Encourage Serving

Comments for Some Congregations Have a Problem – Believe Me!

Wednesday, September 22, 2010 by Kirk Bolt:

I am so glad to see your article! I am very thankful that I am in a congregation where a policy is in place that requires that all of the lead teachers in each of the classrooms must be called. (Aides and other staff are contracted and must only hold state certification.) I know our school and congreation as a whole has been blessed because of that. We are much stronger and more unified in our teamwork as a family than when I arrived 18 years ago when only 3 people were called. It is not perfect. Because of economics, only 4 faculty members have 12-month calls while the others have been called to serve for 10 months each year. We do have 2 pastors who take advantage of every opportunity they can to compliment, support, and promote our school.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010 by David Kummer:

With the same or nearly the same amount of education as a physician, lawyer, and certainly an MBA graduate, I believe The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod needs to get serious about paying pastors and church workers what the "market" would pay them. For too long, Christians in The LC-MS have had the mindset, "Well, they work for the Church. They know they are not suppose to get paid as much." Certainly, everyone who enters our Lord's ministry professionally expects to get paid less. How sad! One would think that they would get paid more! People all the time tell me that nothing is more important than their congregation or that nothing is more important than Jesus. It's time The LC-MS have a synodical conversation about appropriate pay for professional church workers. I'm at the point where if a congregation or other calling agency cannot afford the market rate, then the question needs to be asked, "Should that congregation or calling agency even be in the market." I've served an inner city congregation with limited resources and now serve a congregation whose people would be considered upper, middle class. The former and the latter both paid me according to District "Guidelines." It still wasn't enough. My wife was forced to work. Some might say that other women are forced to work, why shouldn't the pastor's? There are many practical reasons why a pastor's wife should not have to work, if she doesn't choose to do so. Theologically, though, it tells the world that The LC-MS doesn't really "value" the work of the Gospel. Stated differently and in cliche form, "It's time to put our money where our mouth is." If we really value the work of The Gospel as it takes shape in The Office of The Holy Ministry and callings stemming from it, we need to pay the people who serve in those callings appropriately!

Wednesday, September 22, 2010 by Robin Fish, Sr.:

The problem is of long standing, and it has very little to do with pay-rates. Pastors can live with smaller salaries if the people respect the office and honor in some way the one who fills it faithfully. It is a species of unbelief. If they treasure the Gospel, they will treasure the messenger. If they don't quite believe it, they will deal with the pastor and the faithful Lutheran teacher as just an employee, and will take advantage of them, or abuse them in a worldly fashion. And you are right, church leaders often don't want to face reality. They want to blame it on the worker. How often don't we hear the old saw, "He (or she) didn't do himself any favors when he . . ." Behind almost every problem of this sort is doctrine - doctrine that the abusers don't want to accept.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010 by Richard Benken:

Many years ago I received a call, the salary for which would have put me so severely into poverty that I would have had to apply for food stamps. I wrote to them explaining the situation and suggesting that I couldn't give honest consideration to their call because of the salary, to which they replied "our conscience won't permit us to give a higher salary", to which I replied "and mine won't permit me to consider the call you have sent."

Wednesday, September 22, 2010 by Linda Dybwad:

