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Considering a different career…

 
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Post Considering a different career… Quiet Wyatt
It seems clear to me that Jesus and his inspired apostles taught that the pursuit of money or riches for selfish reasons was essentially idolatry.

That said, as a bivocational and trivocational pastor for virtually all of my 30 years in ministry, I am of late very much thinking of training for a new career that would enable us to have our own home for the first time, to better provide for my family, and to perhaps have something to retire on and maybe also to have something to leave for my wife and kids when I’m gone. I sometimes wish I had pursued this career earlier in life, so I could already be seriously considering retirement. I am 54 years old. I am in good health now, having lost 120 pounds in the last two years, but of course have no guarantee as to how many more years God will let me live. I have never really sought a high-paying career before, and have only sought jobs as a supplement to my ministerial income.

Pursuing this new career will involve long hours (60-70 hours per week), which I realize will likely have a negative impact upon my family and ministry. It will be a sacrifice, I know, but I see no other realistic alternative to ever having our own home or ever being able to retire or provide well for my family. We’ve always lived in personages or rented. (Publisher’s Clearinghouse keeps on failing to come through for us as well, haha).

I saw my dad pastor bivocationally most all my life growing up, working until he got too physically unhealthy to work anymore, dying after just a couple of weeks in the ICU pastoring right up until the day he had to go into the hospital, having never been able to retire or have much after over 50 years of ministry, and I hope to avoid that same fate (in this life at least). I know he inherited by grace far more than this whole world could ever give, but I can’t help but think of how much he struggled just to get by most of his ministry, and then died basically penniless.

What are your thoughts? Is it morally wrong to pursue a better means of supporting one’s family, so long as the career itself is honest and can be done in good conscience, your motive is simply to better provide for your own household, and you have the peace of God concerning it?
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11/18/21 3:57 pm


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Post Re: Considering a different career… Da Sheik
Quiet Wyatt wrote:
What are your thoughts? Is it morally wrong to pursue a better means of supporting one’s family, so long as the career itself is honest and can be done in good conscience, your motive is simply to better provide for your own household, and you have the peace of God concerning it?


I don’t know the will of God in your particular situation but just given the hypothetical situation, I have no problem with it.
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11/19/21 12:08 am


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Post I saw men who pastored their whole lives... roughridercog
And when they could no longer do it, they were on assistance and food stamps.
For that reason I obtained another degree and my teaching certificate. I resigned from pastoring while obtaining my certificate. When I got my teaching position, I soon returned to pastoring. I had a salary, benefits, insurance and retirement.
Now that I am retired from pastoral ministry, we have a house, our pensions, and save for our house payment, are totally debt free.

I understand your decision. But never discount what opportunities God may bring your way in the future. God may be preparing and equipping you for what's ahead.
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11/19/21 8:39 am


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Post FLRon
“Is it morally wrong to pursue a better means of supporting one’s family, so long as the career itself is honest and can be done in good conscience, your motive is simply to better provide for your own household, and you have the peace of God concerning it?”

I can’t begin to tell you how many pastors/preachers I know that have come to the end of their ministry “career” and have no means of supporting themselves other than a meager Social Security check. Knowing this, you have to ask yourself “is this really how I want my family to end up”?

This is one area where I believe that pastors make a serious error in judgment by placing any church before their own family on their list or priorities. The churches and denominations demand that the pastor be at their every beck and call and that the pastors drop everything to attend to their needs.

That is NOT scriptural! Our families are our first ministry obligation. If our personal ‘org chart’ doesn’t have God first and our family second, followed by the local church than we have things out of order according to Ephesians 5:25.

“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her,”

Does coming to retirement age ill equipped to provide for our wife(or family) sound like we are in obedience to God’s Word? Of course not!

If you love your family, love them more than anything but God, and yes, that includes a church. Personally I believe it’s way past the time when we realize there are so many other ways to effectively minister the gospel besides pastoring a church.

In my own life, I found many more opportunities to minister from my position as a manager in a large manufacturing facility. I still remember the day when I was questioning God about whether or not I should try to go back into the pastoral ministry and He clearly showed me that He had placed me in this facility of 3,000 workers to be a witness to them. Trust me when I tell you that I had far more opportunities to reach people than most full time pastors ever have or ever will.

You should do what provides for your family in the best way possible and rest assured that where God plants you, you will bloom in ways you could never had imagined if you remain faithful to the Lord.
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11/19/21 4:19 pm


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Is anyone going to say it is a sin? If it is, you would probably be calling most adults you have preached to sinners if you called it a sin.

Proverbs 13:22 says,
A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children's children: and the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just.

I feel a tension with that an verses about laying up for yourselves treasures upon earth. Maybe part of that is 'for yourselves.'

I used to teach English overseas. I'd 'preach on the side.' I never preached or taught for a living. Occasional donations here and there, but it was never how I earned a living.

Part of going to grad school, especially the PhD and the location, was partly because that is direction I believe I got in prayer back before I went to grad school. Then I went through years of poverty in grad school as I tried to figure out exactly how to finish my thesis, and it went on way too long. I longed to work and earn money for the family. I was also busy with my studies and limited in what I did for ministry. I did make YouTube videos and for a time started and led a men's Bible study.

I spoke with a Singaporean evangelist of Indian descent during that time and mentioned how good it would be to work and make some money after I graduated. We sold food on the street, working and at events when we could get a space some very long hours (a 23 and a half hour day once, before going back to work the next day) He gave me a really hard time, making some comments that I felt were him judging me, thinking I'd giving up on gifts and calling to pursue money. I think I was stressed from the years of not knowing where the rent would come from.

