Tag: debt

The Modern Pastor and Seminary Debt

I got a good comment in my last post on the modern pastor and money. It reminded me that several pastors come out of seminary with as much as $30-50k in debt.

Seminary debt is a more convincing argument than most for paying pastors more, although I’ll be honest and say I’m still not convinced.

I think seminary debt is a big problem. A few places where we need to think more about what we’re doing:

  1. I’d love to see churches and denominations investing more. If a church sees someone they’d like to encourage in the ministry, it would be great to see them put some money behind that person. Some may say that the denominations can’t afford any more. And yet they keep giving raises to some of their highest paid…
  2. You don’t have to take on 30-50k in debt to go to seminary. It might mean going slower and finding a job (how about getting a ministry position while in school?), but it can be done. Seminary took me 7 years, but I came out of it with no debt despite no scholarship or church help — and that was at Asbury, one of the most expensive. You can do it!
  3. Is it really fair to throw your debt burdens on the Church after seminary? You may say, “It’s the only way for me.” First, I’m not convinced. Second, even if you convince me, it doesn’t mean that any church is obligated to take you on and pay you more so that you can pay off your loans.
  4. Your debt burden limits your options. Come out of seminary with significant debt, and you’re not only looking for the right place to serve, but the right place to serve that can also support your debt load.
  5. The American Church is changing. You may offer incredible leadership to the future of the Church, but it’s quite possible that it will be for little or no pay. I celebrate that coming probability, but it makes it more problematic to take on huge debt and assume that a church paycheck will take care of it on the other end. This also means that you might be considering developing some other competencies if ministry work doesn’t pay the bills.

I know I’m going to cause some trouble by saying this, but here goes… I’m concerned when I see people going to seminary entirely/mostly on debt. I’ve seen several people come out ready to get a ministry job and pay off their debt, only to find that no one is too excited to bring them in. A church may have given them a placid endorsement to go to seminary, but that doesn’t mean they would hire that person on the other end.

This really shouldn’t come as a shock. No one was excited enough to pay their way through school, and no one was excited enough to hire them while in school. Why do we think someone is eagerly waiting to hire them and their $50,000 debt burden right out of school?

NOTE: This is NOT me saying that all of these people are unqualified. If that’s what you’re hearing, please hear something else before you start throwing things at the screen. But what I’ve just said certainly is true for some (many?). I don’t think you can deny that. The person who I see getting church support, or working in a pastoral position while in seminary, never seems to have trouble finding a place to serve after seminary.

For potential seminarians

A word for people considering seminary: Think long and hard before you debt-finance the full thing and assume you should get a big-enough salary on the other end to pay it off.

Consider doing school slower and working.

Ask your church or denomination if they’ll help you financially. If they won’t, press them a bit on just how much they believe in you going to seminary — not to guilt them into paying, but to be sure people aren’t smiling and nodding but thinking something else.

This may be the place that we pull the “It’s my calling, and I don’t care what they say”-card. I’d be slow with that one. I remember a girl who was adamant that she was called to the Christian music ministry. Yet everyone else kept telling her they just didn’t see it happening. It didn’t. But she spent a lot of time and money chasing it. Let the community have a place in discerning calling. And remember that we may be making too much out of this whole “vocational calling” thing in the first place.

For churches and denominations

If you really believe in someone, put your money behind them on the front end. Don’t do them and the Church the disservice of a huge debt to pay off for years to come.

And if you don’t believe in someone, be honest with them before they get $30-50k in debt.

I know this one won’t go over well with all of you. What do you think? Be honest.

Subscribe by e-mail or RSS to get regular updates on theology, ministry, and life with God.

Pastors’ Salaries and Church Buildings

pastor salary

Last week, I began to discuss pastors and their relationship to “church business.” Some of you told me you have similar concerns. Let’s press a bit further…

Whenever the church begins handling money internally – rather than giving it away – we get into sticky matters. How does the church properly use charitably given money?

Let me show you a few examples from my own tradition. I think they’re universally applicable.

Pastors’ Salaries

When the Methodist movement was growing rapidly, people began to ask whether John Wesley was getting rich off the whole endeavor. That would be a serious accusation against the man who wrote, “If I leave behind me ten pounds (above my debts, and the little arrears of my fellowship) you and all mankind bear witness against me, that I lived and died a thief and a robber.” Look at his brilliant response:

I look upon all this revenue, be it what it may, as sacred to God and the poor; out of which, if I want any thing, I am relieved, even as another poor man. So were originally all ecclesiastical revenues, as every man of learning knows: and the bishops and priests used them only as such. If any use them otherwise now, God help them! (from “A Plain Account of the People Called Methodists,” XV, 6)

  • How did they view the collection of the church? As sacred to God and the poor.
  • How did they pay their workers? They took care of their basic needs even as another poor man.
  • How long had the church’s collection been used this way? The bishops and priests originally used all ecclesiastical revenues this way.
  • Who should know that? Every man of learning.
  • What of anyone who uses the church’s collection differently now? God help them!

What if we still followed Wesley’s understanding of church leaders’ pay and the sanctity of the church’s collection? What current practices would change or go away entirely?

A personal test for church leaders: Are you in it for the money?

Buildings and Debt

Look at this requirement of early Methodist pastors regarding their buildings:

It shall be the duty of every preacher belonging to this conference to use his influence against constructing expensive meeting houses. (1816 New England Conference of the Methodist Church)

What if this were still every preacher’s duty?

It might be worth noting that the American Methodist Church experienced its greatest growth while the above was the rule. It has experienced its greatest decline during the period where bigger sanctuaries, gyms, and fellowship halls has been the standard.

Why were those early Methodists so against expensive meeting houses? A great explanation from the first Discipline of the American Methodist Church (the Methodist book on how we function), 1784:

Let all our chapels be built plain and decent; but not more expensive than is absolutely unavoidable: otherwise the necessity of raising money will make rich men necessary to us. But if so, we must be dependent upon them, yea; and governed by them. And then farewell to the Methodist discipline, if not doctrine too.

How much better off I believe the Methodists would have been if we had never removed this from our Discipline!


Click here to subscribe. Go on, do it.