Working for a Christian non-profit - disillusioned

Hajime said:

After many decades working for a Christian non-profit organization, and for most of that time being happy and fulfilled in the service of God and his people, I find that in recent years it has been taken over by the same superficial image-chasing kind of leadership which is increasingly prevalent in the world. I have stayed as long as I could, supporting and encouraging my fellow workers, but now I was 'offered' a demoted position where I could no longer assist and protect in the same way. I have decided to call it a day, and I have the opportunity to do so, being close to retiring age and with 'reasonable' resources to support retirement from active employment.

I am concerned for those I leave behind, some of whom have similarly invested years of their lives there also, but now likely to become targets of a scurrilously heartless management. A few are just too old to start again, are giving good service still but not appreciated for that by the management. This organization has lost sight of the widows and orphans principles of the Bible.

I actually still regard the organization I have worked for as better than most of its type, based on some of the awful stories coming out of other similar organizations.

My son, who would not call himself a Christian at this time, is a mid-level manager who seems to be so adored by those working under him that several of them have followed him across more than one employment situation, and in one case across four different employers. He has a high standard of work ethics and a real concern for his workers.

So in the end, my experience teaches me that working for other Christians is not a guarantee of fairness and justice in the workplace, and that it is possible to find excellent employers with a high degree of care for their staff who are not Christians at all. If someone asks me, "Should I aim to work for a Christian organization?", my answer would be - proceed with caution, with your eyes open, and don't discount the likelihood that you can serve God just as well, but with less likely damage to your perception of other Christians in the workplaces, by working for a non-Christian employer.

Click to expand...

My experience as a pastor, and that is a Christian organization, is its wonderfully difficult. The very worst of my experience is the salary or pay I received. I think people believe God just drops food, gasoline, clothes, tires, and money out of the sky for their pastor. The treasurer as I have seen often thinks the money is his to guard over and hold a thigh hand on.

We had four children ranging from 1 year to 15 years old. We lived in the parsonage, that was 110 years old. The winters were cold and the furnace had to be on all winter to keep it at 70 degrees. In 1986 I got $65 a week, and I paid the utilities on the parsonage. The bills for gas and electric took much more that I was paid a month. In three years I saw the giving for Missions go up as much as 5% every year. I saw increased money go to the youth, and other projects. But my $65 a week stayed the same every year. I was a Bi-vocational pastor, meaning I worked just as many hours as full time but far less pay. I was going to seminary while pastoring this church. I was and still am a Disabled vet so that made it possible for us to live and take these small churches.

I saw this church from 16 people to 65 in three years. The giving was increased by maybe 20% as most people do not give more than 1% to church. I loved the people and we really liked the area in the country. But I reached the braking point when we found out the Lord was giving us our last child. One woman who was a leader in the church made a very hurtful remark. "You don't expect any help from us to help with that baby do you?" That was the straw that broke my soul, and hurt my wife very deeply. Some women did give her a baby shower, and were very nice. But that was a awakening and led me to pray about leaving that church and looking what the Lord had in store.

I pastored four churches the smallest and last one, was the most generous, loving church a pastor could ever hope for. All the other churches treasurer, were a stingy persons, and felt God had them to hold on tight to the money.

All non profit be it a church or some other group expect their people to work, do a good job and not waste time. This is as it should be. the problem is sometimes they expect you to work longer hours for free, not have or even contribute for insurance, or have a retirement. Sometime if money is tight they might not be able to pay you when its pay day.

Today the average pastor stays only 30 or less months. I have listed my eperiences, and I stayed almost 3 years. It took all we had to stay that long.

Was being a pastor worth it? Yes in what I did for the Lord.

There are groups who have helpers pay their own way.

And if God is committed, He can make the way.

Possibly, I would not stay yoked with administrators who claimed to be Christian, but did not care for the ones who were under them.

And I can be with a church which functions to help people; if I have leaders I trust, I can just give them money and let them decide what to do with it. And why would I stay yoked with leaders I don't trust????

