Submitting in the Church

“Who’s to say??  That’s none of anyone’s business but mine!”  It was said with ... emotion.  The business?  What she and other Christians should do with their money.  That’s what we were discussing and  then came something I heard more as, “It’s mine and I’ll do with it what I want.”

My answer to the question was going to be, “Christians praying together perhaps.”  We could say together that in our current community a $100k annual salary would be sufficient and we could give away the rest.  It was just an idea.  I thought Christians praying together could be a good answer to "Who's to say?"  I thought it was an interesting question for us to discuss.  But what I heard blowback-wise was something along the lines of I do what I want or what I think is best.  End of discussion.   

I got to wondering where we don’t insist on this as a natural, obvious right.  I do what I want and it’s none of your business.  Marriage?  Once in it, one person just doesn’t just do what one person wants.  Military?  What I do and where I do and how I do is my business and no one elses?  Nope, not in the military.  We accept that.  The Benedictine Order?  I think we go along with what the community says or what the abbot says or what the vows said.  So we surrender individual rights in that situation. We allow others to direct, even dictate.  

If you belonged to a church and you started having an open extra-marital affair, it’s no one’s business except yours?  Or did you when you became a part of that church surrender some part of your individualism to the community?  Do we vow to follow the session?  We say we do until they do something that we don’t like and then we go our merry way.  I am THE authority in my life.  But doesn’t it make sense that the church and the pastor would say to the church member having an affair, “Not as a Christian in our community you don’t”?  Get rid of that sin, walk with us in the way of Christ, listen to our “right” to speak into your life given by Jesus when he made his church and put us in them, and if you don’t, we need to excommunicate you.  

Our physical bodies do this?  Sick organ, sick cells … get right or die.  If that action doesn’t happen, then the whole body becomes sick and dies.  

Enough musing on this.  I’m not surprised that American Christians don’t submit their lives to an authority in terms of some form of church in their lives.  But it doesn’t seem completely right to me. Does it to you?

Success is ...

“Success is not what you have but who you have.”  That’s what he said.  And, in a sense, he is right, absolutely right.  But all week I had been thinking about another conversation.  There the person said, “You have to choose Jesus.”  And that’s right too.  But how does one choose for God if one is spiritually dead?  That's what Paul says we are in Ephesians 2.  Corpses don’t make a lot of choices.  

And when you do choose, then what?  How do we not think, “At least I was smart enough to make the smart choice of for Jesus rather than away from Jesus?”  It’s certainly possible, from that orientation, to think of God’s rescue as something we are a little proud about?  Maybe some, not a lot, not at all? 

Yet if you and I had absolutely nothing to do with it, becoming a Christian I mean, then aren’t we like quizzical?  Maybe we are even almost embarrassed to be saved standing next to someone who hasn’t “chosen” to follow Christ?

 

Back to the original phrase I opened with, “Success is who you have.”  I found myself, doing my Presbyterian thing, and this is a Presbyterian thing, just as the whole do-corpses-choose thing is a Presbyterian thing, … I found myself saying, “Not who YOU have.”  It’s true but can we say, “Who has you”?  Success is not what you have but who has you.  Then it isn’t even success.  It’s more like ... grace.

What Should We Pay a Pastor?

                It's money season at church.  Our Sunday School class entertained the question, "How do we come up with a pastor’s salary?"  Here are a couple of ideas.  Anybody know a high school teacher who is in it for the money?  Same is true for pastors.  A high school teacher has at least a college degree and gets considerable vacation time over the course of a year.  If your pastor’s salary is less than your local high school teacher’s, hmmmm. 

                A church can start by getting ten families together, having each family unit tithe, and putting that total amount of tithe dollars to a pastor’s salary.  We know that the pastor’s salary will then be the average of the ten families.  He or she won’t be an underling at the bottom of the scale nor an “overling” at the top.  (And take the pastor's tithe and make that the program money.)

                Sometimes we talk about pastors and call and if they have a call, if the Lord wants them there, then they go there without regard for salary.  The Lord will provide.  To this I say, “Amen.”  But I also say that everyone is in the priesthood of believers and this call thing is for every Christian, yes?  I usually hear it talked about with pastors however.  Usually I hear it associated with low salaries rather than high.  (“You’re paying really well but I feel called to be there anyway.”??) 

                Some of our calling is basic revelation.  We’re all called to work and glorify God in it.  It’s part of the Adam Covenant if you will.  Name the animals.  Manage creation.  Subdue chaos.  Be a blessing.  We really do not need to go on a prayer retreat to find out if we are to do this.  If anything, we’ll need a special revelation to exempt us from doing this.  Along with this comes a calling on a pastor’s part to manage both his or her own family and the flock of God.  In the community’s economy, if a pastor can’t operate the way the community does, can’t then provide for his family, or is stressed dollar-wise and is distracted from managing the flock, something is wrong.  He or she has a call also to basic maintenance of their families. 

                Congregation’s have budgets and can only do what they can do.  In the scenario above, with the ten families, the personnel costs were 100% of the budget.  As a church gets bigger the percentage changes.  It’s like parenting, once you go from two kids to three, the parents have to trade from man-to-man defense to zone.  A family of five lives more cheaply than five individuals because of shared costs.  And when a church gets bigger they can go to zone and shared costs and all that and the personnel part of the budget will take less of the whole pie.