Letter from America

I wonder how many EN readers will recognise that as a quote from the Bible? Ecclesiastes 10.19 'Money is the answer to everything'. While there may be much that British evangelicals would wish to feel that they have to teach their American cousins about, for instance, the integration of the mind and faith or maintaining the purity of the church, in this matter, American evangelicals seem to be far more comfortable with the plain reality of life which the Bible here acknowledges.

If you want something done, it's going to cost money. If you want to hire someone to do a good job it will cost money. American evangelicals on the whole tend to have much more of the attitude that 'you get what you pay for'. They want a healthy, growing church; and they know that one component of that is a godly, Bible teaching pastor, and so they intend to find money to pay for one.

Americans have more money than English people. But that's not all there is to it. I'm paid a salary commensurate with an average pastor's salary in the UK. This is a low salary for American pastors. Some American pastors and preachers may be paid far too much. I hear rumours of well-known conference speakers charging thousands of dollars per lecture. On the other hand, another plain fact of reality is that the English evangelical scene is hamstrung for plain and simple lack of money.

There are very few major evangelical foundations willing and able to support evangelistic enterprises. Most of the evangelical seminaries in England are desperate for cash. And the churches? Well, the churches, by all reports, often offer salaries to pastors upon which it really is not possible to support a family. While you may get a martyr or two, who is also immensely talented and who is willing to wear second-hand clothes, not get a pension, and drive a ten year-old car, it's surely not even spiritually defensible to ask men to sacrifice their children and family upon the altar of their ministry. At any rate it's not very realistic.

If the plain fact of the matter is that the pastor is paid worse than most of the men in the congregation it is likely a reflection of their attitude to him, his calling, and, dare I whisper, perhaps also to God and the church itself. Perhaps a pastor should not be paid much more than the average wage in any congregation, but should he not be paid towards the upper end of the average? If his is a calling we respect, and want young men to pursue, we would do well to consider the advice of Ecclesiastes.

Wesley's advice

John Wesley's famous counsel comes to mind: earn all you can, save all you can, give all you can. There is not as much money in English churches as in American churches as a whole. This is a spiritual issue; a gospel problem. Until we find the money to finance evangelism, first-rate seminaries, large and effective churches, media and all, we may simply be unable to reach the country. Perhaps instead of encouraging most of our young men into 'full-time' ministry we should be encouraging some into the 'full-time' ministry of earning wads of cash and giving it away by the barrel load.

'Mammon' and money are not the same thing. The love of money is the root of all evil; using it for God makes good, biblical sense - I think it could be said it's not even a concession it's a command. When we think of 'reaching England for Christ' and all that, we tend to think of evangelistic strategy, sound Bible teaching, discipleship and prayer. These are all commendable ventures. I would suggest, though, that all of them would be dramatically furthered if English evangelicals had a few more quid.

Jerusalem gift

The question, then, is how do we get it? And the answer seems to be hard to pin down. We need more people who are rich and generous supporting evangelical enterprises. We may even need to share around what we have a bit more pro-actively. It was the apostle Paul who thought that money was sufficiently a spiritual, gospel issue to spend much of his energy in organising a 'Jerusalem gift' from the Gentile churches to the church at Jerusalem. We may not be poor (though we have poor among us), but we are poorly equipped to further the aims of the gospel to which Christ has called us. From a transatlantic perspective the sheer quality of personnel and Bible teaching and evangelists in England is beyond question. Most of them, though, with a few obvious London exceptions, need a feeding of the five thousand scale miracle to enable them to reach the thousands without Christ in their neighbourhood. And it may be, in fact, that conferences and excitement and fine-tuned theology aside, at the end of the day, the nut will be cracked by money. Certainly Ecclesiastes leads us to think that could be the case.

'Money is the answer to everything'

Wesley's advice

Jerusalem gift

Josh Moody, Connecticut

Main Articles

Other articles