IMO The problem is that there are so many paid positions in these church organisations. To me that shows a lack of committment by the rest of the members of the Church. To the people of Paul's time, the fact that such positions existed would be astonishing to them. They worked at whatever the economy afforded them and then freely gave their time and talent as well as their monetary resources to the work of God. I am not criticizing religious professionals as much as those that use their monetary offerings as a substitute for direct personal involvement.

That's a good point that you might be making > that we need to personally reach and help people, and not to only send money.

What about Paul? He worked and earned enough to support those who were with him > Acts 20:32-35.

Paul did things by God's grace. First, before he tells us how he could support himself and those with him, he commends us to God's grace. Because, I consider, Paul knew how God's grace gave him the ability to do all his ministering, suffering, being in prison, and working enough to support himself and those who were with him. In God's grace of His love, we have His energy, strength, and our Father's creativity with timing for fitting together all which He has us doing.

But if we try to do things in our own egos, depending on our own ability and training, we can fail and burn out.

DMRF said:

I agree people need to be more involved in their churches - too many people tithe and think that they've done their work for the week.

The trouble is that we can't expect everyone (or even most people) to serve for free - that would limit ministry to those who have wealth to fall back on. This is true of christian organizations as a whole as well.

Click to expand...

I suppose it depends upon one's POV about what needs to be accomplished. Are we Christians concentrated upon doing specific works that require us to pay people (in some cases the work being done is often measured by the amount of money that goes toward accomplishing the work and therefore the actual work is then reduced by the amount of money paid out to administrators) or are we Christians using the resources God provides us to do the best we can within the framework God has given us? I have been told that presently in the US there are 94 million people not in the labor force. Of that group how many are adult Christians that could be using their time for the glory of God and of that group how many are adult Christians that are not doing so?

DMRF said:

There is much that goes on in a church, and more so in a charity or other organization, that requires specific expertise or credentials. Depending on an accredited HR or Bookkeeper, for example, is prudent because they oversee the church's resources (both in terms of people and talent, and finances). To depend on volunteers forces the church or organization to rely on whoever is available, not necessarily who can best be a steward. And there are plenty of tedious, boring tasks that are absolutely necessary for a church or org to survive - oversight of pastors to ensure plan to protect compliance and prevent abuse. Good financial stewardship so the doors can stay open. I don't think it's a mistake to pay these people, because they require expertise, and having gaps in expertise or even going some length of time without having these or other roles is dangerous.

Click to expand...

Again it depends on one's POV about what the mission is, what resources are absolutely indispensible to the mission and whether one has faith that God will provide the necessary resources.

The sanctuary of the church and Christian non-profits are not devil-warded. God may certainly choose to bless a group or its members when they act in his name and will, but the Devil can and has damaged congregations before, and caused them to bicker and gossip among themselves.

It sounds like from your experiences, the devil had wormed its way into it. This is something good for me to know; my ideal job is to get a position in a Christian non-profit myself, and it is good to know ahead of time that some organizations aren't as godly as they profess to be.

A different perspective: I am the CEO of a faith-based not-for-profit associated with a mainline Protestant denomination (not mine). Prior to that, I was rank and file in the same organization. I have also worked in for-profit enterprises. At the end of the day, faith-based NFPs have to be good businesses. We have a saying in our NFP world, "No money, no mission." So, in many ways we don't look all that different from the secular or for-profit world. We are focused on fulfilling our mission and being sustainable.

I try to be staff-friendly, but sometimes I have to make decisions to change people's jobs, to lay people off, to discipline people, and to fire people. Those decisions are never made lightly. They are made in service of the mission. Call me insensitive if you will, but my priority is to accomplish the mission of the organization. I view staff as resources to help me do that. That means I have to deploy them in the most advantageous way for the organization. I know that sometimes decisions that are good for the organization are not necessarily good for some individuals working for the organization.

