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More on Paid Church Staff

bignorm — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 10:28:15 +0000

Teasing out the theme in my 2nd last blog Paid Church Workers: Worthy of Double Honour, in which I quoted Bonhoeffer saying that “..clergy must live solely on the free-will offerings of their congregations, or possibly engage in some secular calling..” I’d like to quote Chris Wright (who incidentally hails from N.Ireland) from NIV Biblical Commentary on Deuteronomy, commenting on Chapter 18:1-8:

…Churches or others Christian groups that fail to pay their workers adequate living wages are not “living by faith,” but are simply living in disobedience. (Wright p.216)

Strong, sure. But in the lead up to this statement Wright concurs with Bonhoffer in stating that God’s spiritual leaders, or Priests in Deut 18 – the Levites, would depend solely on material provision from an obedient people – Israel (in the promised land that they were soon to enter):

…the landlessness of Israel’s priestly tribe was not intended to impoverish them. They would be dependent, indeed. But dependence on an obedient people should have meant perfectly adequate provision for their material needs, just as Israel’s dependence on their faithful God would include full provision. (Wright, p.215)

Wright stresses that the Apostle Paul emphasises this point many times in the NT by quoting Deuteronomy 25:4 in 1 Timothy 5:17-18 stating that those who preach and teach deserve “Double Honour“. Although Paul voluntarily opted out of taking his own advice and took the even higher ground of providing for himself. Wright adds others verses to support his point from scripture such as 1 Corinthians 9:13:

You know, don’t you, that it’s always been taken for granted that those who work in the Temple live off the proceeds of the Temple, and that those who offer sacrifices at the altar eat their meals from what has been sacrificed? Along the same lines, the Master directed that those who spread the Message be supported by those who believe the Message. ~ Paul (Message)

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So here’s to all the FT voluntary and inadequately paid church workers who, maybe secretly, feel undervalued and frankly unpaid for their labours (my wife and I have been there): You ARE worth it! God wills and instructs His Church to pay you adequately for your efforts!

The argument seems clear – church workers are to be paid adequately.

Define adequate?

Naked Expectations

bignorm — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 12:45:03 +0000

Truth, courtesy of the Nakedpastor.

Porn Tragedy

bignorm — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 08:33:14 +0000

XXX Church’s approach to mission still rocks! They are still tackling possibly the largest life-ruining evil on the planet: porn.

I’ve just watched their latest video (below) on the devastation and tragedy of porn; lives ruined, people exploited, folk’s self-worth annihilated. It is truly an evil monstrosity.

The statistics are staggering; here are some recent statistics from Internet filter review

Pornography Time Statistics
Every second – $3,075.64 is being spent on pornography.
Every second – 28,258 internet users are viewing pornography.
Every second – 372 internet users are typing adult search terms into search engines.
Every 39 minutes: a new pornographic video is being created in the United States.

And some ‘Christian’ porn statistics from XXX Church to bring it closer to the pulpit:

53% of Christian men consume pornography.

57% of pastors call pornography the most sexually damaging issue for their congregations.

51% of pastors say porn is a temptation.

69% of pastors started looking at porn out of curiosity.

37% of pastors say it’s currently a struggle.

53% of pastors have visited porn sites in the past year.

18% percent of pastors look at porn a couple times a month.

35% of men have used pornography in the past month.

30% of pastors do not talk to anyone about your dirty little secret.

4 in 10 of pastors looked at porn today.

A 2003 survey from Internet Filter Review reported that 47% of Christians admit pornography is a major problem in their homes.

An internet survey conducted by Rick Warren of Saddleback Church in 2002 found 30 percent of 6,000 pastors had viewed internet porn in the last 30 days.

Sources: Christianity Today, Promise Keepers, Barna Research Group, World Magazine

XXX Church’s strap-line is “Jesus loves porn-stars”. Do we think so in Ireland too?

Post-Christendom Realities

bignorm — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 09:20:22 +0000

Patrick Mitchell’s new blog FaithinIreland is one of my better RSS feeds. His latest observations intrigued me today on post-Christendom realities. Check out his chart, courtesy of UK Anabaptist Stuart Murray Williams.

Most paid ministry professionals should feel a sense of discomfort considering these observations. The irony is that that this looks where I am headed – right to the epicentre of this great maelstrom of change in and throughout the church. I’m far from nervous, just anxious and excited to see where we are sailing for.

