I had lunch with Laidback Clergypal today. We meet in little ‘burg between our two cities a few times a year. He has been at his church four years and is having some conversations with other congregations. One is a 1,000 member church in search of a head of staff. Ay caramba!
He is a great cheerleader kind of friend. I remember my dad at a few pivotal life moments encouraged me not to sell myself short and this friend is carrying on that message. There’s no reason why I shouldn’t also consider applying to a 1,000 member church if I want to. He says this, even though we know that our situations are different. He has a rather portable spouse and one infant child. And he is a man. I, on the other hand…
Why does the gender thing make a difference? I wish I knew. It just does. It’s not a closed system, but it has an impact. If he had a third kid on the way, dollars to donuts he’d still be in conversation with The Church of 1,000 Members.
I have been thinking hard about what ministry will really look like post-BB. Three kids feels like a tipping point for full-time ministry. Do I take time off? Do I drop to part-time? And LBCP’s question to me was, what does it feel like to be limited by family circumstance, to move forward in one’s career much more slowly than my male counterparts might? We speculated on what our ten-year reunion will be like. What will the men be doing; what will the women be doing?
It was charming and also ballsy of him to ask these questions so directly. They are honest questions that speak volumes about the differences between our situations. He is about as liberated as they come, but acknowledges that he has some weird hunter/gatherer thing going on when it comes to providing for his family.
At this stage in my life, I don’t consider slowing down my career to be a sacrifice. Just as I look at a pile of unfolded laundry and try to see the sermon I wrote or the pastoral call I made (see previous post), I look at a slower career trajectory and see a more nourishing pace for our family and for me. However, I can see a time when I might look back and wish I had done things differently, or resent the way things are set up—that expectations of ministers are so unrealistic that a capable and gifted person felt compelled to step off the career ladder because the deck felt stacked against her. I hope not though. I feel grateful to be where I am, at the age I am. There still feels like plenty of time for the tall steeple church, if that’s what I want and if I’m what they want. Two big ifs.
Last week at the young clergy women’s conference we spent informal times chatting about what success means in ministry. As I have said, I was glad that we basically didn’t get into issues of pecking order. It probably helped that we were so ecumenical. I have no way to gauge whether an Episcopalian is on the fast-track, whatever the fast-track even means, so any efforts to impress would have gone over one anothers’ heads!
One of the small-group leaders (an over-40 woman in ministry) talked Thursday night about the importance of ambition—healthy ambition, I assume. She emphasized the importance of networking and other career-promoting activities. I get this. But I also wonder whether we are all starting to define success differently. I don’t have anything to back this up, but it feels like ministry is becoming more diverse as a career and might continue to do so. Yes, there are pastors and associate pastors, but there are part-time people, chaplains, people who work in the liturgical arts, writers, etc. So who is more successful, the part-time campus minister or the stay-at-home mom who coordinated worship services (including a gathering for 20,000 people) for our denomination’s General Assembly? The diversity of ministries and ministry contexts renders the pecking order discussion rather pointless.
For me, right now success means that I get to do interesting work at a fair wage. And I’m content with that definition.
However, I do still struggle with competitiveness. This little piece of me wants everyone to know that I could grab the brass ring, today, right now, kids or no kids, I just choose not to! Yeah! Yeah! It’s a conscious choice!
I have written about this before. I am a driven person. I just am. I want to be the best. Thank God for the spiritual director who got tired of hearing me lament, “I wish I were not this way” and who said, “Stop trying not to be competitive. Instead consider that this is a gift God gave you. Just figure out how to use it to the greater good in a way that doesn’t hurt yourself or others.” Shazam.
So I am working on accepting my drivenness, but letting it be an internal thing rather than comparing myself to others, because as I said earlier, how is that even possible? We aren’t all running the same race. There were a couple people last week who pushed my buttons, who seemed like they were trying to measure up somehow. I have not quite gotten to the place where I don’t give a shit, but I have progressed enough that I recognize when someone is trying to one-up me, and while I stew about it internally, I refuse to play. That’s progress enough.
How do you define success? And do you deal/have you dealt with competitiveness?
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Asides
» I have been remiss in posting SBJ’s latest stats: 23 pounds and 27 inches at six months. Yes, I’ve got the big mama biceps.
» Aaaaaand little she-who-is lost another tooth this week!
» SBJ is four months old, 19 pounds 5 ounces, and 26 inches tall. GIGANTOR!
