Paying for It

In the past, my wife and I have served together as part of a team in church leadership which we felt worked pretty well at lots of levels. Because of that, we're looking to do the same in the future. However, as we've spoken about this with others, one of the issues that's been raised is the fact that most churches can't afford to put on two new staff members at the same time. Now, from our perspective, we've never been that fussed about this as we can happily get by on one income. But we have taken some pause to think more generally about the positives and negatives of working in a church for more hours than the paycheques cover. Here's a bit of a summary.

It's bad to work more hours than you're paid for because

• As Paul reminds us, "The [church] labourer deserves to be paid" (1 Tim 5:17-18, cf. Matt 10:10). This teaching recognises that working in a church is a 'real' job (and one that can require more training, can demand more hours, can have greater responsibility and can draw on a broader set of skills than many other jobs) and as such, it ought to be properly remunerated.

• Paying workers properly protects (somewhat) against their being taken for granted by those in the church.

• If a churchworker is paid for less hours than they actually work and then they move on to another ministry, the church may not be set up to pay replacement staff for enough hours to cover all that the former staffer was doing. That could mean some ministries struggle, falter or even end.

But some reasons that it's good to work more than you're paid are

• Church work should never, never be done for money. Church workers should primarily serve out of love for Jesus, his people and his mission, not remuneration. Traditionally, ministers were paid a 'stipend' rather than a salary. That is, they received an allowance sufficient for them to live on while they gave up their potential earning time to serve in the church. So the focus wasn't on dollars per hour, but on providing the basic needs for those set aside to do vocational church work. (This is a key idea in the Old Testament system of tithes too - eleven tribes gave ten percent to support the one tribe who served them in the Temple and who therefore couldn't work in the fields to raise crops and livestock for themselves.)

• It helps sustain a healthy culture of volunteerism which is critical if a church is to be fully functional in its mission and service. In churches I've worked at in the past, unpaid volunteers have been hugely important to the life and health of the community. If church members develop the attitude that they shouldn't offer themselves in free service because there are 'paid people' to do the work, then the church is in a bad state.

• Any money saved can be diverted to other good uses - helping the poor, special mission projects, supporting other churches - the possibilities are endless.

• A minister who gets paid less than they might has a great opportunity to champion simpler living to the church which ought to be marked by sacrificial generosity and selflessness.

• At least in Australia, the full remuneration package for Anglican ministers is very generous. I know of several ministers with a bunch of kids who have gotten by on a single Melbourne Diocese salary. I don't know of any who are struggling to put food on the table.

So perhaps the best situation is one where a congregation feels really committed to ensuring that those who serve (in whatever capacity) are adequately provided for, but at the same time, those who serve are equally as keen to lead the way in giving their time sacrificially and not always requiring all the payments they could claim.

Practically, this could mean that the local church pays its workers the full amount, but then those workers choose to return anything above what they need to live on back to the church coffers - or perhaps to another worthy cause. Or, the church could pay an old-fashioned stipend (like some missionary organisations still do today) and then they could set the remainder aside for other purposes. They could even create a fund to cover any gap that may arise when the 'underpaid' minister moves on.

There's nothing final in all this - just a few thoughts I've been kicking around. But however things are done, one thing I'm convinced of is that it mustn't be unusual for people in church to freely serve for free.