I remember getting that first job out of grad school in Indonesia where they put me up in an apartment that had a fitness center and a pool then moved me to another one that had more amenities, including 4 jacuzzis. I would pray prayers of thanksgiving in one of those jacuzzis, also using it to soak a sore foot. I remember feeling kind of guilty because I had it so good, enough money come in to pay bills and to pay off debts, and even having a jacuzzi, sauna, a place provided to live. I could buy new clothes for my children.

I don't think it is wrong to earn money and provide for your family and children. Is storing up a retirement account 'laying up' for yourself on earth? I do wonder a little bit about that sometimes. The retirement account comes with my job (not the jacuzzi job, but the same field). If I have time to think about it in retirement--and if I go the retirement route, I'm thinking to teach the word and do some non-profit stuff-- then I can decide to give it away before I die, to my own kids, and other stuff like that... and also take care of my wife.

Paul, writing to the Corinthians about giving, quoted a Psalm.

II Corinthians 10
8 And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work:
9 (As it is written, He hath dispersed abroad; he hath given to the poor: his righteousness remaineth for ever.
10 Now he that ministereth seed to the sower both minister bread for your food, and multiply your seed sown, and increase the fruits of your righteousness;)

He quotes from Psalm 112:9. Look at the rest of Psalm 112,

112 Praise ye the Lord. Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord, that delighteth greatly in his commandments.
2 His seed shall be mighty upon earth: the generation of the upright shall be blessed.
3 Wealth and riches shall be in his house: and his righteousness endureth for ever.
4 Unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness: he is gracious, and full of compassion, and righteous.
5 A good man sheweth favour, and lendeth: he will guide his affairs with discretion.
6 Surely he shall not be moved for ever: the righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance.
7 He shall not be afraid of evil tidings: his heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord.
8 His heart is established, he shall not be afraid, until he see his desire upon his enemies.
9 He hath dispersed, he hath given to the poor; his righteousness endureth for ever; his horn shall be exalted with honour.
10 The wicked shall see it, and be grieved; he shall gnash with his teeth, and melt away: the desire of the wicked shall perish.

Paul also encouraged working industriously with one's hands. If you can do something to earn a better living, good, honest work, in general I would say that is a good thing. Balancing it with ministry-- both to others and to the Lord, with wife and family is the challenge.

Is the only alternative the high number of hours you mentioned? Is there anything else you can do?

I'll throw out a 'freebie.' We used to sell food at events, street parties and trade shows. At one trade show, we were supposed to give a percent of our food earnings to the vendor who had the food contract on top of everything else we paid. The guy collecting the money let too much slip about another vendor. A vendor at the location was selling pineapple tea. he put a platform on the fold-up table they gave him to raise it up to just under eye level and put a table cloth there. People would come in out of the hot sun until the crowded rows between booths, and he'd charge them $3 for tea and pineapple juice. The guy collecting the money said he sold about $5000 on day doing that.

We had maybe 8 people working with us, a family--some of whose children we'd housed when they were homeless and looking for a place-- who didn't realize we were going to pay them. The tea guy had one or two other guys working with him and something easy to make.

It's also possible to put up web pages selling products online. You can make commercials selling insurance and drive traffic to a link-- advertizing far away where no one knows your face, hopefully, if you like. There are millions of ways people make money. There might be some niches where you can work hard for short periods of time, and then get back to the normal ministry life.
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11/19/21 8:48 pm


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Post Quiet Wyatt
Thanks for all the feedback. It seems that perhaps the biggest issue I’m having with this decision is I am basically giving up on ministry as a full-time career. I have only been full-time (with ministry being my only job) a few years out of the 30 I’ve been in ministry, but always had hoped things would work out to where I could be full-time until I retired some day. I tell myself it’s fine, as I am no better than my father or grandfather, both of whom were bivocational pastors for the most part, and neither of whom had much to retire on. I just don’t see a way to retire or ever really to be able to provide much for my wife and kids any other way. It seems to me that, had God intended me to be full-time, I would have had a more successful ministry numerically by now. [Insert Acts Pun Here]
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11/27/21 11:53 pm


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Post Carolyn Smith
Quiet Wyatt wrote:
Thanks for all the feedback. It seems that perhaps the biggest issue I’m having with this decision is I am basically giving up on ministry as a full-time career. I have only been full-time (with ministry being my only job) a few years out of the 30 I’ve been in ministry, but always had hoped things would work out to where I could be full-time until I retired some day. I tell myself it’s fine, as I am no better than my father or grandfather, both of whom were bivocational pastors for the most part, and neither of whom had much to retire on. I just don’t see a way to retire or ever really to be able to provide much for my wife and kids any other way. It seems to me that, had God intended me to be full-time, I would have had a more successful ministry numerically by now.


Please do not judge your ministry success on numbers. Being in full time ministry is only one way to measure it. But think of it this way...I am sure there are people in your path on your other jobs that you have ministered to, influenced, and helped. We have the idea that if we're not a full time pastor, we've failed somehow. But our steps are ordered of the Lord. He anoints us to do the things we do, whether they are in the pulpit or not.

I think a lot of ministers now realize that they may not ever pastor full time. A lot of ministers have a second vocation or "side gig" to help support their families. There's nothing wrong with that. I would hate to see you leave the pastorate to do this, but you just need to hear God's voice on this and then follow it.

I think it is wise for you to look ahead and try to make changes now that will bless your family in years to come. I know you are seeking the Lord about it. He has a plan for you. You haven't missed it. Keep listening. And I agree, He may have something you have never thought of!
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11/28/21 5:45 pm


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