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I am competitive, too. I struggle with this issue so much. In addition to “female” and “mother,” I add “single” to the list of things that I feel might hold me back professionally. On one hand, I HATE that. On the other, I recognize that mothering is just as strong of a call for me as ministry. So it’s a balancing act.
I did submit my PIF recently to a 600 member church for their head of staff position. I don’t think they’ll consider me, honestly. So why did I do it? Because their interim is a friend of mine who happens to be female and a mother. I thought to myself, “Well, shoot! If she can do it, so can I!” In some ways, a head of staff position would be a dream come true. Imagine - not carrying the entire load yourself! (I’ve always been a solo pastor.) Having resources for ministry and Chrisitan education. Having programs for my own children. And the salary package would make my life a LOT easier. But the demands would be greater, the expectation may be higher, etc., etc.
Two things:
1) I know a large church who is calling a late 30s male pastor with 8 years experience and I’m sure he’s a swell guy, BUT . . . this church would not have considered either me (early 50s with 23 years experience) or you (way younger and smarter).
2) Said church - which is somewhat liberal — was told by the elder who helped guide them through search process that, although they were supposed to interview women THEY COULD GET AROUND IT. We would be screaming if a more conservative church in our presbytery tried to “get around it.” Said church was exempt from having to interview a woman as one of their finalists.
I’m a bit peeved.
It is definitely more difficult for women to be called to comparable churches that (often less talented) men are called to serve every day. Ugh.
Now that I think about it, my mother’s comment when I told her about submitting my PIF to the church I mentioned above was, “Oh, no. They’ll call a 30-something year old man.” And she may be right. But they sure do seem to love their 30-something year old woman interim! Maybe they’ll break the pattern . . .
Thanks for a thoughtful and thought-provoking post.
I wonder if “success” is even a faithful concept to apply to ministry…that’s a real wondering, not a conclusion on my part. Having said that, I think it’s definitely unfaithful for our denomination and many others to have set up a hierarchy in which bigger is better than smaller, where full time is better than part time, where senior is better than associate, where these assumptions are almost unquestioned.
What’s “successful” or faithful is whether I’m at the place God has called me to be. That may take lots of time and energy and effort to discern, and maybe some not-right places along the way.
Maybe I’m not particularly driven or competitive or ambitious, but there is absolutely no desire in me to be the senior pastor of a tall-steeple, large membership church. If there are young women like me who do feel that calling, then I don’t want our system or culture to hold them back.
Ah, off the soapbox. Thanks for asking, though.
Well, I’m the person who was the inarticulate counterpoint to that comment. I’m not super-competitive in some ways—I never ever want to work in a fancy pants place again—but I am in others. I want to be noticed. I want to not be bored.
I think it comes from how success is defined—is it in a hierarchical model or some other? It seems like we’re playing a boy’s game–how big is yours? And I, for one, don’t think bigger is better.
But don’t get me started on who is the better preacher….because there my inner snark will come on out to compete.
Even in my allegedly more liberal denomination, there are limitations for women in ministry. With three children to educate, and recognizing that I will do the lion’s share of paying for it, I feel a desire to be a lion, to roar loudly and be heard. That’s partly because I know that’s the way to make the living that will make the educations possible. But I also know how much I enjoyed preaching to a big crowd from a big pulpit at Pastor Peters’ installation this spring. It felt exciting, and it also felt right. What are the chances I’ll get to do something like that week in and week out? Slim, although perhaps if I continue in Interim Ministry, I might get it in short bursts. It’s aggravating.
Though I can’t speak from experience to the question of competitiveness in ministry and how you define success in that profession, I do have some thoughts from my days as a lawyer that may be apt.
The hardest thing I ever did was stay home with two babies after spending 8 years as a practicing lawyer. It challenged my understanding of myself at the very core. Although I never returned to the practice of law after Babs was born. I always told anyone who asked what I did that I was a lawyer rather than a stay-at-home-mom. I couldn’t bear to write “housewife” on the tax return in the space where you have to indicate your job.
Over time I came to see myself as being called to use my training and skills as a lawyer for the benefit of the community and of my church. Maybe this was rationalization–because when my girls were very young there was no such thing as a “mommy track” in any profession, let alone the law. It will be very different for Portia. And it’s very different for you, although ministry is way behind the medical and legal professions in this regard.
Once I thought I had not been successful as a lawyer because I never got to practice, like El Jefe does, with the big time law firm or large corporate legal department. But now I see success more holistically. As a practicing lawyer, I would have been limited in my ability to parent, to serve my community and my church and to develop administrative and teaching skills that I had. I still used my legal training to help individuals, churches and ministries whenever I could. I’ve been really blessed and feel successful — though not in traditional terms.
