I once met a pastor who ridiculed me because of the number of members in the church I used to serve. I had just been posted to a church with not more than ten active members. The posting was meant to discipline me as I was part of the leadership of revival meetings that had been prohibited by then. Also, the posting was intended to discourage me from serving in ministry and stop participating in the revival meetings. Life became unbearable at that time, but I soldiered on and kept my faith. I was just newly married, and my wife had joined college, so you can imagine how it was surviving on meager or no income. I am thankful to God who has made me reach this far and those who have stood with me in this faith journey.
So, one time, by chance, I was nominated to attend an international youth gathering in the same situation, and I had to travel to go and apply for a visa. Here, I met a pastor serving in an urban ministry and wanted to know the number of members in the church I was serving. When I disclosed the number, the pastor laughed at me and wondered how I was surviving by serving in a church with less than ten people and making it, worse in the rural area.
The pastor meant that to be successful in ministry, one needs to serve in a church with many members to earn a better income. Again, working towards increasing membership is important, too, as this helps increase your income. Therefore, being successful in ministry is determined by the number of members in the church and what you earn.
When I decided to start serving in ministry, I was not bothered with how to survive or even what I will earn as income. It may have been an awkward way of looking at life because you need, for instance, the basic needs of life to survive. In this case, what you earn as income is vital for survival, and in most cases, in some setups, it is believed that this has only to come from the church members. It may be debatable, but even as I write, many of those serving as pastors, primarily where I serve their income solely comes from the church. Therefore, if the number of people in the church you serve as a pastor is low, there is a likeliness of having a less or minimal income that will not sustain your living.
At times this has made even some pastors refuse to go and serve where there are a few members. There are instances even where there is a substantial number of members in the church; you will still find that the income some of the pastors get is very minimal. What one gains as income while serving as a pastor sometimes discourages those who intend to train and serve as pastors. The attachment to what one gets as income while serving as a pastor may even lead to compromising with situations that at times are questionable. There are chances of being fearful of not getting the payment if a pastor speaks against sin. Yes, it is necessary to earn income while serving as a pastor, but in this changing world, the critical question to ask is how?
I realized later that solely depending on getting income from the church you serve may be challenging. Again, here it depends on where you serve because there are other places where funds have been set aside that may not necessarily come directly from members used to pay pastors and meet other needs. Otherwise, in a setup where a pastor depends on members’ contributions, it may not be easy to sustain the ministry and even take care of the family and meet the basic needs.
What firmly pushed me to start serving in ministry was that God will always provide while I serve in ministry. The most significant bone of contention in my calling to serve in ministry was how I would survive. Many people were concerned, including my father, who was worried that I had made the wrong decision. By then, I had not married, and the question was how would I take care of my family? And was I ready to depend on handouts for the rest of my life? Indeed, these were perturbing questions, but I was not bothered either as all I knew was that God would provide.
Later, I remember someone asked me how I made it through in ministry with minimal or no pay, and my answer was simple, that God has been providing. The conversation did not stop there, but I discovered from the discussion that the coinage “God will provide” can be wrongly used as an exploitative tool in the context of oppression. Oppressors will use such coinages to meet their selfish desires. For instance, in history, this can be depicted in the hermeneutical stances applied by missionaries that might have impacted our forefathers negatively.
I always use the example of my grandfather, whom I believe with the influence of the missionaries preaching, trusted in God’s provision, which may have negatively impacted his life. I learned from some of those who lived during my grandfather’s time that the predominant missionaries’ teaching of inheriting the Kingdom of God where everything will be provided for free had a negative influence. It was assumed that riches would be in heaven, which presumably was the Kingdom of God, but not here on earth, and even being rich here on earth may make someone not inherit the Kingdom of God.
In one way or the other, riches could easily be a hindrance in inheriting the Kingdom of God. It relates to the conversation between the rich young man and Jesus where Jesus finally tells him, “again I tell you, 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” (Matthew 19:24). Most of those who abided by this teaching ended up living in poverty.
There are possibilities for continuing such hermeneutical stances in the contemporary world. It may even be significantly influenced by the attachment of wanting to succeed in ministry. It can be evidenced when a pastor of the church lives lavishly with wealth acquired from the contributions of members of the church who languish in poverty. In most cases, the members are swayed by being convinced that the more they give, the more they will be blessed. There are cases where people donate all their salary on the pretext of being blessed. There is the danger of being passive in oppressive situations under the guise of believing God will provide or even bless you more.
Care must be taken in the way God’s provision is understood, taught, and applied in given contexts. It is only God who makes it possible in ways that are beyond human capability to make provision in unique ways. A good example is where Elijah was fed during the famine by the ravens and later by the widow. She lived at Zarephath in the land of Sidon (1Kings 17: 2-16). Also, in God, providing does not mean you will just sit, and things work out. You must do your part. An excellent example of using here is that which I heard someone saying that we pray to God to bring rain, but the same God will not come to dig for us.