Bon Voyage!

PS. Let me know your thoughts on the chart.

Post-Christendom realities

Symptom / challenges

From the centre to the margins

Is there even a ‘centre and margins’ any more?

From majority to minority

Rapidly decreasing cultural and political and religious influence

How engage with and live alongside others who hold radically different values and beliefs? How do we do unto others as we would have them do unto us and what might this mean in practice?

Settlers ( at ‘home’) to sojourners

Exiles, aliens, pilgrims

A vision of counter-cultural lives and counter-cultural communities. Re-capturing the radical call of the Christian life.

Privilege to plurality

One voice among many – with especially negative attitudes to Christianity in light of the past

The call to be good news as well as talk about good news

From control to witness

Influence by witness, engagement, dialogue and respect – especially in light of Ireland’s legacy of control and authoritarian religion

From maintenance to mission

From a comfortable self-sustaining support base, into unknown territory of missionary engagement with western culture

Missional church – full of missionaries with a clear vision of their identity in Christ and calling to follow him

From institution to movement

Unwieldy ecclesiastical structures / bureaucracies – towards flexible, maneuverable missional communities

It is the Spirit who empowers the church for mission, who leads and guides and transforms his people. Study, reflection, prayer and seeking the Spirit’s lead

Irony For The Irish

bignorm — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 10:26:05 +0000

Osservatore Romano’s photograph in today’s Irish Times seems slightly ironic considering Vatican secretary Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone said that “humilty” is the key to true renewal within the Irish Church.

Maybe my cynicism lets me see something different in this photo. Hmmm.

The Ultimate Physician

bignorm — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 11:39:47 +0000

Assisted suicide is a hot topic again, stirring the whole question of God and medicine.

As a healthy western Christ-follower, I can only observe and think that ‘dying well’ is a step too far in medicine; or is it? How far do we go limiting what medicine is good, and what medicine is interfering with God’s perfect will? Some may even still argue that medicine is ultimately destroying the perfect will of God, scorning everything from aspirin through to Chemotherapy.

Severe suffering, disease and death can make euthanasia almost seem plausible. Scripturally, the Bible does not give any allowance for man to wilfully take his own life. It is GOD ALONE who governs life. Job 1:21 declares “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away.”

How do you feel about medicine and God?

Is it wrong to receive — or seek — medical assistance when we are in pain, or ill, or even just in discomfort? And how does this contrast with relying on Divine healing and faith?

Emerging Semantics

bignorm — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 23:47:45 +0000

I’ve argued in my latest essay that it is more ecclesiologically accurate today to say “the church emerging”, rather than, “the Emerging Church”? In fact, what is your view on how Christianity is changing/failing/emerging/thriving?

Eddie Gibbs and Ryan Bolger define Emerging Churches as,

“missional communities arising from within postmodern culture and consisting of followers of Jesus who are seeking to be faithful in their place and time.”

If a church is not resembling this definition, can it really be functioning effectively as a Church at all? And if not – why not?

Image courtesy of Nakedpastor.

Christians Shaft the Poor

bignorm — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 20:30:32 +0000

Anne Jackson reckons this survey from the Bliss Institute reveals that Christians give poor people the shaft. Seemingly, they care more about babies getting born that what they do with them after they are born.

Got a view?

Image courtesy of flowerdust.net

Protégés on a Par

bignorm — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 00:01:20 +0000

National Community Church planning meetings made our day. Here are a few things we noticed from their creative meetings and church office environment:

Everyone had a opinion in the meetings
Everyone was listened to and was taken seriously
Interns (or the protégé program guys) were treated on a par with senior staff
Interns heavily influenced and changed programmes and services from the top down
The senior pastor was relaxed, approachable and had faith in his staff to deliver

Bravo, there are churches that are healthy!

You Are What You Search

bignorm — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 13:58:42 +0000

What does the church have to say about its over-sexualised teens and kids?

THIS article suggests that Kids – not just hormonal teens – are searching for explicit sexual terms. As I read the statistics out loud to Emily this morning, she was gobsmacked at first, but not overly shocked having worked with youth for over 8 years.

Our Google searches say a lot about us. A bit like Dr. Gillian McKeefe’s “You are what you eat” strap-line, “You are what you search“. For everyone’s sake, I trust that the nasty rumour that Google saves everything you have ever searched for at your IP address on their servers, is not true.

Stay pure,