My husband and I have always deliberately recruited youth for church work professions and many of our former students are in church work or at least were for a time.It is truly difficult for us to do recruiting now. Rather than feeling confident that we are nurturing them into wonderful ministries that will use their gifts for the Lord, we fear for their future and even their faith because of the church's lack of caring support, love, honor, and financial care. Our district school superintendent has told a DCE friend of ours that no one is calling DCE's and has offered little or no support in helping him find a new call or position after being laid off to solve the congregtions budget short fall. Our Lutheran school is dismissing the synodical, experienced teachers because they "are too expensive", and even keeping teachers with no state certification which will affect accreditation as well. A single female teacher was dismissed after 37 years of service at the same school, with no insurance allowance,not even a word of thank you from the board or administration, not even a public 'retirement' celebration or recognition. She is paying her own Concordia Plans from her savings and thanks God for Thrivent savings plans. We balk at encouraging young people to answer a call to ministry when the likelihood of experiencing an administration that has turned into a bully is quite likely. The executive director's wife is still teaching at the school so they have two incomes and she has none. The executive directors wife was even placed in a grade level for which she was not qualified or gifted so she could stay on staff while others were told to leave. The parents stood in line on the last day of school to say thank you and hug the teacher who was dismissed after 37 years,one set of grandparents had gifted the school with $1,000.00 after they witnessed her work in her classroom last year. Now she looks for work while a 3rd year, non-synodical, contract teacher with no colloquy work, and a husband who has a good job is teaching in her classroom. The district and the pastors do nothing. I am guessing that if several pastors were dismissed by their congregations in this area over the last few years their would be an uproar??? Solutions? Pastors with Scriptural integrity and conflict resolution training and faith in our synodical system that would actually attend school board meetings, give devotions, listen to what is going on, and provide spiritual counsel, yes, even to administrators. Solutions? Minutes of board meetings published for congregations and parents to read. Solutions? A way for school boards and congregations to prevent school administrators from centralizing all decision making unto themselves. When I was an administrator, I was accountable to the board,made up of church members, and hiring and firing, spending of money, etc. had to be discussed and approved by them or at least permission asked of them. Solutions? Administrators should be evaluated in the same way that teachers are and held accountable. Solutions? Priorities re-evaluated! The teachers that are being kept at the school are kept because of the extra curricular things they do...they coach a sport, lead cheerleading, etc. The teachers that were dismissed this last year were not deemed "as valuable" as the others for this reason (actual words used by administrators) Solutions? Administrators should be able to be dismissed as well...they are drawing the largest salaries and are the biggest drain on the budget and are bullies in more way than one and yet they are still employed. No one questions what they are doing while the school goes downhill! Where are the pastors, where are the congregations? Some of us on our bad days are saying where is God? We know he is here among us, but we are not sure He lives in the hearts of those making decisions in our school or district. Some teachers can seek a call and move on and have...some like the single female cannot do that on her own...The Lutheran Reporter says seek help from district...our district says "we don't interfere because of the chance of a lawsuit". The LEA journal article on RIF says to seek help from district...there is none. Enough for now...we remain in prayer and trust in God's plan, however difficult leaders in our church make it to continue to do so

Monday, September 27, 2010 by Dale M Kleimola:

I found your blog just last week through linkedin or another social network. I read your latest "What a Way" essay with interest. I know quite well the point you make. I was pastor of one such congregation. And the congregation had such a pastor. The problem is, as I see it, a lack of any process which holds neither congregation nor pastors accountable to another. This point, lack of pastoral accountability/supervision comes clear to me as one who is seeking a second career. Every application asks the same question: Who was your supervisor. I am at a loss as to how to respond. A DP does not know enough about a pastor's day to day activity to be a supervisor. The congregation's head elder, chairman or another congregational leader (unless a retired pastor) does not understand a pastor's responsibility well enough to come up with an objective evaluation. Of course, the same can be said of congregations. I believe the point you make is important for strengthening Walther's thesis Church and Authority. From experience and research, we do not really have any clear means by which both congregations and clergy are held accountable for their actions or lake of action. Thanks for creating the blog. It has a great deal of potential for improving communication. Dale

Monday, October 11, 2010 by Fritz Schmitt:

I would like to reinforce much of what D. Kleimola said, but also add that a "process" would not necessarily help. It is more important to have a DP or other individual who will act on the authority available, or prompt, prod or goad the proper authority to take appropriate action. I have personally experienced or witnessed cases where a DP felt he didn't have any authority to act on behalf of a pastor who was improperly removed by a ministry board and I know of other DPs who would have taken action under the same circumstances. I am not supportive of recruiting new pastors because I see too many pastors not willing to care for the problems of the church beyond their own flock. As well I see a lack of well educated lay people supportive of sound Lutheran doctrine and too many people and pastors willing to sample what sounds good from other traditions and denominations. If a seminary graduate sees in his first congregation a need to bring his people to a more Lutheran viewpoint he is likely to get very little assistance if he runs into trouble.