What I’m suggesting, dear RM, is that your definition of success will be much broader than a professional one as time passes. And that’s ok. In fact that will be superb! It may include raising your 3 children while pastoring a 1000 member church–and it may not. Your success may come as a published writer, or as a mentor in ministry, as a teacher, or in some other ways that allow you to use your gifts in a broader sense.
Listen to God’s call on your life and ministry as you go, and try not to get sidetracked by the expectations of the professional world. You will define your own success.
“Auntie” QG
The best definition I’ve ever heard was from Mick Jagger. Success is “the ability to continue.”
I think he’s absolutely right, and that’s all there really is to it.
So it puts things like competitiveness in a larger frame. Sometimes you have to compete in order to continue. Sometimes the competition is with yourself. Sometimes it’s with others. There’s nothing wrong with competing with people; it’s how you find out the bar should be higher than you put it when you were just competing with yourself.
Unless you’re a limbo dancer.
I don’t know much about ministry career tracks, but I do know about what has happened in the past 20 years of my career as a doc, a career that I truly believe to be my calling.
Over the years I have discovered two things to be absolutely true:
1. We always have just enough money. When I took 9 weeks off to recover from debilitating depression, when I worked part time with babies in the house, when I scheduled my office hours around kid school schedules, when my husband plays music gigs, when appliances break and the car needs new tires…God has provided. When Katrina hit and we did not pay ourselves for 6 months so that we could continue to pay employees, God provided. We are good stewards of those gifts, but gifts they have been.
2. The male docs in my community who used to sneer at my modified schedule, the ones who told me point blank to my face that a med school spot had been wasted on me because I worked less hours than them….they are the ones that now work a schedule like mine and are happier for it. Some of them have even been humble enough to admit that when they saw it work for me (both in my peace about my lifestyle and financially), they learned from my choices.
Which just begs the question: Why is the big steeple so prestigious? In the long run being a woman, a wife, a mother has not held back my career, but has instead has helped defined a new way of having a successful career for both genders in my community.
That sounded holier than Thou than I intended. I just think that the definition of success has been written from a male perspective for way too long and that as women called to our different ministries, we have a opportunity (duty) to shift that definition. And that it really CAN shift, because I have seen it happen in my colleagues.
Sherry, in her book, Prof/Mentor talks about how many of us get hung up on the “bigger/better/more” bandwagon when assessing our worth as preachers, and she says that while women hit the wall with it in a particular way, our male colleagues do too. It might take longer or happen differently, but many of them aren’t terribly satisfied by the way things are either. Sounds like you’ve noticed a similar dynamic. (And I didn’t hear holier-than-thou at all.)
Jan, regarding the church in our presbytery, la-la-la-la-I-can’t-hear-you! Yet I know this is all too common. If it’s the church I’m thinking of, I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt and say that since they already have a 30-ish woman on staff, they wouldn’t have considered me too seriously because they wanted to seek some balance. Maybe? Maybe?
And I admit that yes, that’s a double standard, because a church with a 30-ish MALE associate would probably not think twice about calling a 30-ish MALE head of staff. Balance only seems important when it’s the women in leadership.
Then again, here I am at a church with a female head of staff. Members of the APNC tell me how HARD they tried to hire a man. They really really beat the bushes. But as Catherine Gonzalez, a former professor, put it, “Many churches are going to find themselves with a choice between an excellent woman and a so-so man.”
My goodness. What an amazing post and conversation. I guess I should simply say that I, too, struggle with the idea of success in ministry, the large steeple path, and being a mom to two young children (even with a stay at home dad). I have been where I am for over 5 years now and things are going great. I have no desire to start looking. And yet, there is this small voice in my head that says (every once in a while) “Why hasn’t a single church contacted you even for your PIF?” I know that someone has put my name in for big churches that I never in a million years thought would pan out, nor even that I would feel as a call, but they never even gave me a looksie… I am 35 yr old woman, mother of 2. And I cannot shake the feeling that if I were a 35 yr old man, father of 2, my phone would ring from time to time. And that kind of makes me angry. It makes me a bit sad. But I also wonder “Why do I care? I feel called to be right here for now.” I guess I just want the freedom/opportunity to either choose or not choose.
