Below is an excerpt from a paper I wrote in 2003 analyzing the labor market for pastors.  The full article can be found here.  Enjoy this excerpt:

“In a free market setting pastoral wages will always be very low when compared to other professionals. These low wages are due, in large part, to the vast number of perceived close substitutes that churches are willing to employ…

The free market model does not appear to be the best model for churches to use to set their pastoral wage. While it is true that by using the free market model churches can reduce the cost of employing a minister, the minister the church employs may not be able to perform all the duties the church expects of him. This may be because the minister is forced to work elsewhere or because the substitute hired is not a close enough substitute…

As discussed earlier, it is clear that the church founders and early church leaders felt that a congregation needed to provide its minister with a wage upon which he could live. If churches were to focus on this as their goal, rather than focusing on “how little can we pay the pastor and get away with it,” the church would be in a much better position…

If the church continues to use the free market model to pay ministers they will have under-qualified, overworked, unhappy ministers who can not meet the expectations of the church. A new model for pastoral pay must be found. This new model will not be as economically efficient, but it will, hopefully, create a system that encourages investment in qualified, caring ministers who can shepherd over the church to which they have been called.”

Further, this is not the time to either punish those CEOs and and corporate leaders who helped to create our current situation.  Neither is this the time to bail out individual home owners who are stressed.  Those are both propositions that should be worked out in the due course of legislative time.  I think the corporate leaders who stepped over the line of legality need to be prosecuted.  Those home owners who purchased houses they could not afford should not be bailed out.  This will be a painful time for lots and lots of people, but capitalism is based on occasional painful periods of correction; our society has worked to establish enough safeguards to make these periods painful but not fatal.

This enterprise would be better termed an investment than a bailout.  It is true that this will ultimately cost the taxpayer a great deal of money, but, if done properly, it will not cost $700 billion.  The government will be purchasing risky assets.  It will then renogiate what it can, take the losses it must, and hold on to the assets until they either die off or return to productivity.  They government will then sell off the healthy assets.  Done properly the initial investment of $700 billion should only cost the taxpayers $100 billion.  This is still a substantial sum, but will save the taxpayer much more in economic growth and recovery.

Finally, I do not believe this situation is as dire as the casual observer believes.  This is part of a normal market correction.  This correction has the potential to be devastating, but I do not believe it will create the downward spiral necessary to plunge us into a recession (much less a depression).  It may hurt portfolios in the short term, but in the long run it will only be a faint blip.  I reject Barack Obama’s assertion that this is evidence that markets need more regulation.  The markets need just enough regulation to keep it honest.  Our credit markets do not need a massive overhaul; they just need a minor tweak.

Identifying my basic values

What do I do?

Judging from these activities, what are my values?

Rank these values by order of time spent on each one.

Take time to write out a concise but thorough definition of what you mean for each value. What is it that I value and why do I value it?

What values need to be added, subtracted, or rearranged? Reorder your values with this in mind. How can you work toward making this a reality in your life?

Identifying my calling

If I do not know my Calling from God here are some places to look…

a) previous experience e) possible opportunities

b) present circumstances f) personal passions

c) prompting of the Holy Spirit g) private council

d) personal giftings

What is my current job?

What is my Calling from God?

To what degree does my job serve as a platform to live out my values and my Calling? (Rate your values 1=not at all, 10=completely)

Set Goals

“train yourself to be godly. For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.”

- 1 Timothy 4:7b-8