Monday, November 29, 2010 by Tom Van Duzer:

A number of years ago I was drafted to preside over a charitable institution whose board could not get along. After a contentious outburst one board member proposed an amendment to the group's constitution that "Board members would respect each other." I kindly reminded her that if you need respect, an amendment wouldn't do it. I will write only of the pastoral office. Teachers and DCEs have my utmost admiration, but their interaction with the bodies that call and support them is different than the pastor. The problem of pastoral/congregational respect, support, and care is something that is only satisfactorily achieved under the Gospel. Any law attempt to impose respect, care, etc. under a process, procedure, or guideline will ultimately fail, because it is a Law answer. The balance of pastoral authority with congregational autonomy is not explained in procedural detail in Scripture. I liken it to a dance. You need a leader, you need a follower, but when the dancing is done right, no one can tell which is which, and its hard for the dancers to explain how it gets done. I have never worked any other profession, so I don’t know if there is any difference in how people are treated, but from what I gather from parishioners, pastors receive more emotional care than others in their professions. The kicker is that we 1) expect more emotional/spiritual/relational interaction in our profession, 2) we must give more, and 3) we can’t fellowship with our congregation as a salve for problems at work.

Tuesday, November 30, 2010 by Edward Obermueller:

As a pastor for 7 years in an east-coast congregation with very little receptivity to the pastoral ministry or understanding of what was necessary to support it financially, I have been shocked to find that very little awareness and even less activist support is coming from anywhere, not the District, not the Seminary, not the Synod, not the Circuit, nowhere. An over-stated congregational autonomy is near to the root of the problem and that MUST be addressed theologically. This is going to be painful because it represents a paradigm shift AWAY from Walther, at least in part. To begin with, congregations do not naturally "arrive" at supportive systems and structures for pastors and called church workers. They must be TAUGHT how to do this, (in a "Congregation 101" type format?), AND they must be REQUIRED to do it in order to receive a call or a placement from seminary. Otherwise we throw the pastor (or the DCE, or teacher) to the wolves, so to speak. Who will oversee and direct this sort of congregational requirement? Who will help the synod achieve a different sense of its governance so that some mandates are put in place for the support of professional church workers? The relationship of "advisory only" for District Presidents to congregations disempowers the whole thing from ever standing a chance of working. I believe it is also unbiblical: there should be those in offices who have ecclesiastical authority over churches and congregations and who can actively "go to bat" for workers. Absent such a framework or an intention to put one in place, I would be very hesitant to encourage anyone to go into this line of work, at least not in our church body.

Thursday, December 2, 2010 by Vance Becker:

My father was a farmer/mechanic. He had little formal education but greatly valued education and promoted Lutheran schools. My father had a way with junk. He claimed that if he could take something apart, he could fix it. One of our favorite stories was the time he fixed the grain drier at the grain elevator during harvest witih a corn cob and a piece of baleing wire. Our yard was full of old cars, washing machines, etc. that he used for parts. When he took a load to the county dump, sometimes he came back with as much as he left with, saying, "I can make something out of this." Many of his creations were cobbled together junk, but he was able to do work with them. I share this because my Heavenly Father has a way with junk. His son came to this busted junkyard of a world intending to take a bunch of junk home with him. He does this because he can fix anything with a wooden cross. But first he takes it apart, body from soul, gets rid of the sinful garbage, and puts it back together again. Meanwhile, a lot of the stuff he works with is cobbled together junk, but he does good work with it. In my job as a pastor, I work as creatively as I can with busted up junk. A lot of the equipment in my office is second hand junk and I have lived in a parsonage equipped with old, second hand stuff. This requires work-arounds that consume time and energy and are often frustrating. The people I work with are often broken and malfunctioning. This consumes a lot of time and energy in frustrating work-arounds. They don't do things at church they should do and they try to do things they shouldn't because their lives outside of church are full of brokenness too. The things and the people in their jobs, their families, etc. don't work they way they are supposed to. But still they manage to work around it and get some stuff done. On a recent evangelism outreach project, no one was interested in helping me except a woman who had mental problems. But she was eager to help and faithful and we were able to do some good work. I have yet to see any results, but we did the work and planted the seeds. Have I mentioned yet that I am cobbled together junk? Even when I do my best, I don't work very well. But my Father is good at fixing junk and using junk and findiing work-arounds that manage to do what needs to be done. In my ministry, I have only encouraged a few young men to enter the ministry because I haven't seen many that I think have the academic and social intelligence, the creativity and the dedication to God to be able to do it. One that I thought would be a good pastor left the Lutheran church, another ended up being homosexual, another pretty much quit going to church when he started college, another has his heart set on being a medical missionary. Some people seem to think that church work is like being a hunter/gatherer. It involves going and finding the right people and the right setting and the right tools to be successful in gathering the right church. I think it is a lot more like being a farmer. It involves using the tools you have to plant the seed you have in the place where you are and seeing what growth God gives. My Father is a gardener who works with junk. I am a gardener and I hope, by God's grace, to accomplish something with junk.

