Pastors’ pay

I just read the letter from Thom Morgan in the Feb. 9 issue and to use his phrase, “I am appalled.” Mr. Morgan, however well intentioned he thought he may have been with his comments, totally missed the purpose of your excellent editorial about the financial difficulties faced by older ministers.

Mr. Morgan, unfortunately, assumes that the handful of very public televangelists and pastors who obviously are wealthy represent the majority of ministers in Baptist life. Nothing could be further from the truth. The vast majority of Baptist ministers truly do feel called to vocational ministry. If they didn’t, they certainly wouldn’t stay in it for the money. Most simply want to be fairly compensated in order to provide for their families and to be reasonably comfortable in retirement. For Christians to do anything less is, well, unchristian.

I have worked for Baptists my entire career. I have been adequately, but not extravagantly, compensated every place I have served. I have been offered several opportunities to do similar work in what we usually call the “secular marketplace” but have never been tempted by the much higher salaries that came with those offers. Why? Because I feel called to do what I do. Like Mr. Morgan, I also have served — very willingly — in many volunteer capacities in churches where I have been a member, and I have never asked for or expected compensation because that is what Christians are supposed to do. But that’s not what provided for my family. 

My wife has served on two church staffs. She is God-called and seminary-trained with more than 25 years of professional experience. The churches where she has served have been gracious and generous, but our four-person family would have difficulty surviving if her salary and modest benefits were our only source of compensation.

The associate pastor of our church in Florida was 77 years old and still having to work full time to provide adequate living and health insurance for himself and his wife. Why? Because the churches where he served so faithfully for 50 years had not provided adequately for them through the years. They lived in a one-bedroom apartment, drove a 10-year-old car and literally lived day to day. They were one serious illness away from financial devastation. Is that what Mr. Morgan truly wishes for all God-called ministers? 

Mr. Morgan listed all the positions he had held in church and stated that he had “never taken a dime in pay.” How commendable. I suspect, though, that he has some source of external income. To expect the same of full-time vocational ministers is just plain wrong, and he owes those thousands of men and women who serve our churches so ably an apology for misjudging their motives and their calling.

Philip Poole
Hoover, Ala.