Should Pastors Be Compensated? If so how much?

[heb13-13]

(07-26-2009 11:33 AM)Pilgrim Wrote:  Good morning. Had my caffeine this morning.

I feel that today there is an opportunity to help people who are at their wits end. The world that they accepted as real is falling apart, and will do so even more in the next year. These people are losing their homes, jobs, relationships, and need someone to turn to. Is "our" only answer to say they have to go into a church building and pay 10-20% of their salary (after their husband or wife or themselves got laid off, about to lose their homes, can't even pay their existing bills, or provide sufficient food)?????? I don't see food banks demanding 10% of someone's income just to provide food to them. Why does a church?

If that is the Church's answer, then the church has failed.

The church model that many of us grew up with is failing today, and with good reason. The model for the denominational church is no longer sustainable. (My opinion)

Ok, am going to be off the caffeine for at least 2 hours..

That was a great post and I wanted to ask you one thing. Do you grind your coffee fresh every morning?

Seriously, I wanted to respond and maybe add to something you said about the "church model".

Today's church model does not even look like the NT model. The NT model was first and foremost not an organization that had a payment system.

Secondly, it was not a spectator oriented model but a participatory model. No one sat in pews and fellowshipped with the back of someone's cranium for 2 hours.

1Cor 14:26 How is it then, brethren? when ye come together, every one of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a revelation, hath an interpretation. Let all things be done unto edifying.

Does your Bible say, EVERYONE of YOU in 1 Cor 14:26?

How could 1 Cor 14:26 take place if one man was speaking all the time in every meeting? Jesus Christ desires to speak through all the members of the Body. He is way too big, just for one man. One man cannot handle or receive all the things that the Holy Spirit is speaking to a fellowship. That is why there is no Priestcraft or select Priesthood in the NT. We are all "priests unto our God".

Rev 1:6 And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

A family is a microcosm of the Church. The way a family meets and interacts is a microcosm of the Church. There are Elders in a family and they nurture the younger NOT BY PREPARED MESSAGES. You want to kill a family and drive everyone away? Tell them to sit down, be quiet and listen to the Father and his "prepared messages", everyday.

Well, that is exactly what has happened to the Organizational Church today. They have castrated the men spiritually (because they tell them to sit down, be quiet, tithe and listen) and most churches are more influenced by the women, flattering and cow-towing to the Preacher and influencing him to start this program or that program. But the women have been affected adversely, too. They feel bad that their Man is not into Church like they are and try to compensate for it. Most men see "Church" as we know it today as irrelevent. They don't know exactly why, but I will tell you they are sensing it correctly.

Men were made for action. To do and create and accomplish things. And today's religious system renders them impotent. When they read the Bible, they don't see them doing the things that were done in the book of Acts. But this is precisely what we should all be doing today. Living the Book of Acts. Doing great exploits for God.

Elders in a family nurture by love, example, instruction, and this takes so many forms. They raise their children to hopefully be better than them and they certainly don't raise them to stay children and be dependent upon them their whole lifes. That is sick. And again, that is why so many in denominational churches are SICK (spiritually) and have so many problems.

In a family they allow free expression and teach each other that to have healthy relationships they must walk in forgiveness. Mom and Dad should be an example of this in front of their children. Grandpa and Grandma and Aunts and Uncles, should all be examples of caring tenderly for the young. All the Elders in a family desire for the younger ones to grow up and be stronger, smarter and more successful than they. No one, wants their children to grow up and be less.

In a healthy church family, there are MANY pastors just like in an extended earthly family (Mom, Dad, Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, very close family friends, etc). This is simply a gifting. Did you know that there is neither male nor female in Christ Jesus.

We are called to "pastor", "shepherd", one another. My older kids look after and pastor/shepherd their younger siblings. The younger siblings must learn to respect their older siblings and receive from them.

There should be many male and females in a fellowship with the gifting of Pastor.

If you go by today's model that would be wrong. Today's model which looks nothing like the NT, requires one Pastor, OVER the sheep who is a MAN. Today's model takes the NT term of PASTOR and creates a Profession out of it.

Are we Pastor-Haters???

I would think not. Most of us in this forum have a gifting of Pastor. We pastor many people. It is just one gifting that many have. The problem is that the gifting of PASTOR in the NT has been hijacked by the Religious system and people have lost sight that this is a gifting that God has handed out quite liberally to many in the Church.