It demands that even as we trust that God will provide, we also need to have something that we should be doing to support the ministry. It is an idea embodied in some seminaries’ curricula that helps those training to serve in ministry. An example of this is while studying at Earlham School of Religion; I participated in an entrepreneurial ministry certificate study program. As a result of being part of this program, my wife and I have a farm where we can plant vegetables, corn, rear chicken, and do dairy farming that supplements our income.
Working hard to excel, for instance, in furthering your studies, can also be another avenue of God’s provision that can open other ways of getting income. Through God’s help, I continued with my studies, and a door opened that enabled me to start training those who intended to serve in ministry. In a way, this has helped, but still, the need of having other forms of increasing income that can support the ministry is necessary even as the family grows and the cost of living shoots. But I am thankful to God that at least the ministry that I do is sustainable.
While serving in ministry, there are instances where a pastor needs to support the church members. In this case, some pastors also go out of their way to support the churches they serve in. That is made possible by what pastors earn as income elsewhere. My dream has always been that pastors can entirely depend on their income to support the great ministry they do one day. Having training in programs that inculcates the idea of having ways of getting income to support pastoral work like that offered at Earlham School of Religion can be of great help.
I once attended a board meeting of a church and amongst the issues that were being discussed was the pastor’s salary. It was a different setting from where I used to serve because we were not salaried as pastors. So, in that meeting, a representative of the pastors whose church had a considerable number of members demanded that if the pastor’s salary is not increased, they will go to court.
After the meeting, I felt that was not the right way to go as a church. I thought there were better ways of solving problems in the church other than going to court. Maybe one way would have been helping the pastor get income that can support his ministry. Again, the attachment to what is earned while serving in ministry can lead to a financial crisis for the pastor and the church, negatively impacting the church. Of course, it may seem trivial, but if the pastor’s salary issue ended in the courts, it wouldn’t have augured so well.
I recently attended a service where a pastor confessed how he used to speak negatively to the church members because what he was earning was not sufficient. He revealed that the church had few members, and there were no chances of the members increasing. The number of churches that were within the vicinity was so many. So, what the pastor did was he started speaking positively to the members by encouraging them. He started to teach the members ways how they would support each other financially. Occasionally he would invite speakers to teach members on topics such as running income projects.
One way that became so helpful is when members would each contribute money and give it to one member at a time. Slowly by slowly, members became creative for instance, in starting small businesses that eventually improved the income of the members. All he did was not focus on what he was earning but on those he had been commissioned to serve. The pastor also contributed as other members did. When the pastor’s turn came to get the money, he had to open it for his wife a small business. With time the perspective of focusing only on what he earned from the church changed.
Being rich or wealthy is not wrong; it is necessary to support pastoral work fully. The scripture has examples of those who were rich and wealthy but ended up serving God faithfully. For instance, when God was calling Abraham, God promised Abram that he would be a great nation and that he would be blessed (Genesis 12:2). Abraham became wealthy. It is recorded, “Now Abram was very rich in livestock, in silver, and in gold” (Genesis 13:2). Later, Abraham is identified as the father of faith and a role model for all Christians and pastors (Romans 4:3).
There is a need also to be cautious when you become wealthy. Lessons can be drawn, for instance, from the parable of Lazarus and the rich (Luke 16:19-31) and the conversation between the rich young man and Jesus (Matthew 19:20-25). When God blesses us with riches and wealth, it is always important to use part of what we have in helping the poor. Again, we should always trust God, not the riches and wealth. It is recorded in Matthew 6, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will also be” (19-21).
We live in times where the number of members in church is decreasing in some parts of the world. It may be an indicator that even where the number of members in the church is increasing will also start reducing. It is a challenge that is with us, and even if that will not happen, there still will exist those who serve in churches with fewer people. It means striking a balance between what you earn and doing pastoral work will continue to prevail. However, it is not to refute that earning from where you serve as a pastor is wrong, but it should not be seen as a burden to the church.
It is also good to remember that the church is founded on the gathering in the presence of God. It comes into place by the power of Christ, as indicated in Matthew 18:20. “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” So, the church can have even as few as two or three members so long as Christ is amongst them. It evokes the sense of gathering in the power of Christ that needs to propel the success in ministry. The number of members in the church may not necessarily mean that you are not successful in ministry.
As a pastor, focusing on the number of members in the church and what you earn as a pastor at times can be discouraging. Many have given up on ministry, and the calling to serve. The question to ask is if the number of members in a church and what is earned are the determinant factors of success in ministry. These can be difficult, if helpful, questions. The intention of serving in ministry may determine how you view success in ministry, which may impact both the pastor and the church positively or negatively. The desperations and discouragements encountered when earning less or no income can be devastating. Having other ways of getting income can help sustain the ministry, thus succeeding.
Oscar Lugusa Malande is a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) Vihiga Yearly Meeting in Kenya and holds a Master of Arts in Religion and Certificate in Entrepreneurial Ministry from Earlham School of Religion. He is a doctoral student at the University of Birmingham, Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre. Oscar currently teaches at Friends Theological College Kaimosi in Kenya. Oscar is married to Zipporah Adema Mileha and they are blessed with four children, two girls, Axtel Imali and Georgia Muhonja, and two boys, Samuel Malande and Jay Riggs Mulindi.