The Uncomfortable Relationship Between Preacher, Stewardship, & Congregation: 4 Revealing Conversations
Photo by Simon Maage on Unsplash
During stewardship season, we preach to our parishioners about the need to offer the three Ts: time, talent, and treasure.
But we preachers need a different conversation.
We need a frank, "backstory" conversation about our personal dependence on parishioners' donations—and the ways money affects:
our relationships with parishioners
our relationship with colleagues
and our capacity to preach with our whole selves.
We preach stewardship, as we should, to benefit the health of the souls who hear us.
We want to help them grow in generosity and spread the Gospel through worship and mission.
However, the uncomfortable and messy truth is this: we have a vested interest in the outcome.
Our livelihoods depend on:
whether and how much our parishioners pledge
the size and vitality of our congregations
the age(ing) of our parishioners and life-cycle of our congregations
the resources to assist and positions available to us within our judicatories
and the health of our church pensions, if we have one at all.
Between time, talent, and treasure, we need to admit that it's the amount of treasure pledged that most affects us personally.
Four Conversations that reveal common, albeit unspoken or subconscious, clergy beliefs about money
We don't like to admit that we cannot untangle ourselves from having a vested interest in the outcome of our stewardship seasons.
Moreover, there is much evidence to suggest we, as leaders in the church, have purchased the idol of the American myth that the size and wealth of our congregations equates to the power and worth of their pastoral leaders.
If we're not careful to acknowledge our complex relationship with donated income, it can unwittingly affect our relationships with parishioners and fellow clergy as well as our ability to assess how our preaching about "treasure" might sound to a parishioner.
Let me offer three examples of faithful clergy who love their vocations but let it slip that money was more of an issue to them than they realized—plus a fourth conversation with a parishioner.
I doubt these feelings will come as surprises, except perhaps for naming them.
All four reveal something about the underlying beliefs and tensions shaping our relationships in church.
Revealing Conversation #1: “I have multiple degrees, and I don’t Know how I’m going to put my kids through college”
One pastor had recently finished his Doctor of Ministry degree. To me and a couple of his parishioners, he made an unguarded remark along the lines of this:
“Seminary and a doctoral degree. That's seven years of post-graduate school and I still don't know how I'm going to put my kids through college."
As his words hung in the air, his face showed he was taken aback, surprised and embarrassed to hear the bitterness in his voice, especially in front of parishioners. He tried to save face.
"Actually, I'm paid the same as the average teacher. The congregation is very generous."
I don't believe he believed what he said.
I don't think the parishioners did either.
Revealing Conversation #2: who “deserves” the resources of large or urban congregations?
A cardinal rector once said to me that small and rural congregations were unworthy to receive gifted clergy.
They said something to the effect of:
Gifted clergy would be "wasted" on [small and rural] congregations and should be reserved for the large and urban churches that "mattered" in size and resources.
Though this may seem shockingly and bluntly stated, my observation is that many clergy, perhaps unconsciously, agree with this statement based on how clergy treat each other at conventions and conferences.
We even have a term for some of these gifted clergy: "celebrity preachers."
Revealing Conversation #3: If they Don’t give me a raise, they must not appreciate me
When I was head of a congregation, I remember waiting in my office for the outcome of the budget conversation that was taking place in another room about my stipend for the next year.
While I waited, my head argued with my gut.
My head argued that my pay didn't reflect the value of my ministry.
But my gut insisted that, if I didn't receive at least a cost-of-living raise, even during a lean budgetary year, I would feel unappreciated—and resentful.
I was relieved to receive the raise, less because of the money than because I had just received a "pass."
I had a pass to ignore the gremlins of resentment (which I hadn't realized I carried) about my dependence on my parishioners, and my embarrassment that I had bought into the American myth of money and success.
Revealing Conversation #4: I was fired, but my pastor gets a raise?!
The parishioner was a dedicated member of the parish council who, unbeknownst to the rest of the council, had recently been laid off from his job.
The prospects for a new one looked bleak, and he had a family to feed.
During a regular council meeting the debate went on: Should the head pastor receive a 5% or 6% raise?
The parishioner was in anguish. He felt mortified knowing he would have to discontinue his pledge altogether, and the treasurer (at the very least, depending on the whisper campaign) would know.
Worse, his fear and anger for his own situation manifested in resentment and jealousy. Another man his own age was not only secure in his position, he was about to receive a significant raise made possible by parishioners' labors. It was too much.
Without explanation (until he disclosed it to me decades later), the parishioner not only quit the council, he left the church.
