Checking In

[Just a Shepherd]

Originally Posted by Michael Phelps

Ok, let me offer two scenarios, apropos to young ministers going to Bible College vs. secular college, and this whole concept of "getting rich".

SCENARIO A:
John Doe feels a call to the ministry. He goes to an unaccredited Bible school for 4 years, gets a diploma in Theology, and decides that he wants to plant a church. He gets to Metropolis with his young wife and possibly young child in tow, and sets about to find a job.

Let's stop right there. That is improper planning. First of all, John shouldn't be going to plant a church in a city when he has a wife, a young child, and can barely support them. This is the typical "thrown to the lions" UPC mentality. His Bible college education shouldn't get in the way of his making a good living. He should have better plans for supporting a family than "looking for a job."

Since he has no degree, he will most probably have to settle for a lower paying job, most likely in manufacturing or service industry work. He may make 8-10 dollars per hour, and very possibly will have to work shift work to start. He barely makes ends meet, the support he gets from Home Missions doesn't do much to help him rent a building, he has very little time to evangelize his community due to his varied work schedule. He gets discouraged after a while, and gives up on his vision of building a church in said city.

Well, this is the current model that the UPC uses. Pretty dumb huh?

SCENARIO B:

John Doe feels a call to the ministry and knows that he will be planting a church. He goes to secular college and receives a degree in accounting/engineering/business administration, _____________ (fill in the blank). He arrives in Metropolis, is offered a position with a good company making 56k per year, working Monday thru Friday with great benefits. He now has time to spend his evenings teaching Bible Studies, he can not only support his family, but can contribute his own money to purchase, renovate and insure a building.

This is a great fairy tale but in reality it doesn't work out very often. Most jobs like this are going to be very demanding emotionally and in addition to shouldering the load of a planting a church, John is going to have the added pressure of swiming with the corporate sharks.

His church begins to grow, because he has an opportunity to invest his personal time into his ministry and in time the congregation grows to the point that he can leave his secular job and become a full-time pastor. Two years down the road, John Doe experiences some financial difficulty, due to members moving away, some may become disgruntled, etc.........but, his experience and education allow him to re-enter the secular work force on a part-time basis until things stabilize.

In reality, his church might suffer as much as the first "John" because he isn't going to have the energy or emotional capitol to invest in teaching bible studies every night of the week (at least not if he wants to maintain his mariage). Secondly, he will have a very hard time giving up a stable career making $50,000 plus with benefits for a full time pastorate that is not as stable. Your scenarios are good fodder for discussion but rarely is anything that cut and dried.

Now, I realize that this is not the case with every church planter, but it's happened more often than not in my experience.

And, as my good friend Newman would say, I rest my case!

There is a better way to plant a church than either of the two scenerios that you came up with. It's just that the UPC is stuck in this mode of accepting the numerous failures of church planting and never wanting to address the issue. I would be surprised if they even kept records of their success/failure rate.

McDonalds is successful because they know every detail of what it takes to operate a successful franchise. The UPC is willing to accept the same sorry results year after year. Truly, the children of this world are wiser than than the children of light...

[Michael Phelps]

Originally Posted by Just a Shepherd

Let's stop right there. That is improper planning. First of all, John shouldn't be going to plant a church in a city when he has a wife, a young child, and can barely support them. This is the typical "thrown to the lions" UPC mentality. His Bible college education shouldn't get in the way of his making a good living. He should have better plans for supporting a family than "looking for a job."



Well, this is the current model that the UPC uses. Pretty dumb huh?



This is a great fairy tale but in reality it doesn't work out very often. Most jobs like this are going to be very demanding emotionally and in addition to shouldering the load of a planting a church, John is going to have the added pressure of swiming with the corporate sharks.



In reality, his church might suffer as much as the first "John" because he isn't going to have the energy or emotional capitol to invest in teaching bible studies every night of the week. Secondly, he will have a very hard time giving up a stable career making $50,000 plus with benefits for a full time pastorate that is not as stable. Your scenarios are good fodder for discussion but rarely is anything that cut and dried.



There is a better way to plant a church that either of the two scenerios that you came up with. It's just that the UPC is stuck in this mode of accepting the numerous failures of church planting and never wanting to address the issue. I would be surprised if they even kept records of their success/failure rate.

McDonalds is successful because they know every detail of what it takes to operate a successful franchise. The UPC is willing to accept the same sorry results year after year. Truly, the children of this world are wiseer than than the children of light...

I agree, there is a MUCH better way to do it. As I said, the scenarios that I laid out aren't true in every case, but in many cases.

[Just a Shepherd]

Originally Posted by Michael Phelps

I agree, there is a MUCH better way to do it. As I said, the scenarios that I laid out aren't true in every case, but in many cases.

Your exactly right on, that's why the whole thing is so maddening. We are sending kids onto the battlefield without any training, leadership, or stratgey. If the UPC were an Army unit the commander would be relieved of duty.

[Michael Phelps]

Originally Posted by Just a Shepherd

Your exactly right on, that's why the whole thing is so maddening. We are sending kids onto the battlefield without any training, leadership, or stratgey. If the UPC were an Army unit the commander would be relieved of duty.

Lol, excellent analogy. And, I totally agree.