RM - you said it best “Why does the gender thing make a difference? I wish I knew. It just does. It’s not a closed system, but it has an impact. If he had a third kid on the way, dollars to donuts he’d still be in conversation with The Church of 1,000 Members”. And that stinks though I try VERY HARD not to let it get to me. Aren’t I supposed to be doing ministry differently
?
just for the record, the church that jan mentioned receiving an exemption to interviewing a woman did so over my protest. alas, they had their reasons that seemed compelling to others; not me. it eerily reminded me of all the exemptions white churches in the south might have raised for not allowing black folks to be members let alone leaders.
also, at jan’s persistent encouragement to read Velvet Elivs, I did. the “fourth movement” of that book is the most personal and the one that I think relates tangentially, but importantly, to this thread about the brass ring pastoral ministry.
SG, you fight the good fight, and you do so with joy and humor—and we’re glad you do.
Is movement 4 the one where he talks about killing Superpastor? Aw man that rocked.
I also liked what his therapist said: “Your job is the relentless pursuit of who God has made you to be. And anything else you do is sin and you need to repent of it.”
I share many of QG’s experiences and views.
I remember so well that, almost immediately out of law school, many of the men in my class became fathers. They had already married teachers and nurses, which is to say women who had completed their educations, begun work, and were in fields in which part time work was a possibility and time off was not a career-destroyer. No one said of these men, “Oh my, how will fatherhood affect their competence and availability as attorneys?”
I’m sure I don’t have to elaborate on the much different situation for the women, who would not have dreamed of becoming parents within a year of law school graduation.
Like QG, I have come to see that one of the gifts extended to women is the possibility of defining success much more broadly and personally than the traditional male version permits. Solo pastor in small rural church, AP in medium size church, SP in huge and prestigious church, while mothering five children or none, earlier or later? We have much more leeway for assessing whether our use of our gifts is pleasing to God.
loving the conversation here- but also want to throw a different thought into the pot
“I want to be the best.” - you can be - and I suspect you already are.
Small congregations matter!
I honestly believe we’re coming to the end of big parishes and big(ger) salaries - that’s a scary thought . And other than in megachurch maybe even to the end of salaried pastors- we’ll be doing church in a very different way.
It excites me but scares me.
At the end of the day - yes -. even though we have to pay the bills, put kids through school etc etc - the really important thing is that God will say “well done faithful servant” because we’ve been in relationship with Him and got his priorities and vision. (that may be for big church and fat salary but it might be doing church in a smaller way - it’s important NOT to lose focus of Him as we strive for better and best use of our gifts and talents
Also a lot of the 30 year old males will become burnt out. Let’s NOT aspire to join them in that at least!
thank you for the honesty in this post. It’s so refreshing - as are all the comments.
and I loved the Mick Jagger comment - the ability to continue - yeah that’s about right
and Sherry - loved your reminder that God does provide -We in the west are so so privileged to enjoy such a high standard of living- and I’ve never ever really gone hungry. have you? … A less is more life style is what we should ALL aim at - and it can be done, you’ve shown the way for that and it’s GREAT
I have a prof/mentor who totally agrees with Lorna about the end of the big churches -
And I once heard Joan Chittister speak on this issue from a different standpoint - about men feeling compelled to compete and how that promotes Patriarchy - I don’t know how all of this fits together, but somehow it does.
I don’t see anything wrong with a healthy competitiveness - it’s what makes us all care to be better - I think as women our sense of “better” has to be inclusive of more than the work week in ways that men don;t usually have to address. We get to juggle all of it a bit differently.
I am sad that success is still being defined by bigger=better–how tall is your steeple, how many people hear your sermons.
At that panel one of the things I said was, “I’m at a fancy pants university. Get me out.” Of course, then I instantly felt shamed for admitting it and got choked up and that sucks, but basically, you couldn’t pay me enough money to be the senior chaplain at fancypants. The higher up the ladder the less contact with the pew….and that’s not how I define success.
I just wish I didn’t feel like a freak for defining it differently.
ppb, you’re not a freak.
I’m glad I could be the poster child for naked ambition.
As one who, several years ago, chose to step out of the “race” for an Associate position at a very large church after they asked to hear me preach (and told me that I was their top choice) and instead, chose to work for a non-profit because I was totally and completely burned out in parish ministry (at least I thought I was) at the age of 31, this conversation is powerful for me.
