Little Big Problems

If you aren’t—or never have been—involved with a church, I’m sure that it is difficult to understand what a powerfully emotional relationship it can be. Religion is composed of core issues such as who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going? What is the meaning and the purpose of my life? Religion is unfortunately responsible for “canned” answers to such questions that take the form of dogmas and creeds. So when a pastor is foolhardy enough to start asking questions about the viability of a congregation, the subject is taken personally and quickly becomes emotionally charged past any hope of objectivity. The very foundation of people’s ego is challenged when the question “what is this church doing here?” is heard as “what am I doing here?” This is, I guess, all to say that church-goers are personally vested in their churches, and anyone thinking about rocking their boat had better be prepared for a fight (albeit a “Christian” tussle). The obvious inequity of a multiple-point charge such as the Tri-Parish is that each congregation—not altogether errantly—believes that it is entitled to its fair share of the pastor’s time, and then the whole money issue raises its ugly head because it seems reasonable that access to the pastor should be in proportion to the funding being provided. Hence, if our congregation is picking up fifty-percent of the pastor’s salary (and for additional leverage let’s provide the housing), we are entitled to half of the pastor’s time and attention. I daresay that the senior pastors of today’s mega-churches have never had to work through such thorny issues. But then, they shouldn’t have to, because they are among God’s chosen few that are qualified—usually by virtue of a seminary degree—to deal with the real and substantive matters of their magnificent ministries.