay people in the emerging model can’t be overstated. But I think someone needs to be handling the small details, as you notice, and I’m not a big believer in a guiding gestalt. I think somebody needs to propose an agenda, and if that person is doing that work a substantial part of her/his time, that person deserves to be paid for it.
Blessings–
Greg
Your post completely stressed me out. That’s how I know it was well-stated and concerning important subject matter
Thanks
Julie
I think this is one the most helpful and encouraging posts that I’ve ever read on this topic. I read so much rubbish about how paid ministry needs to be done away with (I am a full-time paid clergyperson) from people who know very little about what they are talking about.
Your post was filled with practical insight and Godly wisdom. Thank You
Thanks Paul.
and sorry Ryan to stress you out!
“For it is written in the law of Moses, “You shall not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.” Is it for oxen that God is concerned? Or does he not speak entirely for our sake? It was indeed written for our sake, for whoever plows should plow in hope and whoever threshes should thresh in hope of a share in the crop. If we have sown spiritual good among you, is it too much if we reap your material benefits? If others share this rightful claim on you, do not we still more?”
Jesus was supported. It seems most of the Disciples were supported. All sorts of others in the early church, as Paul notes here in 1 Cor. 9, were supported. It’s according to Scripture to have a paid ministry.
What gets me is that this isn’t a position of paid administrator or paid activities planner or paid vision caster. There are tasks in the church, I think, that require specialized training, such as teaching Scripture on a higher level, counseling, theology. Things people have questions about that they should have someone near to help teach them.
Or, similar in importance, there should be people who really do take prayer serious and other pastoral tasks. Not property or organizational tasks, real pastoral participation in people’s lives.
It’s a vocational Biblical task, it seems. Paul didn’t take advantage of it, but Paul had a particular trade skill that allowed him the flexibility. If a pastor doesn’t need to be paid, then great. But there are full time spiritual tasks in every community I’ve ever seen and to take that away as a policy seems like it might gut broadly and deeply the potential reach of a church.
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Julie – What I loved about your post is that you talked about it from a “real life” point of view that is very common. Your post brought up a lot of questions/situations that need to be answered/worked out/talked about.
I have never been in full time ministry but I have been a committed, active church volunteer (who got burned out) and I have a pretty good idea of how much work there is to do in a church community – so I really relate to everything you wrote. I think one of the problems is that we have too many people doing only a little bit of the work and too few people doing a lot of the work. I think the transition into something new is going to take some time. However, when I read about the community that Jonny Baker described and that he has been a part of for 14 years I am encouraged and hopeful.