Telling the Truth about Money, Self-worth, and God
The path to freedom from the tyranny of money begins with truth-telling.
Our relationship with money begins in childhood and is deeply influenced by modeling, theology, culture, and circumstance.
That relationship in turn influences our capacity to preach sincere, authentic, and lived experience of the Good News of God's infinite generosity.
We cannot express God's freely given, no-holds-barred generosity if we keep ourselves in the darkness of our beliefs about money.
Nor can we bring the fullness of Christ-light to our parishioners and colleagues when we haven’t brought our own beliefs into the light for conscious, prayerful reflection.
First, we need to be released.
And the path towards freedom begins with an examen of conscience—a laying bare of our souls before God.
In order to preach as purely and truthfully as we can, we start by bringing what we hold in the dark out to the light—naming what is.
The truth will set us free.
This process will only happen with intention.
How to bring your beliefs about money into the light for more effective stewardship preaching
1) Ask yourself hard questions
To better understand your underlying feelings, consider these questions.
Bring them with you into prayer, journaling, spiritual direction, counseling, confession and—dare I suggest—conversation with colleagues.
Be tireless in your examen until you have discovered the unvarnished truth about your feelings and beliefs about:
your personal financial situation:
What is your comfort level talking about money?
Do you feel you are paid what you're "worth?"
Would your answer to the above change if you broke down your stipend into an hourly wage based on the actual number of hours you work?
others’ compensation:
Really and truly, what do you feel towards wealthy congregations who pay their clergy staff exceedingly well? How do you feel knowing they receive gifts of gratitude (from Christmas gifts to parish bonuses, to vacation spots) that you'll never receive? How do you treat them when in the same room together?
Really and truly, if you're one of the clergy who are well taken care of financially, how do you feel towards the clergy who won't "amount" to your level of income, power, or renown?
your vocation as a ministry and your dependence on others’ generosity:
How do you feel about your financial dependence on the generosity of others?
What are your feelings about spoken church culture that, because we are engaged in ministry, we "shouldn't" be paid what our equivalent level of education is paid in corporate culture?
How do you wrestle with Jesus' words to the rich young man to give away his wealth if we are to follow him?
As honestly as possible, reflect on your beliefs about money and the ways those beliefs shape your behaviors and attitudes.
Invite the spirit to free you from falsehoods and shine light on truth.
2) Challenge Assumptions
To get at the nuances of your beliefs, for each idea or belief you write down and consider, try writing the opposite and see what arises.
Try writing or reflecting on different variations of ideas.
See what questions arise.
For example, take the unspoken—and once said aloud, obviously untrue—belief, “Gifted clergy should not be wasted on small and rural congregations.”
What happens when you flip the idea on its head?
Gifted clergy should not be wasted on large and urban congregations.
Gifted clergy could be most influential in small and rural congregations.
Less gifted clergy should be assigned to large and urban congregations where resources are more secure.
Ungifted clergy should be placed in small and rural congregations.
All clergy are gifted.
No clergy are gifted.
All clergy are equipped to serve in large and urban congregations.
All clergy are equipped to serve in small and rural congregations.
All clergy are gifted in ways that are essential to the Church.
Clergy should be assigned to the congregations where their particular gifts are most needed.
What kinds of questions do these statements surface?
Who are “gifted” clergy?
Who decides which gifts are needed where? How are gifts evaluated? How are needs evaluated?
Which clergy gifts are publicly celebrated?
Which clergy gifts are publicly undervalued?
What are my gifts? Are they recognized? Am I serving in a congregation where they are needed and valued?
You’ll be amazed at the depth and complexity that reveals itself when you begin to dig deeply into certain beliefs, consider the opposites or alternatives, and prayerfully think through yours—and others’—assumptions.
What does this exercise reveal to you?
What does it free in you?
Might these discoveries free your parishioners, too?
3) Allow your self-examen to grow your empathy for parishioners
Truth-telling increases our capacity for empathy for our parishioners, helping us "hear" our stewardship sermons as those in the pews do.
Once you better understand the feelings and beliefs shaping your own attitude toward money, can you apply these questions to your parishioners?
Put yourself in their shoes and circumstances.
How might they hear your sermon on stewardship? As invitation or demand? As liberating or burdening? As moving them closer to your congregation if they contribute, or setting them outside of it if they can't?
How might you surface unnamed assumptions or false beliefs with your preaching?
What would happen if you courageously named the hard truths and untruths?
Examining our relationship with money requires tremendous courage, so I pray for it—mine as much as yours.
I pray we allow Christ to shine light wherever money incites fear and divides us from each other.