ken wilson online

So you wanna be a pastor? Get a paying job first. First figure out how to make money apart from the church. Get a business degree, for example. Or some other degree that allows you to profitably enter the workplace after four years of college. Not a religious studies degree which prepares you to study religion, which you can do on our own time anyway. (While you’re working, get out of debt. Do not pass go until you’ve gotten yourself out of the debt jail.) Then seminary or whatever pastor training you like. Having figured out how to make money, hold onto your money making capacity for as long as you can, should you go to work in a church. I kept my R.N. license alive as long as I could, before letting it lapse.

What does this do for you? It gives you some important internal freedom. You don’t have to work for the church in order to make a living. If you’re married it helps your marriage. Your spouse knows that if push comes to shove you can leave your church employment. In the event it’s killing you or your marriage or your family. If you spouse doesn’t know this, the church can become a rival lover. Not good for the marriage. And it gives you experience. You’ll be calling people to commit time and money to the church enterprise. How can you do that if you haven’t done it? You who are paid to be a Christian.

Whatever you do: don’t go to college, accumulating, what, 24K in debt (the average, I’ve heard) followed by seminary (which is outlandishly expensive) which prepares you to work in a church at an entry level that doesn’t pay all that well, if you haven’t noticed. Saddled, is how you will feel and I would spare you that. So face the money demon and tame it. Figure out how you can make it, apart from the church. Then you’ll be free to serve the Lord in the employ of the church.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 1st, 2008 at 4:31 pm and is filed under advice to young pastors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.