Friday, December 3, 2010 by Dean:

Vance, remember St. Paul saying you are now a new creation. You serve God's new creations in people washed by His Word. 2 Corinthians 5:17, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new." Galatians 6 is good, too.

Tuesday, December 7, 2010 by Vance Becker:

Dean, this is most certainly true, and that is the beauty of it. Within these cracked clay pots of ours (or flimsy yet un-get-rid-of-able plastic bags, to use a modern metaphor) we have a priceless treasure which shines out through the cracks. We plastic bags would lie in a heap on the floor unless we were filled with the precious gifts of God which make us stand upright. So, does our brokenness excuse the dysfunctional ways some churches and church people act? Not at all! Does it excuse servants and leaders in the church throwing up our hands and saying there is nothing we can do? No, not this either! Does this mean I don't regularly feel like doing this anyway? No, I certainly do. Does this mean I will follow my feelings and do so? Heaven forbid! Instead I will continue to seek God and his glory which he hides among the lowly things of this world, continue to watch for the yet and not yet of his kingdom, continue to trust in his sufficient grace for those things which are not yet healed, and continue to faithfully do whatever can be done to bring healing and strength to the body of Christ, working as if all depended on us and praying as if all depended on God (which, of course, it does). By the way, did I do something embarrassing that made everyone else be quiet or go away? To the point you originally raised, as a circuit counselor I have worked recently with a parish that booted its second pastor in a row (third in 30 years) because he, in his human way, did the best he could to be faithful to the doctrine and practices of our church. I have been the target of a secretive plot by a lay staff and other leaders to get rid of me for the same reasons and have survived with the support of the elders but seen a third of our worshippers silently leave the church. Our church's school board cut teacher pay in half a couple of years ago and continues to treat the teachers less than respectfully. This was during and after a months long Bible study series on how to be a healthy congregation. Yes, we have problems and I sure would like to know what can be done about it.

Saturday, January 29, 2011 by Jakob Heckert:

Some comments show the pain, which we as sinful human beings inflict on each other in the church. Yet, as someone pointed out, what we need is to comprehend, who we are through our baptism into Christ, and how the Spirit of the Son, given us in baptism, shapes our lives according to the will of our heavenly Father. Then in relation to our Father's will we need to confront the reality of our behavior, which is out of sync with that will, confess it before the Father and one another, receive the Spirit's forgiveness through word and sacrament, and then let the Spirit of the Son at work in and through us have his way in our life. Our Lord says, "Come to me all you who are struggling and carrying heavy burdens and I will give you relief" (Matthew 11.28).
I would suggest that we ask for pastors, teachers, and lay people on the circuit level to form a team confidentially to help pastors, teachers, and congregations to resolve conflicts and help them live in the freedom and the joy to which our Lord has called them. I would be willing to help in any way I can.
I am teaching a New Testament class at the present time. When we come to the New Testament letters, through which the Holy Spirit not only constantly restores us into Christ but also empowers us to live our lives according to the will of our Father, I could bring up this matter of tension, financial difficulties, and lack of care and appreciation for one another as members of God's people. Maybe we could come with some ideas and provide help to whoever would like to have it.
Blessings to one and all.

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