Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:01 <inaudible> welcome
Speaker 1 00:00:07 To village church, Sherman, Q and a pastor Michael, here with you here with pastor Alex and pastor Craig. And on August 15th, 2021, we preached a sermon on fundraising in the tabernacle and offering and giving and ties and it was fun and controversial and all that good stuff. So the question that we get to answer together is should pastors and churches tithe, uh, I'm going to, I'm just going to go on a limb here and say, no,
Speaker 2 00:00:32 Right. It's really convenient. I have this question for myself. Right. But
Speaker 1 00:00:38 In all seriousness, let's start with that. And then we'll move to churches. Uh, so Alex, we'll start with you on the passenger side, uh, should a pastor tie the knot tied because technically what I am tithing is already a time
Speaker 2 00:00:51 Given to brands. Yeah. So it's like, yeah. W
Speaker 1 00:00:56 W what's the mood where, um, where they spin the thing, um, inception it's tied into. Yeah,
Speaker 3 00:01:04 Yeah, yeah. So, uh, yes. I think pastors should tie, you know, with what is reasonable. Everybody has to like giving generosity for pastors. Pastors are people, right. So generosity does not escape us. Right. So we still have to think about that. And, uh, so yeah, that's the gist of what I got.
Speaker 1 00:01:24 I mean, treat people like people basically, right? Like I need, I need to be generous and my heart needs
Speaker 2 00:01:30 To grow. Right. If I
Speaker 3 00:01:32 Want my heart to follow after the things of God, like I should put my money in a place where my heart can follow it. Right.
Speaker 1 00:01:39 Let's let's poke here. Right? Let's say a church doesn't pay their pastor. Well, like there, there are pastors who somehow have to live in this area and, um, we'll just go like timestamp look, 2021, Chicago is not a cheap place to live and they're making $30,000 a year for $35,000 a year. And it's like, how do you raise a family on that? And so what do you like, like, what do you say to somebody who is just like, I literally barely make any money I'm trying to make ends meet. We're technically under the poverty level. And then do we look at them and say, well, now you got to give is sometimes a lower salary, like, like a justification for, I mean, you know, I'm just processing out loud because that's what a lot of pastors who may
Speaker 4 00:02:18 Watch this. Yeah. Yes, yes. And I feel for those pastors, because I've walked in those shoes. Yeah. Our first church paid us $15,000 a year. And, uh, there's just, it was an unlivable wage even way back when right.
Speaker 2 00:02:31 I was going to say, yeah, that was like 60 years ago. Wasn't it that's like a million dollars today.
Speaker 4 00:02:38 Actually he came on, it was 12, but they gave us, they gave us a parsonage. And so, but, but there's just, there's no equity, you build into a person. So that patting themselves on the back on, you know, we're, we're paying this guy, but in actuality we were, we, it was all we could do to just keep our, our next above water. And so, uh, yeah, I think churches need understand that they do need in order for the pastor to be all he can be. They really do need to take that burden off of him. This is also a very biblical concept in the new Testament. Um, uh, Paul talks about this actually in a few different places. Uh don't uh, don't muzzle, the ox waters treading out the grain and the burden
Speaker 1 00:03:16 Of talking about it as paying them a wage. They can live on
Speaker 4 00:03:19 Buy, not anything strike. Cause I think pastors are, I've seen the susceptible to fall into really nasty situations when they're paid too much. Um, this one there's one pastor, I knew that, um, took the passage where Paul says the, the elders worth of one specialist preaching is worthy of double. I like that. And he's looked at it, people in the congregation and he judged how much they were making. He found the one that made the most. And then he said, well, my wage went to the elders and he said, my wage should be doubled. Whatever that person is making. Yeah. You're fired. Well, he, it didn't last long in the church. There's all kinds of stories like this. And so I think, I think pastors are people and I think money takes their eyes off the ball, just like it does for a lot of other people.