[MissBrattified]

Originally Posted by Newman

Professional men? Are you speaking of sales people or business people without degrees?

I meant college-educated, degreed, wealthy men with comparatively uneducated wives. (no more than high school or some tech training). Of course, they could also be called "trophy wives".... (...as I see that SheltieDad coughed out!)

Similar education levels is usually one of the hallmarks of a compatible marriage regardless of where they meet; unless of course she is VERY BEAUTIFUL or he makes ALOT OF MONEY.

Well, touche.

[Felicity]

From what I see it seems many of our apostolic young people are going to universities and colleges.

How do people learn to trust God to take care of their needs if they never have to put Him to the test in that manner?

Excuse the personal reference but we've gone into situations where we had very little assurance of $$$.

The situation I mentioned earlier in regard to the group of people left without a church .... when we started holding services with this group we had 5 tithe payers. That was it. Before we went there I asked my husband if he had any idea how much money was coming in and what we could plan on. He said that he had no idea. I said, "Well then, don't you think it might be a good idea to ask and find out?"

He said that he believed that if we were in the will of God and he worked whole heartedly and gave God at least 40 hours a week like a regular job God would take care of us And He did!

We didn't have much for sure but we had what we needed. We were rewarded later with a much larger church to pastor and more money than we even felt comfortable taking - and didn't in fact.

I think that if a person is called into ministry it doesn't hurt them at all to learn how to trust God for what they need. Whatever happened to some of these old-fashioned ideas of consecration and trusting God and believing Him and sacrificial service?

Not dissing college and university degrees and advanced education. Not at all. But to me the will of God is the most important thing in any believer's life.

Certainly not all believers are called to ministry (as we think of it in regard to pastoring, evangelizing, etc.) but they should be seeking God as to what His desire is for them. College and university education is pretty much a given today.

Felicity,

Respectfully, my dad did the same thing without the same outcome... they just keep pouring money, sweat and tears into their church and can still barely pay their own bills. My dad has given up everything for the church and still has nothing to show for it, after 35-40 years of "ministry"... they are a perfect example of Scenario "A"... and my dad still seems convinced that God is going to come back before he "retires"... faulty logic on his part I know, but he got this mentality from the culture and from his mentors... and I know many others in the same situation as well... he has also turned down churches that would have actually been able to support him because he didn't feel it was "God's Will".

[CC1]

I have not fully caught up with this thread yet but I have to comment on Pastor Poster's theory that Bible Colleges are in it for the money.

I was asstounded to read this. Every single UPC Bible College has struggled to stay financially solvent. There is no money being made.

Because the UPC is such a small denomination and because for so long they discouraged education or striving to excel in the workplace, there are no endowment funds worth speaking of for these colleges to use as most other denominations colleges have.

Only in the last couple of decades have OP's penetrated the job marketplace in a way to build wealth so that any meaningful sums of money could be bequeathed to a Bible College.

My son went to his first year of college at a Church of Christ One. There were only about 2000-2500 students but the campus is wonderful. Much of the assets the University has and dollars for staff, programs, etc comes from endowments not the tuition money. This small University has tens of millions of dollars sitting in an endowment fund earning millions of dollars in interest. All from alumni and friends. UPC Bible Colleges do not enjoy this financial boost.

[Newman]

Originally Posted by Felicity

From what I see it seems many of our apostolic young people are going to universities and colleges.

How do people learn to trust God to take care of their needs if they never have to put Him to the test in that manner?

Excuse the personal reference but we've gone into situations where we had very little assurance of $$$.

The situation I mentioned earlier in regard to the group of people left without a church .... when we started holding services with this group we had 5 tithe payers. That was it. Before we went there I asked my husband if he had any idea how much money was coming in and what we could plan on. He said that he had no idea. I said, "Well then, don't you think it might be a good idea to ask and find out?"

He said that he believed that if we were in the will of God and he worked whole heartedly and gave God at least 40 hours a week like a regular job God would take care of us And He did!

We didn't have much for sure but we had what we needed. We were rewarded later with a much larger church to pastor and more money than we even felt comfortable taking - and didn't in fact.

I think that if a person is called into ministry it doesn't hurt them at all to learn how to trust God for what they need. Whatever happened to some of these old-fashioned ideas of consecration and trusting God and believing Him and sacrificial service?

Not dissing college and university degrees and advanced education. Not at all. But to me the will of God is the most important thing in any believer's life.

Certainly not all believers are called to ministry (as we think of it in regard to pastoring, evangelizing, etc.) but they should be seeking God as to what His desire is for them. College and university education is pretty much a given today.

I think it pretty much a given that there are going to be times in every person's life that they will need to trust God for; rather it be finances, direction, sickness, strained relationships, trials, pain, heart-ache, tribulations, etc.

I don't see getting bonus points for creating one's own hardship UNLESS it is absolutely the direction that God has appointed for one's life.

[Felicity]

Originally Posted by Newman

I think it pretty much a given that there are going to be times in every person's life that they will need to trust God for; rather it be finances, direction, sickness, strained relationships, trials, pain, heart-ache, tribulations, etc.

I don't see getting bonus points for creating one's own hardship UNLESS it is absolutely the direction that God has appointed for one's life.

Newman........

I don't think I said anything about creating one's own hardship? What I WAS saying is that when God calls and leads and wills He will provide!