7 Concerning Findings About Benefits for Pastors and Church Staff

Filings

1. Fewer than half of solo pastors receive any health insurance … 2. Almost three-fourths of full-time worship/music leaders receive health insurance… 3. Many full-time church staff receive no retirement benefits…. 5. Only six in ten full-time pastors and staff get any type of automobile reimbursement…. CPost

Discussion

When Pastors Place Their Nose Where It Doesn’t Belong

Joel Tetreau

Several decades ago as Jay Adams and men like him began writing on the topic of biblical counseling, conservative pastors gained a needed and necessary foothold in the area of the psyche (ψυχή), or care for the soul.

For a decade or so before the birth of what was called nouthetic counseling, conservative churchmen were buying the notion that you could not take the pastor anything dealing with the mind because he simply was not qualified. Thankfully, biblical counseling has restored the right appreciation for the pastor’s role of leadership in the area of mental, emotional and spiritual health vs. idea that only secular psychology can help in the various challenges of anthropology.

A few years ago I noted in my book The Pyramid and the Box: The Decision-Making Process in a Local New Testament Church (Wipf & Stock, 2013), that I was seeing a couple of disturbing trends among ecclesiastical leaders, especially from my perspective as Western Coordinator for Institute of Biblical Leadership (IBL). Some pastors are self-deceived that they are something of a mediator of a theocracy, and in their mind, they are Theo!

Discussion

Much of the Bible addresses the End Times, perhaps 14%. Does the teaching in your church approximate this ratio?

Ed Vasicek

There was a time just a few decades ago when many church emphasized eschatology beyond the subjects of heaven and hell. Although someone might challenge these statistics, I have read that at least 150 chapters of the Bible are predominantly about the End Times and about 14% of the Bible deals with the End Times. I can believe that.

So, the expanded questions sounds like this: If you consider how much fo the Bible deals with the End Times, would you guess that your church’s teaching/preaching ministries resemble the emphasis of Scripture?

Discussion