GuitarHero's post in another thread got me thinking. I know there are at least a few former COC preachers that use this board. I myself was never a regular preacher but I did fill in from time to time. For those who did it more regularly, what was it like to be a COC preacher? What kind of congregation(s) did you preach for? How was the pay, the job security, the responsibilities? Do you think it was harder or easier for you to leave than it was for regular, rank-and-file members? I'm curious to know more about the job from the perspectives of those who quit it.
Lev
being a preacher
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GuitarHero
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Re: being a preacher
Oy...
I preached for a hardline congregation. They weren't non-institutional, but damn close. In fact, there were a couple of members there who were "anti," and they made it their business to give everyone the red ass as often as possible. We spent an awful lot of time debating over whether women could scripturally volunteer to attend a nursery outside of the auditorium. My ties were never acceptable for one reason or another. God didn't authorize us to use the church money to do fun things.
The pay was OK at $40K but not nearly enough for the round-the-clock services that they wanted. My congregation paid for me to buy insurance...something I've never seen done before. There was literally no job security. I had a contract that stipulated 3 months severance pay upon termination, but it wasn't worth the paper it was printed on. They claimed I had engaged in "gross misbehavior," which can mean whatever one wants it mean, and cut me loose with no notice at all. After some pressure, they reluctantly gave me a one month severance, which was just about enough for me to pack my shit into a uHaul.
They expected me to do everything at the church. I was either responsible for teaching the classes or finding someone who would. I had to write all the newspaper stuff, make the bulletins, record radio spots, and all that was on top of my 2 sermons, 2 bible classes, and Wednesday night devotional. If they could've found a way to make me lead the singing, wait the table and pray all the prayers, I think they would've. Among all of this time, I was to do 8 hours in the church office everyday. Yet, I was also to be out at the hospital, visiting members, etc. I conducted funerals and weddings. I rarely had a helping hand in these tasks.
There is literally no up side to being a COC preacher that I can think of.
I preached for a hardline congregation. They weren't non-institutional, but damn close. In fact, there were a couple of members there who were "anti," and they made it their business to give everyone the red ass as often as possible. We spent an awful lot of time debating over whether women could scripturally volunteer to attend a nursery outside of the auditorium. My ties were never acceptable for one reason or another. God didn't authorize us to use the church money to do fun things.
The pay was OK at $40K but not nearly enough for the round-the-clock services that they wanted. My congregation paid for me to buy insurance...something I've never seen done before. There was literally no job security. I had a contract that stipulated 3 months severance pay upon termination, but it wasn't worth the paper it was printed on. They claimed I had engaged in "gross misbehavior," which can mean whatever one wants it mean, and cut me loose with no notice at all. After some pressure, they reluctantly gave me a one month severance, which was just about enough for me to pack my shit into a uHaul.
They expected me to do everything at the church. I was either responsible for teaching the classes or finding someone who would. I had to write all the newspaper stuff, make the bulletins, record radio spots, and all that was on top of my 2 sermons, 2 bible classes, and Wednesday night devotional. If they could've found a way to make me lead the singing, wait the table and pray all the prayers, I think they would've. Among all of this time, I was to do 8 hours in the church office everyday. Yet, I was also to be out at the hospital, visiting members, etc. I conducted funerals and weddings. I rarely had a helping hand in these tasks.
There is literally no up side to being a COC preacher that I can think of.
Re: being a preacher
Wow. That's a lot. And somehow they object to the concept of 'professional clergy'? It's amazing to me that the COC can scripturally justify hiring someone and putting all these tasks on him with no NT precedent or command whatsoever. Sure, there's the bit about not muzzling the ox, but that's quite a reach considering the job description GH just laid out. Alcohol, no way! Despite overwhelming scriptural evidence that pretty much every Biblical character, Jesus included, who was not a Nazarite drank alcohol. But hiring a preacher and paying >90% of the church's "income" for his salary and the building? Well, I don't see anything in the Bible that says we can't do that...
