God the economist

Yesterday I was involved in a conversation on facebook. It was about how we can encourage Student Mission. But a few people posted and things shifted a little. One of the contributors said that we should hire Youth and Student workers not based upon age, but on ability, referring to the fact that most Youth Workers are probably not much older than the youths they are serving. Which I could not disagree with.

Then he said that Pastors should take a pay cut, so that better wages could be offered to Youth Workers, which would mean you get better quality candidates. I have two objections to this, one which I felt I should counter act in the discussion. I pointed out that I was a pastor and that my £9k a year plus housing would not leave much more room for a pay cut, and that if the church wanted to pay people better then they need to be as generous with supporting mission activities at home, as we often are with activities across the world (please notice the use of the word "as" rather than "instead").

But the other aspect bothered me more and has troubled me. Why do we continue to think that business practice should work in every context of church life? So if you want the best MD/CEO you have to be prepared to pay the big figures ergo if you want the best youth workers you pay them more, if you want a better quality of minister - you pay them more. This is business practice entering a world of calling.

Now I would not object to better pay, but the pay packet is not the reason I do what I do. There is a burning sense of call, it sits in me, and I cannot ignore it. Like Jonah I ignored it for awhile, because the sacrifices were so great, but I could not continue like that. The reality is that better money would not encourage the best, those that are committed to doing it despite the sacrifices, those that want to do it even when you look at your pay slip and wonder how the bills are going to get paid. Better pay would encourage those who looked at it as an easy option.

People going into Ministry - pastoral, missionary, youth, student etc not because of they pay, but despite it.

The funny thing is that we still trust in business to solve all our problems. So despite the fact that reckless businessmen (bankers) caused the recession we entered in 2008, we still trust them to bail us out. The future is growth; apparently, during the political conferences all the parties seem obsessed on ways to stimulate growth. Business economics is based continual unstoppable growth, leading to greater profits, leading higher dividends, leading to happy shareholders. Big businesses do not care about the customers, they care about their stakeholders, they care about the faceless investors, they multitude of shareholders. They swallow up the opposition, in order to become bigger and bigger fish in their pool, their employees are just a resource (Human resources is a disturbing phrase), they will switch and squeeze suppliers, transfer local jobs to where the can manufacture cheaper, force people at the bottom of the chain to work for long hours, for as low a pay as possible. I just don't get why the church is so keen to follow the model.

As I said it would be nice to be paid more, but I don't think that model will work. But the model the Bible gives us is much better but so much harder:

 ²³ When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was very wealthy. ²⁴ Jesus looked at him and said, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! ²⁵ Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
 ²⁶ Those who heard this asked, “Who then can be saved?”
 ²⁷ Jesus replied, “What is impossible with man is possible with God.”
 ²⁸ Peter said to him, “We have left all we had to follow you!”
   ²⁹ “Truly I tell you,” Jesus said to them, “no one who has left home or wife or brothers or sisters or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God ³⁰ will fail to receive many times as much in this age, and in the age to come eternal life.” (emphasis added)