Before I tell you what I think is ridiculous. Let me clear something up. I am all for pastors getting paid. Yes i wrestle with whether or not a pastor should be driving a bentley wearing thousand dollar suits and rolexes OR should they have nothing just living in a little simple house giving everything away. It depends on the day where I land but I always come to the conclusion that somewhere in the middle is the answer. What scares me are the extremes. I really do believe that MOST pastors are underpaid. No doubt the lifestyle (yes lifestyle) of ministry is unique no doubt and there is no way that the hours could ever be measured. So much of ministry is blurred because ministry happens in life not in the office. Some of the most fun and unscheduled times with people have become some of the most fruitful ministry times in my life.
Any ways I recently contacted a pastor about speaking at FSU. After talking with this man’s “agent” I was informed of his price. Let me clarify a little more about this pastor.I dont really wanna say his name because I am not out to throw him under the bus and make him out to be a bad guy but I just wanna give you a little information to clarify things. This pastor is pretty well known. Im not talking like big time but semi “popular.” (Dont get me started on why its scary how popular we make people out to be in Christianity) When I began to ask around it was really hit and miss as to how many people had heard of him. About 50/50 were familiar with him. So we arent talking big time booked every weekend popping out books kinda guy. After talking multiple times with his agent about his cost for speaking one night (45 minutes) on campus I was informed that his cost would be $2500 plus the cost of travel, meals and room and board. At first I about fell out of my chair. To top it off his agent asked which of his sermons I would like for him to preach based on a list of previously written sermons. Thats right $2500 for a sermon that is already done and has been preached multiple times. Dont get me wrong I love the sermons I have heard from this man but does that amount seem crazy? I have tried to rationalize this as best I can and give him the benefit of the doubt. What about if we had 100 people in the room for the 45 minutes that would be $25/person for 45 minutes. That still seems a little steep. As I think about hearing this price and even type it now it semi ticks me off, it actually ticks me off a lot. One guy who already has a pre-written sermon that he is charging $2500 to preach. I wonder if he would charge me half price to mail me the transcript and I could just read it off. Maybe I am just naive and this isn’t too bad. It scares me to even think how much some more “popular” Christian speakers charge to come and share at conferences. I dont think I ever wanna know how much some of these preachers charge. My two big thoughts from this are: #1Hire me! I will come preach a sermon for waaaaaay less than the average speaker charges and I promise I wont pull out a script rather I will seek God in prayer and preach whatever He leads me to preach for your group. #2 Major props to all the week to week preachers in local churches out there. I highly doubt many are making $2500 a sermon and on top of that they are not just preaching the same sermon over and over rather they are seeking God every week for what He wants to say through the word that week while meeting with tons of individuals, leading a small group, leading a staff and casting vision for the church. My hat goes off to every Congregational preacher out there. Thank you.
Am I just way to cheap or am does this sound crazy to anyone else? Comment! (please dont use speakers’ names)
Michael
a few thoughts…
1. People will come to hear famous preachers. If you announced that a FAMOUS PREACHER was preaching at FSU next Sunday the place would be packed. People would travel to come see him who don’t even live in Tallahassee. If you announced that Mike Carollo would be preaching at FSU on September 1 you would not get a huge crowd. I wouldn’t charge you $2500 either
2. What would happen if this preacher only charged $100? EVERYONE would be requesting him ALL the time. He doesn’t have time to speak everywhere he is asked to, so by charging a fee he greatly reduces the number of requests.
3. Who knows what he does with the money, maybe he will donate 50% to Compassion International?
4. I agree that most preachers are underpaid. It is a sacrifice, but it is well worth it. The reward is seeing lives changed and people deepen their relationship with God.
5. Ideally churches would have more money to pay their staff more, but that isn’t usually the case. I think most congregations would like to pay their staff more if they had the money.
6. I am wondering who the speaker is you are talking about, but I can imagine that some preachers get WAY more for a speaking engagement.
Honestly, that seems a high price to charge. I know quite a few people who travel and speak who have a different method for their ministry. Granted the ones I know closest are already employed at a church and the church allows them to travel so they aren’t trying to make enough to support themselves and their staff. The method I like is the concept of the church giving an honorarium. To me that is different than the speaker charging an amount for his/her services. That honorarium could just be a flat amount that they would pay any speaker or perhaps it could come through receiving an offering for the speaker. Sometimes those offerings can be huge when the people really value the speaker and sometimes they can be small (potentially because of the economy). I am not talking about the speaker giving a length “sermon” about giving to convince people to give to him, I am talking about the leader of the church going up and saying, “hey, let’s take an offering for this speaker to bless him for coming.”
