Let's be quality churches

[Mrs.Wildee]

We christians should watch out for quality leaders. Are your pastors truly watching out for church's walk with Jesus? Or is he mostly interested in keeping them to church instead of God? God is seeking quality, not quantity. I think we have too many pastors and too many churches. Because when we have so many pastors, we are spending so much money on pastor's salary and church buildings instead of sending money to poorer countries' evangelism.

 

[dasielady]

I have mixed feelings about this.
1. If a pastor is expected to put a LOT of his time into being a pastor, that means that he must not have a secondary job. In order to do that, he needs to be creating income for he and his family. This should be modest, but comparable IMHO, to the average lifestyle of his congregation.
2. I agree that poorer countries evangelism is a good cause. However, if God is seeking quality not quantity, then we also need to make sure that pastors are tending to and helping to guide nurturance of the congregation's relationship with God, which takes more time on his part.
3. However, the bible talks about leaving the herd to go get the stray sheep. At least people here and in the church are exposed to Christ; wheras people overseas may not have ever even heard of him to be given the opportunity to choose Jesus over Satan.

Yeah, just some comments for your post.

 

[fishstix]

Too many pastors? I have to disagree with that. My church has such a shortage that we share a single pastor between 4 churches of the same denomination in 4 different towns. And we aren't an unusual case. Other than in the big cities, that's pretty normal around here.

 

[rogsr]

Really a problem that does exist is a serious lacking of tithes. My church barely makes its farely modest budget. If everyone in my church gave 30 dollars per week we would have a surplus, but they don't and so we're broke. It's aggrivating because I don't make much money and I tithe and I see people with nice cars tossing a few bucks in the bread basket. Also, I don't know the level of education your pastor's have, but ours have MDiv's and Doctorate degrees(I think that's the norm), they deserve their meager salaries. Our priest takes around 30K a year out of the budget. Which when you think about it is not very much money at all for someone with a Master's degree. However, I know of another pastor in my city who owns a 300k home in a poche neighborhood. The job of a priest has got to be one of the hardest jobs in the world. Trying to get people to see the Truth is not an easy task, if they are not suffering.

 

[Grimace]

We christians should watch out for quality leaders. Are your pastors truly watching out for church's walk with Jesus? Or is he mostly interested in keeping them to church instead of God? God is seeking quality, not quantity. I think we have too many pastors and too many churches. Because when we have so many pastors, we are spending so much money on pastor's salary and church buildings instead of sending money to poorer countries' evangelism.

I too have mixed feelings about this issue, since I've kind of seen it from both sides.

I believe my pastor is very concerned about his congregation's walk with Jesus. I used to attend a church where the pastors were concerned about the money they got from the church members, and only cared if you weren't there because they didn't get your money. It was a pretty sad place to be.

Too many churches...well, in my area, I'd agree with that. We're a county of 50,000ish people but we have nearly 200 churches. We have so many churches, but difficulties finding pastors. It took my church four years to find a permanent pastor! In some areas, there aren't many churches at all. In rural West Virginia, for example, there are so few churches.

I'll admit it, my church spends a lot on my pastor's salary in comparison to others in our area. We pay our pastor a very good salary. Honestly, this man has three master's degrees, two bachelor's degrees, and an associate's degree. He's also a great pastor, very in tune with God, and very loving to his congregants. But when we signed him up, we offered to pay him much less than we pay him now. We doubled it after we learned his wife was so ill, and requires many surgeries, and their medical bills were overwhelming. So I see his salary as providing for God's servants.

At my former church, the pastor leeched the donations dry for his salary (he never told us how much we "paid him," but considering he owned three large and expensive houses, several vehicles, and dozens of acres of prime property, all bought with the congregation's tithes, he was doing quite well for himself!), and we were always short for everything else, even though our congregation at the time was over 2000 people! So I can see how that can be abused.

 

[Mrs.Wildee]

I don't understand why pastors have to have high degree of education. All you need is obedience heart to God and knowledge of the bible and tell the congregation to do the same. Why do you have to pamper them? We christians are here to serve, not to be served by churches. How can we reach out to non-believers or unchurced countries with that kind of attitude? There are still many people being killed, tortured every day. When we think about them we should be shamed of ourselves. And we should stop pampering or spoiling ourselves. If we really appreciate Him, let's give Him what He deserve, which is our whole hearted devotion. Nothing less.

 

[rogsr]

Mrs. Wildee,

You are very right on the subject of pampering. However, soldiers of God who are well-educated, and by well-educated I refer to well the rounded education obtained from real accredited universities, are most often times much more likely to not be the kind of priest/pastor that wants a big salary, because he knows that it makes him a hypocrite. I am very poor and am going to school to become a priest, I have contact with many ordained individuals. I do not intend to take more of a salary then what it would take for me to survive in a capatalist society. Things in America cost money and even priests/pastors have the right to live. Being a priest is not an easy task, and having a congregation of 2000 is completely ridiculous. How can one man take care of all of the spiritual needs/problems of 2000 people? He can't do it. Many priests/pastors are only concerned with having huge successful churches because they want to eventually wear the red vestries of the bishopric. This is also wrong, and you need to remain a cunning as a serpant while you are as peaceful as a dove in order to not get duped by "salesman" ministries. However, there are many priests/pastors who are truly answering the sacred call of God, so please be kind and try to use understanding when thinking of priests/pastors.

Peace-

 

[Macrina]

I am suffering financially because of my decision to become a pastor to a small rural church, when I had other options. I have Ivy League degrees and could have gotten paid much more that what these folks could afford, but God called me here and I went... even with all that student loan debt.

I would like to see my church grow, but for the sake of the people we reach for Christ, not my salary. If the congregation grows a great deal, I think planting a new congregation would be a good idea. (I'm thinking down the road here, clearly.)

I understand that there are many very petty people out there in ministry, but please do not judge all of us by that standard. most of us are trying very hard to balance our calling and our physical needs (and those of our families).

In addition, I would like to mention that the fastest-growing churches are not in America. The church is thriving in the 2/3s world and even though we have the money, I think we could learn much from the faith of overseas churches.

Macrina

 

[TheMainException]

so right...man, so true, you speak such wise words, all of you