I found out about myself at the non-profit that I had made an idol out of being a “pastor” - my whole identity was wrapped up in living and working in a congregation. And I was completely and totally not cut out to go from pastor to project manager. Being at the non-profit was both a gift and a wake-up call for me; instead of healing the wounds I had incurred from a rather toxic congregation by retreating from the church, I truly believe I could have healed by loving and pastoring through the recovery. That said, I would never have been looked at for my “dream job” (as chaplain at a small university) had I not worked for the non-profit.
And now that I am engaged again at the presbytery level, I find that what I see needed most is clergywomen and lay women in our 30’s using our ambition to imagine different ways of being church; different ways of asking questions; different ways of defining faithfulness when the money is drying up and the ministry is requiring more creativity. At least here in Texas, we need more young professionals to be a part of the process - to have a voice - to use our ambition to be a voice at the table because the table here is still all over 50. (And I love my over-50 colleagues, but the questions and assumptions are just different…)
What I’ve realized the last four years is that success has to be more about faithfulness to God’s voice and direction, for God’s imagination for me is much larger than my ability to see the great possibilities. Yet, it is also about realizing that when invited to the table, even when I want to say, “I’m a mother and a minister and a wife…”, I go to the table to speak my own truth and to shape a different way of being.
It’s measuring, “I’m tired now; but will it make me more tired later if I don’t change the way things are? Or, is this someone else’s fight?”
I have spent almost 40 years in ministry of some kind and 25 of those ordained. I have done the ‘ambitious’ thing and I have done the ‘whistle blower’ thing and lost my place in the queue so to speak, and now at the age of 63 am going to work in a 70% cure in a small town, outside my own denomination. I am thrilled to get another chance.
I wonder if going the ‘ambition’ route costs us too much whether we are male or female. I wonder if it costs us the ability to comment on what it means to be Christian in the face of churches that often don’t want us to be Christian. I spent the past 4 years looking at all the younger women and men clergy in my area allow things to go on in the Church because they are afraid for their positions–afraid that they will get on the wrong side of a juridical officer. I can’t really blame my colleagues for protecting their jobs, but I don’t have much respect for them either.
Ambition is one of those things that we sacrifice much for. But are we willing to sacrifice ambition and the results of our ambition to really follow Christ when it comes to living into the cost of discipleship?
In the beginnings of the ordination of women process 30 years ago in my denomination, we had hoped that ambition would be absent among women so that the ministry would be more of a living into the ministry in a community of faithful people. That image of ministry has never caught on. Many of the under 60 crowd chose to imitate the male image of career development rather than settle down to really doing the nurture of a community of faith. I don’t know if congregations understand what it means to be nurtured as a community of faith either except small ones in small towns.
I have had the tall steeple. I don’t think I was any better minister than what I am now. I do not think I was challenged anymore or was any more effective than I am now. And by blogging I believe I am reaching just as many as I ever did in my large pulpit.
I see ambition as a temptation, now. And I would counsel all of you younger sisters out there to be careful about what you wish for. Do not loose your souls to ambition.
this is slightly off the subject, but I am just stuck. I am bothered by the term “portable spouse.” Are those his words or yours? Maybe she is flexible in her ability to move with her husband? I don’t know. I just got stuck on that phrase.
Really? Huh. That’s interesting. I have heard, and used, the term for years. When I graduated from seminary, my spouse was portable and said as much. He was interested in starting his own business and could do that in many different geographic areas. Now he is no longer as portable because he has built up a client base here. I have another friend who was geographically limited because her husband worked for the Chamber of Commerce. Her options for ministry were extremely few. That’s the intent of the phrase.
But say more. Is the objection that it makes her sound like an ipod?
It is probably more accurate to say that her job is portable. But yanno? It’s a blog.
Wow, what an amazing conversation.
I marvel at the wisdom and struggles in these responses.
Having been both a cut-throat competitive litigator and a pastor, I wish there was something pithy and intelligent I could add to the conversation, some tasty bon mots comparing the two. But alas, no.
I can say this about competitiveness in the law–it works for the system. The natural adversarial system, at least in litigation, seems to feed that competitive drive that carries over into all aspects of the profession from billable hours to client recruitment to salary escalation. Despite the protestations of my egalitarian and sensible law professors, in today’s legal marketplace, most of the time it is a zero sum game, with only one winner. And that makes the competitive spirit essential to survival.
One would hope that in the world of the church, such a zero sum game isn’t at work, and that what competitiveness there is is born out of a zeal for the success of the gospel–whatever that means. I’m not naive enough to think that is actually true, but it would be nice. Some I do believe are motivated by the desire to do the most good, provide the most for their families, and have their gifts used to the greatest extent possible. Notice that this kind of success isn’t measured against others. (Based on what I know of them, I would count Songbird and RM in this category of ambitious people).
