This week’s Honest Conversation is about money and the church. Some believe the subject of money and how it works in their own church does not need explanation and should never even be questioned. For others, money is a mystical concept that once given, now belongs to God and there is no more room to question the process or stewardship by which it is handled. There is another group of people with a different view altogether. These people would like to know how money is handled in the church in order to better understand how collectively we can best use God’s resources. I would say the proper handling of money is one of the most ambiguous subjects within the church. If you ask questions about how the church manages its money many times the answer will be that no one really knows. Why is this? In the next couple of weeks, I will attempt to explain some of the reasons for this ambiguity and how we can help each other properly handle the resources that are given unto the Lord. I am a big believer that all I own belongs 100% to God and that He is the one who gives me the ability to produce wealth. A simple way to look at the concept of giving is that we are to give when God says to give and like the prodigal son’s brother in Luke 15, all that is God’s is also mine. WOW. That sounds easy, right? Unfortunately, it isn’t. In actuality it is far more complicated than that and much of it is being driven by nonprofit 501c3 organizations, culture, and misguided church leaders.
It will be helpful here to define the concept of church. The word church comes from the Greek term ekklesia which literally means assembly, congregation, or the called-out ones. When the term church is used in the New Testament, it is never referring to a building or to one specific organization, but to the body of believers who God has made holy and set apart from the world. For clarity, “the Church” (capitalized) refers to the body of believers in Jesus Christ, and “the church” (lower case) is often referencing a specific organization. It is a very common mistake to refer to the Kingdom of God by simply using the word “Church,” because they are different. We also identify a building and its organization as “the church.” This terminology can be especially confusing when leaders ask if you attend church when biblically God defines His people as the Church. Because weekly church attendance is the optimal data for leaders to use as a metric for their success, we mistakenly equate local church attendance and the money that is given to it with our obedience to God and our spiritual maturity. Then it gets more convoluted when leaders mis-contextualize scripture for the purpose of raising more funds for their organization. This happens a lot with the subject of tithing. It is a common practice for leaders to violate good hermeneutics in order to convince faithful church attendees how tithing should work at their local place of worship. I am not against the concept of tithing, but I am for leaders being willing to teach the full gospel and clarify biblical Kingdom principles. Why is it important to figure out what the Bible says about God’s Kingdom and His Church? Because Biblical truth frees us from legalism and the manipulation and control that can come from it. There are good pastors and leaders that focus on Biblical truth with regard to money and because of it their congregations are healthy. Unfortunately, there are also leaders who use God’s money inappropriately because of narcissistic tendencies or because they live within unhealthy margins with no accountability. For example, every weekend I delt with a leader who’s emotional state of mind was either high or low based on each service numbers report. This report was constructed after each service stating how many people were in attendance, how much money was given, and how many people raised their hands for salvation. When these numbers were low, they were emotionally low, and the question was asked: What happened to our attendance or the money? It got really sketchy when online services came into play because leadership started to count those online numbers as weekend attendance by a multiplier formula for each view. When the numbers were especially low that meant the leader needed to start a flashy new series about either a current social issue or the homerun teaching about end times and the antichrist. Money is simply a tool that God entrusts us to use for His purposes, and money will inevitably take on the character of the person who holds it.
Lead Pastor Compensation. During my tenure working in the local church this question was asked by other churches and their councils/boards: How do churches determine a lead pastor’s compensation? This is one of the most important roles that a church council/board has. Therefore, church bylaws must be followed and role responsibilities for the council/board members and pastor must be clear. For council/board members, term limits should be followed and compensation/benefits may not be given by the lead pastor to their council/board. I have seen this misconduct happen way too often in order to manipulate and sweeten the lead pastor’s compensation. Happy council/board…happy pastor. When researching how to determine compensation for lead pastors, you will find that there is not a set formula but that there are ranges for each denomination. For some, compensation is set based on the leader’s education, church size, tenure, and their charisma. I have seen small churches of 100 people compensate their pastor $100,000, and larger churches pay up to $450,000 to their pastor. The key here is that base pay is often purposefully kept low, because benefits and extras is where the money is at. One reason base pay is kept low is because while regular taxpayers are expected to pay taxes on 100% of their income, based on their IRS allowance, members of the clergy may only have to pay taxes on less than 100% of their income. That’s a nice deal. The deal gets sweeter when the lead pastor has benefits that pay all of his/her utilities, vehicle, vehicle maintenance, fuel, meals, trips, all out of pocket medical expense, all entertainment, private clubs, gifts they give to family and friends, and anything that can be considered “ministry related.” For example, let’s say a leader wants to buy a generator for their home because they often lose power. The church agrees to pay for it because the leader regularly invites other people to come over to their house. If the leader hosts a party at his/her house… the church pays for all of the food and drinks because people from the church were invited. The trick here for most lead pastors in larger churches would be to avoid paying taxes on a larger salary, and instead to have a lot of benefits that are not tallied up as income and to have a council/board that would be okay with it. I remember a while back when pastors and leaders of a denomination were investing their money in a Ponzi scheme. They convinced others to also invest because of the overwhelming wealth that was coming their way. This ungodly shortcut ended up with a denomination losing millions of dollars. Some in leadership resigned but others that participated in this Ponzi scheme kept their positions or were simply moved to other positions for better optics. There are systemic monetary issues within the church system that have been there long before any current leader was ever there and these issues are made more difficult to resolve because of the ambiguous way churches handle money. This ambiguity is a poor stand-in for real accountability and it tempts all men and women to take short cuts. Ambiguity shields them from having to disclose what the church really pays them. I do believe that a minister is worthy of their wages and there is nothing wrong with financially blessing these men and women who have been called to the five-fold ministry calling.
I hope this broad-brushed explanation helps you to understand the questions to ask of your church or perhaps just gives you information about something you did not know about. Thank you for all of your DM’s and phone calls and for your feedback. Many of you have been so encouraging to us. For those of you who have experienced pain or are navigating through difficult waters…you are not alone. God is faithful and He is always with you. May God bless you greatly!
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