Lev
Lev
Re: being a preacher
I was a cofC preacher's wife. Our salary was always below poverty level, no insurance, no retirement plan. If they provided a house -- no matter how much of a dump it was -- they acted like it was a castle and they should be welcome any time at all hours. Most churches were lenient about office hours, but one place where my husband was youth minister expected 8 -- 5 office hours. It was completely irrelevant that he was spending pretty much every NIGHT of the week conducting youth activities. There was NO job security. All it took was for a couple of people to snark a little, and the elders would call you in for a meeting to rake you over the coals whether there was any merit to the complaint or not. Said meeting may end with a dire warning or it may end with you being unemployed -- and homeless if you lived in their parsonage. We got kicked out with a toddler and a baby on the way based upon a bit of gossip that caught fire and grew into a big mess. We weren't even allowed to defend ourselves from the blatant lies told. We had a written contract for 3 months severance, which they paid, but they made my husband go to the office every week for those 3 months to pick up the check. At another church, we took a cruise for our 10th anniversary. While we were gone, a prominent family called for a meeting with the elders to complain that we were obviously being paid too much. Why the elders felt the need to inform us of this when we returned, I'll never know. Relationships were superficial. You couldn't have real friends and risk letting your hair down. I had virtually no problem making a break, but it has been very hard for my husband. He had a lot more vested in it than I did.
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margin overa
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Re: being a preacher
The sorts of things GH and Melanie describe are often par for the course at mid- to small-size CofCs. The larger the church, the more like a CEO the preacher is (and that's even more true in more numerous denominations). My dad only preached for a few years when I was very young, so I don't really remember the specifics of what his situation was...however, I note that he never made any attempt to return to it! 
He really wanted to be an elder, and has been now for a LONG time - far too long, IMO.
I really only noticed how badly many preachers' (and their families') lives could be when I became close friends as a teenager with one of our preacher's kids. They scrimped to make ends meet, and were at the beck and call of anyone's whims, but especially the elders and their families. As Melanie says, the parsonage is generally deemed to be the church's property, and the members often treat it as such. There was a time I remember when the congregation was holding a big gospel meeting with a noted celebrity CofC preacher, and the elders, without batting an eyelid, told our preacher and his wife that they'd be hosting him in the parsonage - no request, no "pretty please can you consider this". There was also the expectation to provide his meals! The preacher declined to do so, and things got ugly - the only thing that saved the situation was that the gospel meeting man informed them he preferred to stay in a hotel, which they grudgingly paid for. Things went downhill pretty fast from that point, and soon this family moved on to Texas.
I've known more bad stories than good, but I've known a few exemplary small CofCs - one congregation a distant family member preached for paid his salary and helped him when he was having grueling chemo and surgery for cancer. He was out of the pulpit for nearly 11 months, and they paid his salary and helped he and his family around their home, all while picking up preaching duties. Really, really good people. The whole congregation took their tone from that of the eldership, which were perhaps the best group of people I've ever seen in any church - remarkable, generous, fair-minded folks!
He really wanted to be an elder, and has been now for a LONG time - far too long, IMO. I really only noticed how badly many preachers' (and their families') lives could be when I became close friends as a teenager with one of our preacher's kids. They scrimped to make ends meet, and were at the beck and call of anyone's whims, but especially the elders and their families. As Melanie says, the parsonage is generally deemed to be the church's property, and the members often treat it as such. There was a time I remember when the congregation was holding a big gospel meeting with a noted celebrity CofC preacher, and the elders, without batting an eyelid, told our preacher and his wife that they'd be hosting him in the parsonage - no request, no "pretty please can you consider this". There was also the expectation to provide his meals! The preacher declined to do so, and things got ugly - the only thing that saved the situation was that the gospel meeting man informed them he preferred to stay in a hotel, which they grudgingly paid for. Things went downhill pretty fast from that point, and soon this family moved on to Texas.
I've known more bad stories than good, but I've known a few exemplary small CofCs - one congregation a distant family member preached for paid his salary and helped him when he was having grueling chemo and surgery for cancer. He was out of the pulpit for nearly 11 months, and they paid his salary and helped he and his family around their home, all while picking up preaching duties. Really, really good people. The whole congregation took their tone from that of the eldership, which were perhaps the best group of people I've ever seen in any church - remarkable, generous, fair-minded folks!
Re: being a preacher
There was a small CoC in a small town not too far from Corsicana where the preacher came down with cancer and the church booted him when he got to sick to do everything they wanted him to do. I never met the preacher but heard this from one of the members who wanted him gone. This member didn't like the fact they were paying him but often they had to take up a lot of his slack because he was sick. I will say that the wife of this man married into the CoC and absolutely hates it. She would leave if her husband hadn't drank so much kool-aid.