As to the OP being "offered a demotion," I have done that to make a place for a person in the organization when I no longer see or need them in their current role. It can be a manager's way of making a place for a valued and loyal employee instead of putting them out on the street. I have done that more than once. I know it doesn't feel like much of a compliment, but if I didn't value the person in some kind of way they would not have been afforded such an opportunity.

Hajime said:

After many decades working for a Christian non-profit organization, and for most of that time being happy and fulfilled in the service of God and his people, I find that in recent years it has been taken over by the same superficial image-chasing kind of leadership which is increasingly prevalent in the world. I have stayed as long as I could, supporting and encouraging my fellow workers, but now I was 'offered' a demoted position where I could no longer assist and protect in the same way. I have decided to call it a day, and I have the opportunity to do so, being close to retiring age and with 'reasonable' resources to support retirement from active employment.

I am concerned for those I leave behind, some of whom have similarly invested years of their lives there also, but now likely to become targets of a scurrilously heartless management. A few are just too old to start again, are giving good service still but not appreciated for that by the management. This organization has lost sight of the widows and orphans principles of the Bible.

I actually still regard the organization I have worked for as better than most of its type, based on some of the awful stories coming out of other similar organizations.

My son, who would not call himself a Christian at this time, is a mid-level manager who seems to be so adored by those working under him that several of them have followed him across more than one employment situation, and in one case across four different employers. He has a high standard of work ethics and a real concern for his workers.

So in the end, my experience teaches me that working for other Christians is not a guarantee of fairness and justice in the workplace, and that it is possible to find excellent employers with a high degree of care for their staff who are not Christians at all. If someone asks me, "Should I aim to work for a Christian organization?", my answer would be - proceed with caution, with your eyes open, and don't discount the likelihood that you can serve God just as well, but with less likely damage to your perception of other Christians in the workplaces, by working for a non-Christian employer.

Click to expand...

When I became a Christian, I was a musician and thought I could use my talent and experience in ministry. I started to work with a Christian concert ministry and with the Creation Festival. I knew most of the big Christian artists of the late 80s and early 90s.

Imagine my surprise to learn that all of the Christian record companies were owned by secular companies (nothing wrong with that but they really should be up front about it), and many of the artists were non-Christians just using Christian music to get a mainstream gig, and others were just not good people. There were a couple of artists were were in it as a ministry and to glorify God, but very few. You really do not want to know what goes on behind the scenes.

Much older and wiser now, I see it for what it is But, at the time, I was heartbroken and disillusioned.

So I know how you feel.

Ironically, I'm now involved in another small niche music market and that's really helped to put my time in CCM in perspective.

And there in lies the quandry... do you sacrifice the organization for Christian witness, or do you put Christian witness under the bus such that the organizations mission may survive?

I remember a publishing house a few years ago... in order to survive, they had to gut their retirement program, which while bad for current employees, was disastrous for those already retired. Because they were a "Christian" org, they were exempt from laws (ERISA) protecting the workers and retirees of secular entities... thus they still remain in business, but they sent a lot of elderly folks to the poor house. Similar issues have played out in "Christian" schools, as the religious exemptions from gives them a pass to do things that no secular entity could get away with.

Add in business structuring issues, and the sky is the limit as to what religious orgs can and do get away with. They are "church plans", such that they can get away with things, but yet they are not truly church connected, as the church business structure serves to protect the church, leaving the org to go bankrupt on its own. It appears many are getting their cake and eating it too in this.

And yet, the work in some of these outfits can be incredibly awesome... gentle as doves and wise as serpents comes to mind.

I'm reminded of debates I heard in the 1990's advocating that Christian churches and businesses should only hire union employees when building new churches, etc. Certainly it's a lofty ideal, and ideally Christian businesses should set an example for other businesses in offering fair wages and benefits to their employees, but on the other hand many churches couldn't survive without the help of unpaid volunteers who often do many tasks that normal businesses would pay for.

Being a good person doesn't make one a good business owner or administrator (although it is a good prerequisite). Neither does being intelligent or a "people person". It is a separate discipline entirely that requires practice and ongoing education.