Privileged Clergy, pressurised Parishoners

Returning to the issue of 'finance and the Church', time to respond to the comments made in the first-placed observation, namely:

"The clergy live in their privileged and comfortable lives whilst demanding that their poor and disadvantaged congregations pay for the privilege in the money the are pressured to give!"

Assuming that the 'privilege' is meant in some way to be monetary, for it fits with the general tone of the comment my first observation has to be that if they are then they're either doing it from private means as where I find myself the six of us work hard to keep our heads above water, especially with the current recession, rises in energy, fuel and just about every other cost! I realise that having six of us in a household is perhaps not the norm but it is for us.

As for, "demanding that their poor give!" Working in an Urban Priority Area I have to say that generally all of the those within the area we serve might well be considered poor with respect to many parts of the country (for 'poor' is surely a comparative) and even with in our own town we most definitely serve the 'have nots'. As for pressurising the congregations, I would have to say that generally, as a breed, clergy still tend not to lean on people to pay a tithe (which is actually the minimum of course) and yet there is this misconception amongst those outs, and I have to assume that the author of this comment was not a church member, that we are always out there with our begging bowls!

Where I am, and I cannot speak for others, our church building is used by the community without charge. Groups and individuals come and make use of our facilities and services and the answer is always the same, for Church (the people of God) should be paying for their buildings and the heating, lighting and whatever where it can and where it can't, if there is good reason for this (and I would have to say being a truly missionary church is pretty much the only caveat here) it should be supported by the other churches around it (i.e. at diocesan level or nationally). Now we get loads of flak from some because we don't charge, especially those who do charge for EVERYTHING and see us undercutting them (rather than ministering to the needs of those around us) and those who moan because of the difficulty we have in paying Parish Share (claiming we should charge for everything and pass the plate around at every opportunity), but that's life I guess.

Oddly though, the same people who complain that we charge for nothing are the very same people who get envious about the fact that we've decorated, installed central heating (where we had storage heaters), got new chairs, fitted a new kitchen (with dishwasher and double-ove, eight burner oven) and more besides - at no cost to the church (yep, all donated - even the plumber came and offered his services free!). God calls us to scatter our bread on the water - well we do and God has proved himself time and time again to be no man's debtor!

But clergy are indeed 'privileged' for the the calling that we have responded to is something that is a reward in itself but it's not financial. We might not be 'comfortable' but, generally speaking, we have dinner (and often lunch too) at home and are not subject to the pressures of working for someone else, for we set our own workloads and tasks for much of our working week. Now that is a privilege, but perhaps one that should see us offer to exchange places with people in the 'real' world of work or do a day with church members every now and then to keep the experience real. That said, we have but a very small number who are working and so, for me, this would be a bit difficult!

Those who are Church are also privileged and we all, for we are all 'Laos' (i.e. Church, God's people) should be paying sacrificially but from the outpouring of our hearts with gratitude and never because we are pressured by another.

Church should work at people seeing what they get for free and yet to do this without claims of exhibiting pride or generating envy on the part of others is something I just don't know how to do. So we do the stuff, live the life, house the homeless, feed the hungry and minister to the broken. The rest is up to God!

Pax