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Pastors - Employees or Business Owners?

In the traditional model of denominational Christianity, following in the footsteps of the universal Catholic church that preceded it, the leaders/teachers/pastors in the body of Christ are supported in their work by receiving compensation as employees of their organizations. This is based on the pattern of Jesus sending out the seventy disciples to share the good news:

Now after these things, the Lord also appointed seventy others, and sent them two by two ahead of him into every city and place, where he was about to come. Then he said to them, "The harvest is indeed plentiful, but the laborers are few. Pray therefore to the Lord of the harvest, that he may send out laborers into his harvest. Go your ways. Behold, I send you out as lambs among wolves. Carry no purse, nor wallet, nor sandals. Greet no one on the way. Into whatever house you enter, first say, 'Peace be to this house." If a son of peace is there, your peace will rest on him; but if not, it will return to you. Remain in that same house, eating and drinking the things they give, for the laborer is worthy of his wages. Don"t go from house to house. Into whatever city you enter, and they receive you, eat the things that are set before you. Heal the sick who are therein, and tell them, "The Kingdom of God has come near to you." But into whatever city you enter, and they don"t receive you, go out into its streets and say, "Even the dust from your city that clings to us, we wipe off against you. Nevertheless know this, that the Kingdom of God has come near to you." I tell you, it will be more tolerable in that day for Sodom than for that city." - Luke 10

Certainly this describes the life of a preacher and healer. But is this describing employment? or was Jesus' business model actually based on creating independent business owners? In this story, as it is retold in Luke, Jesus says that whatever donations people give the disciples for their work is theirs to keep. Far from being controlled like an employee by the desires of those they serve, Jesus says that if the people they come to serve reject them and their teaching, the disciples shouldn't spend time trying to serve them better ... no, they should stop serving them and seek a more receptive audience because it is assumed that the disciples know the good news and were called by Jesus to share it.

In the free church model that Jesus established, the leadership momentum is on the side of the leader, not the congregations they serve. Leaders are called to share the gospel where it is received, and to reach out into new markets where it has not yet been heard. But we are never called to serve the will of the people we serve. We are called to lead them and to serve them by showing them the will of God. As Christian leaders, we are called to be independent business owners, living off the profits of our work, thriving when we succeed and failing when we are not meeting the actual needs of those we reach. We should not settle for the wages provided by the established subordination to boards, denominations, and institutions that contracts of employment offer. Rather, we should share the gospel of Jesus Christ and accept the free will offerings of gratitude that people give us in return as the profits of our work, staying free to give peace or wipe off the dust of the places we teach as we serve the living body of Christ wherever the gospel is received.

Tags: body, business, christ, employee, employment, gospel, independent

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Comment by Steve Hall on March 4, 2011 at 1:21pm: Depending on the translation, Matt 23:8ff says that we should not allow ourselves to be called Rabbi, Master, Leader, Father, or teacher. The appropriate moniker for our calling is "servant".

This does not mean that we will not be "followed"...likely we will...but that makes no difference as to our service. Romans 12: 3 encourages us to not think more highly of ourselves than we ought to...it is my opinion that scripture, overall, just encourages us to not think of ourselves at all...thus the death of self as a goal (Rom 6). Does this sound like a business owner?

Do not get the cart before the horse. We do what we do because of Christ...His love compels us (2 Cor 5:14)...we do not act on our own wisdom and plans, but submit them to God and Trust Him to be with us, in us, and for us.

The current Churches may operate as businesses...but they will never be free of government control by doing that. A free Church is one which avoids voluntary entanglements with the world, which rejects the man-sponsored "improvements" on the plan which Christ instituted and called His Church. Is there anything which 2 or 3 believers and God cannot do, which needs to be done, as concerns the Kingdom? I think not.

