Greedy Pastors

There is a common misbelief that all ministers are in that line of work for the money. Since my grandfather, most of my uncles, my father and my hubby were/are all ministers, I have an inside track to the truth.

While those who are members of the historical churches (Presbyterian, Methodist, Lutheran, etc.) are provided with  middle class incomes by their organizations (and sometimes higher if they have a large congregation), most pastors actually live just at the middle class line, and that usually because their wives work outside the home and bring in the bulk of the income. In fact many churches are like ours. Our pastor (my father) lives on his retirement from his secular job (electrical lineman. He built power poles) and only gets a small stipend from the church (my hubby, the assistant pastor gets nothing except the occasional book for study). The only reason he accepts this is so the church is used to paying its pastor when he retires (and it doesn't cover his expenses for the ministry at all). In fact, for the 35 or so years he has pastored, his tithes have been the only reson the churches he pastored could pay their mortgages and utility bills. Since the average church only has 60 members, most pastors live in poverty or off alternate sources of income (retierment, wives' jobs, second job for themselves...). So why do they decide to become preachers?

Most ministers are really in the business to bring souls to God.

When the Chair Just Doesn’t Fit