I’ll be honest again in saying that someone who expects to make a living off of the offerings given by college students either has a ton of faith that God will provide or is single and lives on a small budget. So, in that sense I can understand the idea of charging a fee as it guarantees you are getting paid for your services. I spoke somewhere one time and took either 2 or 3 days off work to do it (I honestly can’t remember now). I ended up not getting paid anything even though I preached 5 different messages over the weekend (and those weren’t recycled messages either). I am still glad I went, but most people probably can’t afford to lose money every time they minister somewhere.
One thing that Mike said in his comment that struck me is how if they only charged $100 they would have way too many requests. I want to propose that we should go to the places that God wants us to go to and not everywhere we are requested to go. Well don’t the other people hear God? Sure they can, but did they hear God tell them to invite you or did they just think it was a good idea? I have a friend who was invited to move to a certain city to become a part of a well-known ministry. It would have been a great opportunity for him right off the bat. However, he declined the offer and God has been promoting him ever since. We shouldn’t speak somewhere because they offer us 1 million dollars, we should speak somewhere because God tells us to. Some people might think that praying about something should only be for pastors, but I think that is dumb. We should always be asking God what we should be doing. Great things happen when I do what God tells me to do but I still don’t always ask His opinion. It’s like being best friends with the guy whole literally knows everything and yet we barely ever ask him questions.
Anyway, I’ll stop before my comment gets longer than your post.
Blessings,
David
Just read this and thought about this post:
The New York Times on Wired magazine:
“But Mr. Anderson has yet to solve the equation for Wired. Under his editorship, the magazine is an editorial success, winning three National Magazine Awards last month, which tied it for the most honored magazine. And Mr. Anderson’s own profile is higher than ever, thanks to his books, which roll messy business trends into neat canapés that executives pass around. He gives 50 speeches a year for an estimated $35,000 to $50,000 apiece.”
$2,500 seems pretty cheap to me compared to the above.
@portorikan- If the judgment was only speech to speech, i would agree. In this case, there is a stark difference for those in ministry. We are not people in a different business, we are blessed to be called by God to vocationally participate in a holy calling. We must carefully measure our motives, that we do not preach the Gospel for financial means, as Paul reamed those who did. Chris Anderson is in a totally different situation.
Making money is a perfectly legitimate motivation for Anderson, but is, in my opinion, a sinful one for a minister of the Gospel. Provision for family, needs, etc, yes. Profit and excess from preaching the gospel (not saying this was above speaker’s motivations, saying in general) are sinful motivations IMHO.
Not saying I entirely disagree with you Clayton, but the church at large can usually be summed up or share similar action or responses like that guy way back in the day on In Living Color.
“Two dollars! How about I give you fifty cents and you let me suck the salt off of the peanuts?!”
Naturally, everyone is looking for a good deal, but the church, at large is like that guy who’s always looking for a hook up. Nobody likes to deal with or hang out with that guy after spending some time with him. If you haven’t experienced hanging out with that guy, well…
@portorikan- You’re right, the church can be cheap and leave people hurting for finances most of the time. This may be very true, based on an assumption of your background, with the way they pay bands.
I’ll try and narrow it down as well and say that I’m only going to speak to the motivations of those who make their living preaching the gospel, and not anyone else involved in the church. A worker is clearly worth his wages, and I believe someone should be able to make enough money to be full time in preaching the gospel. What that line is or isn’t I’ll never draw, because it’s so case-by-case, but I’ll still have to make judgments about it as a church leader and future lead pastor.
As a minster who will be on both sides of the equation, two things jump to mind- Is this about selfish, money motivations AND are we properly stewarding God’s money? 1 Samuel 2:17 says this is why Eli’s sons died- “so the sin of these young men was very serious in the LORD’s sight, for they treated the LORD’s offering with contempt.”
It’s for this reason that we must struggle and live in tension when it comes to issues like this. There is no clear line, but we must wrestle through our own motivations and responsibilities. Did Michael feel it would be poor stewardship? Did he sense wrong motivations? Did he want to be known as the guy who had the juice to bring in the big guns and what that would mean for the numbers at a meeting?
We must wrestle with these issues, and as ministers of the gospel, we must check our own motivations.
I wonder if the price would be any different at all if the speaker had some form of pre-established connection with you or FSU, ya know? Maybe part of the reason for the price is that it is a shot in the dark kind of deal…
-m
@Clayton -
No doubt we should all be wise stewards of our finances. In addition to that, we’re not on our own we have wisdom through the Holy Spirit and the ability to seek whether or not an expense is a wise investment or not, short-term, long-term or even at all.
That being said, if I go to a store to purchase something, and I do not have the money to do so, my experience and wisdom shows that I walk out empty handed. It shouldn’t be any different in the church.
I figured out who Michael was requesting… Terry Durham!
I think something is wrong with the video… here is another version…
I say we sell the Vatican.