Comment by Stephen Simons on March 6, 2011 at 10:39am: Amen Steve. The distinction I am making here is more addressing the issue of how church leadership should be compensated and who they should answer to. By saying they are more like business owners than employees, the point is that leaders who serve the life of the church should answer only to Christ, and not to a human board, denomination, government, or other political/financial structure. Like in business where businesses only receive income when someone likes their product or service and so chooses to purchase it, healthy churches should only have money or compensate leaders who are truly providing services that others use, benefit from, and recommend to others. Like in business, when a church starts serving itself and not its people, it will fail because people will stop paying for it or offering their free-will support for its projects, missions, etc. I guess I am just challenging the notion of a church gathering together and then calling a leader, instead observing that Christ called His own leaders and then others chose to follow them thereby forming into organically collected groups with clearer vision and Christ-centered leadership.

Comment by Steve Hall on March 6, 2011 at 2:36pm: I understand...but I am not comfortable with that approach, because it uses terms and positions which are unbiblical, to try and teach biblical concepts. Just because the Church has followers does not mean is has any other leader but Christ. All are simply followers. Even the Apostles were only believers. All are called to follow Christ, alone. Anyone who needs help with living expenses should be able to receive such help from fellow believers, as gifts of love, and not as some contractual salary that one is "owed". Thus, your statement about answering only to Christ is correct, and to the degree that any individual reflects the (Holy) Spirit and attitude of Christ, the true people of God will be moved by that same Spirit to support such a person. For the Church to ever get healthy again, I very much believe that it must drop its worship of men, no matter how good they may appear, and quit seeing titles as monikers of hierarchy rather than designations of order and service.

Comment by Stephen Simons on March 12, 2011 at 7:31pm: On the issue of paying or owing money to those who serve the church, Jesus did tell His disciples that they were worthy of their "wages" so to freely receive any support that was given to them as they travelled around teaching and preaching.

I completely agree that the church must drop its worship of men, turn from its non-biblical traditions, and embrace Jesus Christ alone as our only teacher, master, savior, Lord, and God. We are all followers. We are all simply believers. It is a completely level playing field spiritually, with every human being having the opportunity to have a direct and unmediated relationship with Christ. The role of every believer is to walk side by side with other believers as we all together walk in the footsteps of our savior along the road of His commands that lead to eternal life.

That said, I do not believe that using contemporary language and cultural references to teach the gospel and explain the truth is un-biblical. Far from it, Jesus taught using every day examples from life in His day. Ranging from describing enterprises and investments to telling stories of day laborers, tax collectors, and slaves, nothing was off limits in His teaching. He explained how to be successful in business time and again. He connected with people at every level by speaking about things that they understood and had experience with and then looked to raise their awareness to more spiritual things by means of those same stories and examples he chose to share.

The Bible isn't holy because it talks about the first century times and a world that we are no longer living in. The Bible is holy because of the eternal message that is contained within every word that Jesus spoke, and every story that was included in its text. Like William Tyndale said, "Scripture, apart from Christ, is dead". Or, more to the point, like Jesus said, "The Sabbath was made for people, and not people for the Sabbath". It's not unbiblical to engage the present day and connect with where people are to show them how to succeed in life so as to receive eternal life. This is why Jesus taught the message of the gospel so passionately through both demonstration and instruction. It was of utmost importance to Him that we understand that His religion was all about real life, and His faith was all about how to live it well and achieve great results in every kind of situation from making solid business decisions, to resolving personal disputes, to healing our bodies, to restoring our vision for the future and understanding of the past so that we can thrive in the present by having the confidence to follow His leadership and accomplish His will, which is the best possible outcome for every situation not just for us, but also for all those who God puts within our reach.

Comment by Steve Hall on March 13, 2011 at 12:25am: "There were 3 gamers passing by an avatar laying along the side of the road...."yeh....I suppose that might be useful in some situations...I suppose the caution I feel comes from the reality which is 100's of competing denominational messages, often not in agreement, all of them claiming to be "the word of the Lord"....because men decided they could tell parables as well as Jesus could (just not His), could "explain" the true meaning of scripture by using something other than scripture...Don't you think the Holy Spirit said it about as well as it could be said? Isn't the message as timeless as the messenger? This thread was started to answer the timeless question "employee or business owner"...I hope there is a third choice...a biblical one...because I do not believe a Christian's relationship to the Church is either of those.

Pastors - Employees or Business Owners?

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