I saw a post the other day from a pastor that was about whether or not pastors should be paid.  Oddly enough, while I was interviewing my latest podcast guest he said he had just done the same topic on his podcast.  It wasn’t him I was talking about, so that was funny, but obviously this topic is floating around out there right now.  Both said that yes, pastors should be paid.  I wholeheartedly agree.  However, I think we make a mistake when we don’t take it to the next step and be honest about the situation in the church right now.  I’m pretty sure Charlie tackled this but the first pastor didn’t.  The problem isn’t that pastors are getting paid for their work.  The problem is that a lot of pastors are making exorbitant amounts of money, 10-100 times what their congregants are making.  That is unacceptable.  I’ll rarely get on here and speak so strongly, because I want to invite people to into the presence of Jesus on here, but this is one of those rare subjects that I feel pretty strongly about.  What does that say about a pastor when he makes exponentially more than the people that are paying his salary?  Worse yet, some of the richest pastors are leading churches that preach prosperity.  If you give enough money to the church then you will be rich too.  Pastors should certainly make enough to live off of but should never be millionaires (off of the church that is.  If they are good at investing and get there on their own then more power to them.  But at what point do you say you have enough and stop taking money from the church?).  The thing that bothers me most about this is that people are watching, especially non believers.  What kind of message does this send to the people that we are trying to get to step foot inside the church, to believe in Jesus?  They don’t want anything to do with an institution like that.  And if your argument is “but they give most of that money away to the poor,” then why does it need to go through their hands?  Let the church give it away.  Pushing it through the pastors hands is nothing more than a status symbol at that point.  Now I love the person that posted this and have no problem with the conclusion, I just think the church would go a long way with the unbelieving world if it took the idea further and was honest about it’s own shortcomings.  Also, this isn’t every church and I recognize that.  The problem is that all Christians get lumped together when unbelievers look at us and they don’t differentiate between good and bad.

Remember I said earlier that I want these thoughts to be more about invitation than making a point or trying to be right.  So here is the invitation.  As a church, let’s do better.  Those of us that aren’t participating in these practices, let’s be more honest and recognize that a lot of churches are.  And those that are, let’s try to be a better example of Jesus to the unbelieving world.  Let’s all reflect Christ as best we can, especially in the simple things.

Be blessed.