My theory and my fear, though, is that many more in the church have bought into a zero sum game, so success is determined by congregation size (client recruitment), salary escalation, and some twisted view of “winning.” Here’s the problem. We don’t “win” in this profession, at least if winning is something that requires someone else to lose. It is does not compute.
Now the confession. Personally, I’m far less competitive now than I was as an attorney. I was VERY competitive in seminary–as RM and Teri can attest to my detriment. But things are different now. I wish I could say it’s because I’ve gained some insight or wisdom. It’s not. It’s because of who I am and where I am and the limits of the system.
I serve a tiny church…a church that stuck its neck out to call me. I’m a gay pastor in a denomination that says I’m a pariah if I’m ever lucky enough again to be in a relationship. I hope I will be, I work toward that. That being the case, I don’t have the options that many others have to climb the ladder, whatever that looks like, at least if I try to be honest about who I am. I say that not to elicit “poor, pitiful me” responses, but to recognize (in my mind at least) some sense of solidarity with those whose career path is limited by others’ prejudices or expectations. I can honestly say that, while I might be interested in the challenges of leading a 1000 member (or even a 500 member) congregation in our denomination, I know that it simply isn’t possible, not right now anyway.
Has that knowledge freed me to be completely content with where I am? Sometimes, sure. But if things were different? If that Great Old Southern Presbytery would consider me would I be submitting PIFs there? If it wouldn’t have caused a potentially career ending tsunami of prejudice, would I have submitted a PIF to that Texas church or the other one whose PIF made me drool? Who knows?
I do know that it will be virtually impossible financially for me to continue where I am for many more years unless something changes. So is it time to recharge my competitive batteries and see what’s out there?
Here’s the thing. Like, I suspect, lots of folks of a certain age, I don’t want to go traipsing off across the country to another city just to have a bigger church or make more money, even though I see the necessity of the latter. I love the city I now call home. I have friends here…commitments…roots. I like not being under a microscope. I like not being a poster child. I like not having had charges filed against me or my church. All of that could change somewhere else.
So am I mature yet open to the movement of the Spirit for my next call whenever it might come, or am I complacent and fearful? Which keeps me out of the competing PIF parade? Heck if I know.
Thanks, NotShy…that zero sum game distinction you articulated is very helpful.
I by no means was wanting to offend my more “ambitious” (again, not sure that’s the right word) sisters or brothers in ministry. Just stating where I am. And that’s as a clergywoman married to a non-portable spouse, expecting a baby…I know my thoughts on “ambition” and “success” emerge from my own situation and are limited by it. Maybe they are also in some sense a justification of my own situation as well.
This is a fascinating conversation, though. Count me in as long as it lasts here.
wow- having read all of the comments I have nothing to add, except to affirm you in your choice, it models a priority for other families, and folk in different careers, time spent with our partners and young children is important and I suspect both sexes would benefit from the slower track at this time.
Thank you for your honesty and openess in posting this.
As some of you who frequent this site know, I resouce a program that is part of Lilly’s Sustaining Pastoral excellence initiative. The term excellence - pastoral excellence - often evokes secular visions of excellence - not unlike many of the issues associated with the success/competitiveness aspect of this discussion. And believe me, I’ve have the privelege of being with a lot of pastors in going on 5 years who struggle with the issues in this conversation.
Like NSCR, I have no pithy words or bon mots. Like others I have a solid competitive streak, which has been tempered over the years (plowshare, not sword-like most of the time).I just like to dig in and discover and do and feel satisfied - the” best” I do differs a lot from day to day. I learned to compete for community support working in the nonprofit sector- competing for financial and human resources - not unlike we do in the church. I’m also aware of some tugs of discernment going on in my heart and head. Sigh. I so didn’t want to go there for a couple more years . But the thought of being compared with other candidates - same age and younger, male and female - sometimes the thought fills me with dread and other times, I feel that tinge of anticipation that comes before a test - and I was a good test taker!
So I think a lot about Paul’s “more excellent way” when I think of sustaining pastoral excellence and this discussion. There is a lot of compassion and love and hope - for self, family, others - for our human vocation and Christian vocation - expressed here. And it is a community - which is something clergy folks need to sustain them along the varied paths of ministry.
Keep on praying for all the saints, and think on these things…..thanks for a thoughtful conversation as always.
