Your Voice

Consider the minister in wedding budget

By Barbara Eubanks
www.barbaraeubanks.com

June is upon us and wedding bells will be ringing for many. For the special day hundreds, maybe even thousands, will be spent on just the right dress for the bride. The family will pay for beautiful flower arrangements. The attendants will be decked out in the finest array. Caterers will set elaborate tables, heavy-laden with tall cakes and other delights. 

These things are visible and draw complimentary comments from attendees. All contribute to a memorable event.

But just how much is the minister’s time worth? Often there are hours of premarital counseling and an evening rehearsal though he already knows his part and what to do. The actual day of the wedding is filled with pictures, ceremony and such. After the ceremony his robe or tux must go to the cleaners. Believe it or not they charge him. 

The many awed and impressed guests never see what is in the envelope slipped to the minister by the groom (and yes that is the groom’s responsibility). The amount in it probably doesn’t even equal the price of the bride’s shoes and certainly isn’t equivalent to the tip for the servers at the restaurant where the after-rehearsal dinner is held. 

This is a situation the minister could never address except to his family or to another minister friend. 

But now I can speak up for those ministers who have had to smile and bite their tongues. I never could have nor would have when my preacher husband was living but I can say those things now. 

My husband was one of the most generous people I’ve ever known and never really expected more than he received. He usually would give the meager $50 or so (rarely $100–$200) back to the groom and tell him to buy his bride a nice dinner. Other times he would hand the honorarium to me and say, “Buy you a new dress with this.”

I haven’t vented on this matter out of need. God has blessed us liberally. I call it to the attention of those planning weddings and to give the general public an idea of what is left undone when it isn’t in the public’s eye. 

A person’s true character is often revealed in what he does that is not seen.  

EDITOR’S NOTE — Barbara Eubanks is an author and Christian humorist from Boaz. She was married to her husband, Steve, a minister, for 56 years before his death in 2014.

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Letters to the Editor

Regarding the letter from John Giles published in the May 23, 2019, issue of TAB: 

I understand that Mr. Giles has concerns about prison reform; however, his conclusions do not match my reading of current conditions. 

Alabama prisons are not summer camps. Anyone who has studied conditions in our prisons knows that they are dangerously overcrowded, woefully understaffed, with disturbing violence and suicides. 

The overcrowding is due in part to our overemphasis on “getting tough on crime” and locking people up. Long sentences for nonviolent crimes have not been a deterrent but have provided prisoners with a school for crime.

Joyce Greathouse
Birmingham, Ala.

The lottery bill died by a handful of votes. Let’s hope it stays that way. Alabama needs its leaders to focus their time on attainable solutions for problems that aren’t going away, and on opportunities that might if we refuse to focus. 

It’s about time they quit daydreaming about hitting the lottery.

J. Pepper Bryars
Senior fellow, Alabama Policy Institute

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College students are one of the most strategic groups to reach in the world. … We just have to be willing to do the hard work to reach them.

Kyle Bryant
College pastor, Alberta Baptist Church, Tuscaloosa

VBS allows children and volunteers to hear the gospel more in one week than they might hear in six months. 

Julie Donavan
Children’s minister, North Shelby Baptist Church

Paul was not one to procrastinate. Neither should we delay what we can accomplish today.

Charlie Howell
Executive director of missions, Madison Baptist Association

Prayer knows no political affiliation.

Kevin Blackwell
Director of the Ministry Training Institute, Samford University
drkevinblackwell.com