Money and Ministry

I remember my first step onto the Bible college campus I attended one week after my 18th birthday. I was excited! I was going into ministry and I had chosen (I thought) one of the best places to study in the world. I already knew I wanted to become a Greek scholar, teach Bible in colleges and churches, and be an author. I never changed my major and I never lost my interest. Not even to this moment.

Although I have been side-tracked by life a few times, my passion for ministry over the years has only gotten stronger. However, it didn't take me very long before I began to understand the difference between calling and personal ministry (on the one hand), and professional, institutionalized "ministry" (on the other). Make no mistake about it: there is a difference.

What we call "Professional Ministry" has become the standard avenue for doing ministry: get paid to do a "ministry job" as an employee of an institution (college, church, foundation, etc.), complete with a job description, list of duties, a review board -- and relatively low pay.

But, hey! Ministry is about sacrifice, right? So who cares about the money?

And then there are those "ministry jobs" in which you are required to "raise your own support," which means you learn the skills of fundraising and spend your time "selling yourself" (in more ways than one) to others and getting them to donate to your good cause. Even so, you still have a job description, a list of duties, a review board, and of course, low pay.

But remember, this is ministry. If you show concern over money, you are a mercenary. And we can't have that.

It really doesn't matter if you have more training than a lawyer, as much hands-on experience as a medical doctor, or more education bills than both put together, you are in the field of ministry. So sit down and shut up about income. Besides, anything to do with spirituality is supposed to be free. Isn't that right?

If your wife gets to live in a substandard home, your kids wear hand-me down clothes, you drive a car with two bent fenders and a rusty undercarriage, and you live in someone else's house -- it is all part of ministry.

Smile! This is what God has called you to.

Right?