RM, yes, I think it is the portable like an ipod thing. A portable job sits better with me. at any rate, I am not losing sleep over it, and I have been thinking about the rest of your post.
As a DCE who is not called to ordained ministry, I struggle with what success means as people keep telling me that I need to get ordained to be successful or assure me, “you really could do it!” when the issue is my call not my confidence.
no answers, but I appreciate your thoughtful questions.
Thanks, NotShy.
My one liner above came from frustration at hearing people who aren’t a family’s primary support brush off the significance of that role. There seemed to be an assumption of faithlessness, and that bothers me. Walk a mile in my shoes (or commute 70 miles round trip because the family is not “portable”), and then get back to me about it.
Wow.
Here I have been reading this conversation and marveling at its particularity—how there have been few, if any, generalities, no “shoulds” whatsoever. Any sweeping statements I’ve seen refer more to the “system” in which we find ourselves rather than particular choices.
People are speaking out of their experiences, and I like that. I feel like this is exactly the kind of conversation we need to have. I have learned a lot because people haven’t pontificated; they have spoken from where they are. And we are not all in the same place.
Now I learn that you, Songbird, have been reading this conversation as a judgment on you and your values. Please show me exactly where that has taken place.
Because frankly, I don’t see it.
This is a really interesting question, RM, especially since I fit the “heterosexual-young-male-with-family” prejudice (and I think we can call it that) that most churches have. Now, my spouse is semi-portable because she is a pastor as well. But the call of the career is still strong.
I was once in conversation with a retired superintendent of a large city school district. He certainly would define himself as ambitious. He commented to me that after three years or so at my small, struggling, blue-collar church, that I could “write my own ticket.” The question for me is, do I want to write my own ticket?
In my life, the answer is no. I’m happy where I’m at. More importantly, I really sense that I’m being faithful to the God who called me here. That’s the thing for me: it’s a question of why I would want to go to a 1,000 member, 500 member, or even a 100 member church. Do I want to go for my own ego, to feel vindicated in my ministry, or even just to have more stability than constantly looking at the budget and determining if my church can meet minimum salary requirements for next year? Or do I see how God can work through me and use me in a particular church of whatever size?
Good luck and good providence to all of you who are looking for calls. I pray that one day churches will be able to see the vocation of each of you, rather than something else.
I, too, have been told that “after x, you can write your own ticket.” And the thing is, a) it’s not true, and b) I really want to take money out of this.
What would it look like if money was not part of the equation? What would it look like if title was not part of the equation? What if everyone’s title was pastor and everyone was paid relatively the same (adjusting for cost of living and experience, maybe.)
I feel like we have all (myself included, ask me how much I like being an ASSISTANT chaplain after being a solo chaplain) have gotten sucked into the markers of the world: title and money. And I wonder how many of us really WANT bigger or more prominent, and how many of us just really want more money? If you’re seeing a finger pointing, it’s pointing at me, not you.
I remember a recent National Crankypants Presbytery meeting, in which we were adopting a new compensation policy for pastors, including a new formula for calculating the minimum salary. During the discussion a pastor thanked the committee who’d worked on the policy then said, “I see you all worked on minimum salary guidelines. Was there any discussion of maximum salary guidelines?”
Crickets chirped.
A tumbleweed blew by.
And I, who make about 2/3 of what my head of staff does, even though milk costs us both the same, and I’m buying more of it—and don’t get me started on the cost of a house in NoVA in 1983 as opposed to 2003—wanted to applaud.
You know, I wonder about that. I know that I feel like you do get paid more for time served, but not neccessarily for rank. Like, a longstanding associate should make more than a whip-cracking 35 year old senior with 5 years of experience. And I wonder if we paid on that basis, would associates who really LIKE being associates stay around longer—if they didn’t think you had to be the senior to make a living wage?
When I was on session, I remember doing the first approval of pastor’s compensation packages, and we had a senior and an associate pastor. And the senior’s housing allowance was higher than the associate’s–and I protested it and got it changed. I felt like it cost the same to live in that town whether you were senior or associate, and the salary should be the only distinguishing thing–although even then (I was 19), I realized that Pastor S (associate) had 10 years of experience and Pastor C (senior) had 12, and I couldn’t figure out why their salaries were so different. (And I now realize that pastors sometimes choose to have bigger or smaller HAs. But when we equalized the HAs, it meant that the associate could afford some things for his house that he had not previously been able to afford—a cleaning service, for one, one that was a godsend in a house with 4 young boys.)
