What do today's churches generally spend money on?
The answer is a simple and profound three-headed monster: pastors, buildings, and programs. The vast majority of most church budgets go toward covering these three things. The budgets themselves may seem more complicated than this, and in detail they probably are. However, when looking at the big picture it is clear that a huge percentage of the funds are used to pay for the salaries of the pastor(s), building mortgage and upkeep, and a wide variety of programs.
What's wrong with this situation?
What's wrong is that Jesus himself instructed his followers to give to meet the needs of others.
When the church spends most of its money on itself, it is disobeying Christ's command to help those who cannot help themselves. Putting a check in an offering plate, knowing that it will largely go toward pastors, buildings, and programs, does not exactly conform to Jesus' wishes.
Professional pastors sit right at the heart of this sordid situation. They actually take home more money from the church than goes to meet the needs of those who have no where else to turn. As a salaried pastor myself, I always felt weird putting a check in the offering plate, knowing that some of that same money would come back to me in the form of a paycheck. The longer I toiled as pastor the worse I felt.
When pastors accept a paycheck for services rendered, they give the message to the entire church family that it is just fine for the church to spend most of its money on itself. It ought not be this way.
Professional pastor friends, please resign today. The message you will send will be a blessed one.
(The above is part twenty of 25 Reasons Professional Pastors Should Resign.)
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