The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.----Karl Marx
Re: being a preacher
Preacher's kid, here. Pay was bad. Some of the places we lived provided a house, some didn't. The one where we lived most of my childhood was pretty good, actually, but there were weird things like I couldn't talk about how bad the lawnmower (also owned by the church, came with the house) was, because we weren't supposed to complain / be ungrateful; it finally got replaced when one of the elders saw me struggling to start it, so I'm thinking that one might have just been my dad being weird rather than the church.
But there were other things -- sometimes, people would get bent out of shape if Dad wore a beard; other times, people would get bent out of shape if he didn't.
The church we were at from the summer before I started 4th grade until I was out of college, his contract renewal was in the middle of summer -- so at the end of every school year, I had no idea if I'd be back to that school the next year. Makes it really hard to settle in and make connections, especially as a socially awkward geek to begin with.
Pretty sure we always had at least basic health insurance, but I'm not sure who paid for it -- the church or my maternal grandparents.
I don't think they had quite so strict expectations on Dad's office hours -- visiting the sick in the hospital during the day was allowed, for instance -- but he definitely worked fairly long hours pretty regularly.
One exceptional but memorable occurrence was when someone's daughter from another part of the state had run away, and turned up in our area -- I don't recall all the details, but she ended up staying with us overnight until her parents could come get her the next day. Guess who had to share her bed with the stranger?
Dad did some of the song leading and other tasks, and was an elder in addition to being the preacher at some of the congregations where we were. I didn't realize that wasn't standard until much later -- we were mostly at smaller churches, and there weren't always that many "qualified" men.
But there were other things -- sometimes, people would get bent out of shape if Dad wore a beard; other times, people would get bent out of shape if he didn't.
The church we were at from the summer before I started 4th grade until I was out of college, his contract renewal was in the middle of summer -- so at the end of every school year, I had no idea if I'd be back to that school the next year. Makes it really hard to settle in and make connections, especially as a socially awkward geek to begin with.
Pretty sure we always had at least basic health insurance, but I'm not sure who paid for it -- the church or my maternal grandparents.
I don't think they had quite so strict expectations on Dad's office hours -- visiting the sick in the hospital during the day was allowed, for instance -- but he definitely worked fairly long hours pretty regularly.
One exceptional but memorable occurrence was when someone's daughter from another part of the state had run away, and turned up in our area -- I don't recall all the details, but she ended up staying with us overnight until her parents could come get her the next day. Guess who had to share her bed with the stranger?
Dad did some of the song leading and other tasks, and was an elder in addition to being the preacher at some of the congregations where we were. I didn't realize that wasn't standard until much later -- we were mostly at smaller churches, and there weren't always that many "qualified" men.
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GuitarHero
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- Joined: Mon Feb 16, 2015 3:13 am
Re: being a preacher
That reminds me. My wife and I enjoy the occasional glass of wine, and we always have, even well before we left the COC. I'd also been known to have a beer here and there. Of course, that was completely out of the question for a gospel preacher. But damn it, sometimes you just want a cold one. So the wife and I would go to Wal-Mart or Publix or wherever, and we'd make sure to grab one of those opaque cooler bags. I'd put the alcohol inside and take it to the register that way. Of course, this would be AFTER I walked the entire damn store and made absolutely sure there were no church members present. Even while going to the register, if at any time we saw a church member at a distance, we'd ditch the cooler bag and just grab something else at the register to look like we were not there buying alcohol. I also recall having to scout the dining room at Olive Garden when we would order wine with our meal.Lev wrote:Alcohol, no way!
Nowadays, it just feels so nice to go into a store, buy whatever alcohol I want, and not worry about anything. I enjoy weekend nights hanging out with my buddies at a bar and don't care who sees me.
Re: being a preacher
You must have accumulated quite a collection of those cooler bags over the years! I agree - it's nice to not have to worry about that sort of thing anymore. Those of us who have had to deal with people's negative opinions of us for our alcohol consumption are in pretty good company:
Lev"The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, 'Behold, a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!'... (luke 7:34)
Re: being a preacher
Mom went back to college after my brother started school, and I ended up cooking dinner sometimes. One night, I was making a recipe that uses cooking wine in the sauce, and discovered we were out. While Dad let Mom keep it on hand, he refused to actually buy it himself, and I didn't have a license at the time, so I was stuck.