Speaker 4 00:04:08 Jesus said it's harder for a rich man to get through the eye of a needle than it is for him to get in the kingdom of heaven. But I think because we get our eye off the ball, when we get our eyes on the money, it's also interesting that one of the, one of the telltale signs that your church is dying is if you talk about money all the time, it's a telltale sign. So, um, so I think for, for pastors, I totally agree. Pastors should be, I don't know if tithing pastors should be giving, she should be giving because it, uh, uh, like we do communion. Like we, you know, pastors are baptized, pastors do communion, pastors Thai. We are people like everybody else. And so we need to direct our heart to love what God is loving by being financially invested.
Speaker 1 00:04:48 God, I can imagine a world where an elder board would say, listen, we're not paying you a lot of money, so we're not, we're asking you not to tie. This is all, whatever, you know, this is all going to go with that elder board. And now the responsibility to say something like that, that would be the hub. So like, I do want to defer to that community. But as a default, I completely agree. Now let's talk about churches. Um, should churches tied? We know churches do tie. Some churches give a certain percentage to missions or church.
Speaker 2 00:05:13 I think Christian and missionary Alliance church, we give seven and a half percent
Speaker 3 00:05:18 To our district, but here's the reality. Our district is a massive resourcer of our church. They provide tons of resources, give us leadership training, uh, you know, so they really take care of us on that end. So anyway, that's a, we have kind of a set amount that we're required to give. And even then there's a little bit of ability to, you know, if you're struggling to not pay that,
Speaker 4 00:05:38 Uh, w uh, one of the churches that I was at, I appreciated this heart that they had. They, they were trying to increase their ability to support missions around the world. And it was not very well. It's like four or 5%. And so they made a goal. They said, we're gonna give 20% of our giving to mission work around the world. And within two years they achieved that goal. So I think, I think, again, you're learning to love and the way that you learn to love what God is doing as you fund what God is doing church as a whole,
Speaker 3 00:06:09 If you're not, if you're not finding something outside of yourself to orient your money towards, then, then that system itself can become just like a person, you know, and if they hold onto their mind, you just
Speaker 2 00:06:20 Keep feeding yourself and feeding yourself and feeding your, and when
Speaker 4 00:06:22 You tell the folks, you know, we're trying to get up to 20% for this purpose. They dive into that. They buy into the vision
Speaker 3 00:06:30 Because it's a God's work around the world. I
Speaker 1 00:06:33 Think every, every church has we talk about this all the time. I don't know that people in churches always realize this every church, yes, we have the same big mission, but your context and your people and your pastors and your heritage, all of that give you kind of this specific focus. Usually there's one or two things that a church does really, really, really well. And for some people's local outreach, for some people to evangelism, for some people it's missions. And there's just different. Some people you think of like these big teaching ministries, it's really the pulpit. And they're bringing, uh, the teaching of great teachers all over the world. And, and what you do is you invest in the places where you see God moving uniquely through your church. And for some people, its missions, there, there are some churches that people will come to our church.
Speaker 1 00:07:12 And they'll say, I need to know whether or not you give 10% to missions. And I'm like, we actually, we might. But, um, but why is that a biblical mandate? Yeah, but for them, they grew up in a church where the church gave 10% emissions. And what happened for that person, what they're actually saying is my heart was following what our church was doing and that formed me. And, and so when they go to a church that doesn't love missions, they're like, well, something's wrong with you? Right. You know, it's like dating the girl who doesn't have your values, not necessarily something wrong with her, but it's just not your value. Right. You know, so I think paying attention to your church and what they're good at and where God's bearing fruit and are they really feeding the fruit
Speaker 0 00:07:49 If you will. And following that. So
Speaker 1 00:07:51 Any other big thoughts on pastors and churches tithing?
Speaker 0 00:07:54 No. Do you want to tie it to our church? I'm good. You're good.
Speaker 1 00:08:03 All right. Well, thank you for joining us. And I want to invite you back. We've got so much more on bill church, sermon, QA.