You know a person has the gifting of PASTOR when they fulfill the following scripture.

Jer 3:15 And I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding.

Can Pastors get their eyes of the Lord and change?
Jer 10:21 For the pastors are become brutish, and have not sought the LORD: therefore they shall not prosper, and all their flocks shall be scattered.

I have seen brutish parents scatter their flocks and I have seen brutish Pastors in the Religious system scatter their flocks.

Jer 23:1 Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! saith the LORD.

Eph 4:11 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;
Eph 4:12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:

Most people think of work as something they should be paid for, quite naturally. Paul mentions the word "work" in Eph 4:11, and the religious system thinks of a paid profession.

Eph 4:13 Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:

We are all suppose to grow up!!! You cannot grow up when one man always takes responsibility and everyone else are spoon fed by him their whole lives.

Eph 4:14 That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;

Paul is not talking about people in the world, in Eph 4:14.


Eph 4:15 But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:

Grow up in Him, IN ALL THINGS. The operative word is GROW UP. And the vehicle is speaking the truth in love.

Eph 4:16 From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.

By one MAN, only? NO! The whole body. Every joint is supplying. And we aren't talking about some people that stack chairs, and some people that mow the grass that surrounds the "BUILDING", and some people that are janitors, etc, etc. Paul is talking about everyone is involved in supplying to the Body, those things that build up and edify. And it is all done by and through love just like it should be done in your very own earthly family.

Love my brothers and sisters, is Jesus Christ. And love prefers others, wants to hear from others what God has put on their hearts and is speaking to the Body. Love allows people to express themselves and share the good things that God has deposited within them. Love nurtures the children (physical and spiritual) that God has put into your lives and you desire only the best for them even to the neglect of yourself.

You never, ever want any payment or remnuneration from your kids. You never have an attitude that they "OWE YOU".

OWE NO MAN ANYTHING BUT LOVE.

Rom 13:8 Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.

This is precisely why the Religious system is a failure, and doomed to continue to fail.

They treat God's family, not as a fellowship of believers, mutually submitted to one another in love, but as an Organization, where the members are submitted to the Leaders in duty.

I have been singing this song for 30 years and have learned a couple of things.

1. You will never change the religious system. You cannot. It is impossible. Don't try. Just leave peacefully and pray that God leads you to people that know Him and love Him and seek only Him and the edification of others.

2. God's people do exist. Some are in the CAMP and some are outside the CAMP. We are not called to pluck up the tares from among the wheat. Mt 13. We are not qualified and the Lord said not to do it.

3. Mat 18:20 For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. The Church is people, not an organization and certainly not a building.

Rom 15:1 We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves.
Rom 15:2 Let every one of us please his neighbour for his good to edification.
Rom 15:3 For even Christ pleased not himself; but, as it is written, The reproaches of them that reproached thee fell on me.

All through the ages, God has always had a Remnant. Those who will follow the Lamb whithersoever He goes. Rev 14:4

Rom 15:13 Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.
Rom 15:14 And I myself also am persuaded of you, my brethren, that ye also are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able also to admonish one another.

When you begin to see the Church as a FAMILY like it is in the NT, the whole topic of PAYMENT and COMPENSATION becomes a MOOT POINT. Something foreign and uncomprehensible to raising a family.

God will always take care of those that are "working" for Him, and Paul knew this quite well.

No, we are not PASTOR-HATERS, we just know that there is a certain way to raise a family as laid out in God's Word and there is a certain way to destroy a family, as also laid out in God's Word. God speaks much about this in Jeremiah and Ezekiel.

I guess I would ask, then, IS GOD A PASTOR-HATER?

He says some very strong things against Pastors in the OT that I am sure they were indignant at. The Words came through Jeremiah. I wonder if Jeremiah was called a Pastor-Hater?

Jer 12:10 Many pastors have destroyed my vineyard, they have trodden my portion under foot, they have made my pleasant portion a desolate wilderness.
Jer 12:11 They have made it desolate, and being desolate it mourneth unto me; the whole land is made desolate, because no man layeth it to heart.

It breaks God's heart what is happening to His people and it should break our heart, too. In many cases, those of us who are outside the camp are helping to pick up the broken pieces of people's lives and restore them. And that is Pastoring, too.