Bottom line: I think our ministerial culture creates this. And it starts with money.
One of the “duh” moments I had with this compensation stuff is realizing that giving a percentage increase each year—which is what Suburban Pres does—means that the gap between the head of staff and the rest of the staff will only widen and widen with each passing year. So yeah, if I stayed five more years, my salary would go up, but I would no longer make 2/3 of the head of staff salary, I would make LESS than 2/3. And yet I would have nine years of experience by that point.
Though this wasn’t part of the official presbytery policy, one suggestion was to give each staff person a flat amount as a raise, then a small percentage on top of that. Which I think makes a lot of sense.
Talk to my friend VPF on that one. She is working really hard on that issue with her university. What she is proprosing is that there is a flat salary for each rank, based on cost of living. So, let’s say that is 30K, 35K and 40K for assistant, associate, and senior professor. And then each professor has an individualized “merit” grant on top of that, which takes into consideration experience, publications, etc. . Because when you give across the board “cost of living” increases, the top ranked folks go up in much higher proportions.
And I think this would work very well in a church setting, too. Whatever the Presbytery’s minimum salary is that year (and it does go up usually), is the base salary for all the clergy, and then the “merit/experience” bonuses go on top of that. Then you could raise the merit/experience category at a similar rate —say 5%, but still maintain a base salary that is AT LEAST the minimum for the P’y. Or whatever your church thinks is fair.
I’m not trying to play the devil’s advocate, but do associate ministers work as hard as senior pastors? If so, why wouldn’t you want to be the senior instead of the associate if the hours are the same but the pay is better? If not - or if somehow the jobs are different in terms of responsibility and expectations - then what’s the fuss about lower compensation?
Another thing - what’s missing in this discussion is the role of call. If you are called by God into a ministry - of whatever shape and form, then the world’s definition of success or how you imagined your life working out becomes less important, doesn’t it?
My priorities remain the same - no matter where I serve: God, family, church - in that order.
Finally, what a wonder the internet is - it allows us to form community and enter into conversation without ever revealing who we really are. Now that’s a theological quandry - isn’t it?
Yay! More discussion. First of all, “do associate ministers work as hard as senior pastors?” Yes. And no. Sure, I know senior pastors who are workaholics and associates who don’t do jack, but I also know senior pastors who are bored and burned out and ineffective and yet make tens of thousands more than their associate pastors who are kicking butt and taking names. Uh, for Jesus.
And isn’t that just a rationale for accepting workaholism as a virtue to be rewarded? So we pay Pastor X oodles more money because she works 80 hours a week yet has no self-care skills, and we pay Pastor Y much less, even though she is modeling a better way of being and, in fact, may actually be more effective for the 50 or whatever hours she does work. (Because I firmly agree with Roy Oswald of the Alban Institute who says that pastors cannot work more than 50 hours a week, week in and week out, without their job and mental health suffering.)
I know that “more = better” is the way many industries work—indeed, our economic system in the states seems to be built on it. I’m questioning whether that should be the church’s witness.
As for why the fuss over compensation “if somehow the jobs are different in terms of responsibility and expectations” — I don’t expect ever to make the same as Senior Pastor. That would fail to acknowledge both her role and her years of experience. But I also don’t think that percentage increases are at all just. I actually lose ground every year in comparison to her; in other words, the (relative) rich get (relatively) richer and the (relative) poor get (relatively) poorer.
For that reason, I think call has everything to do with the discussion. If I feel a call to be an associate, and the church takes seriously the vow it took to “pay me fairly,” I would hope to be able to continue here as long as I feel called, rather than feel like I need to seek a senior position because that’s what it takes to advance financially as my skills and experience advance.
God, family, church. Of course our priorities should be consistent, though I would say we serve God *by* nurturing ourselves, our family and our church. And as sherry and others attest, God really does provide. But that sentiment can quickly devolve into “we can live on love!” theology, which is all well and good, but sometimes God provides by giving us the assertiveness to say, “You are not paying me fairly. I am worth more.”
I agree RM. And I think the too-disparate pay (and respect) moves really lovely, program-oriented associates into senior pastors for all the wrong reasons–but who can blame them when it’s that or moonlight at Target?
Senior pastors may or may not work “more” than Associates. I think that’s a case by case basis. But they do have more “buck stops here” responsibilities. And generally, that level of responsibility is compensated. And I totally don’t mind that.
It’s when cost of living is on a flat percentage basis that associates and seniors widen so much that the associate positions become, at times, untenable.