03.13. XIII. The Problem Of Pastoral Visitation
XIII THE PASTOR AND THE PROBLEMS OF FINANCE
BEYOND dispute, this is a subject of vital concern. At this point the minister faces the Scylla and Charybdis of success or failure. He will either pass through safely, or be impaled by debt on the one side or dishonesty on the other. In entering the ministry as a calling, every young man should keep that fact in mind, and unless he intends a financial course of integrity, let the office severely alone.
It should be borne in mind also that the problems of finance are more than one, and at every point where the preacher is involved, the utmost painstaking and care are a necessity both to his safety and his sacred influence. There are Personal Problems of Finance: Professional Problems of Finance: and Precarious Problems of Finance for every preacher. THE PERSONAL PROBLEMS Primary among these is The problem of the tithe.—Possibly among the most serious sins of the church this one is paramount. There are members who “rob God.” It is as true of the New Testament Israel as it was of the Old Testament Israel that oftentimes, “Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation.” (Malachi 3:9) And if it be asked, “Wherein have we robbed Thee?” God’s answer is “In tithes and offerings.”
“Like priest: like people.”—If the pastor is not a tither his lips are sealed on the subject of Christian giving, for the Old Testament demand is not discarded in the New Testament teaching. Paul’s injunction to the Corinthians, “Upon the first day of the week, let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him” (1 Corinthians 16:2), is no abrogation of the Old Testament law, but a Christian interpretation of it instead.
It is hardly conceivable that the shepherd of the flock should be exempt from the law under which he expects his members to live. In Peter’s first epistle, 1 Peter 5:2-3, he writes: “Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly: not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; Neither as being lords over God’s heritage, but being ensamples to the flock.” A benevolent pastor can create a giving people. When generosity toward the cause of Christ characterizes the overseer, it will inevitably influence the loyal in the grace of giving.
Furthermore, there is The problem of honest payment of debts.—Here the preacher’s peril is quite acute. There are men in the ministry who buy without regard to pay day. Just because the profession itself invites credit, they abuse that privilege. When the community learns of this fact, the minister’s influence is sharply curtailed, and when at last the church is apprized of the custom, it will likely call for his resignation.
Newell Dwight Hillis in his volume The Quest of Happiness, says: “There are no tragedies like those of men who have mortgaged their all to another’s will. Happy, indeed, the man who can say that he owes no man anything. It is doubtless a fact that men who have grown rich rapidly have done so by taking great risks and going in debt. Now and then there is a man who intuitively seems to be able to foretell future events, possessed of such self-reliance and courage that he can not only pay the interest on his debt, but also achieve a fortune for himself; but these men are as occasional as the big trees of California. One Sir Walter Scott is warning enough for an entire generation. When his debts piled up, through worry, his brain faltered, his nerve grew feeble, and his hand could scarcely hold the pen, yet the interest would soon be due and the money must be paid. Year after year, therefore, he scourged himself to his task. His servants used to lift Scott into his big chair, put the writing pad on his knees, place the pen in his fingers. ‘I must be at my work,’ he whispered to Lockhart. An hour later his son-in-law found the old man sitting, with his white hair and the tears streaming down his fine old face, helpless to drive the pen or follow the thought—‘and yet the interest must be paid.’ And so the greatest man of his time was slain by debt.” The course that wrecked Sir Walter Scott, the peerless writer, has ruined the prospects of many a preacher, burying both his office and influence under the heap of unpaid bills. Paul had no thought whatever of making exception of the minister when to the Roman Christians he wrote: Provide things honest in the sight of all men .” (Romans 12:17)
Then there is The problem of lending to the poor.—The minister is the one man in every community to whom the poor make most persistent appeal. That fact contains a fine compliment to his office. Jesus Christ was a friend of the poor. He fed them, and He healed them; and the report of His conduct in the matter is known in all the nations where His Gospel has been preached. The minister of Christ is supposed at least to be His representative, and consequently to partake of His Spirit, and there will be many hands held out to him for help.
Discrimination here is biblically essential. The Word teaches, “If any man will not work, neither let him eat” To condone and aid indolence is not necessarily Christian. To contribute to the purchase of intoxicating liquors, or intoxicating drugs, is not to lend assistance to the beggar; but to give bread to the hungry and water to the thirsty in the name of the Lord is an obligation that rests upon every professed follower of Jesus Christ; an obligation that will make multitudinous exactions of the minister. The pastor need hardly fear to divide his living with the righteous poor. God has a habit of taking care of those who lend to his little ones.
It will be remembered that Elijah, the Tishbite at the end of a long journey, came to the gate of the city, and a widow was gathering sticks, and he called to her and said: “Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water in a vessel, that I may drink. And as she was going to fetch it, he called to her, and said, Bring me, I pray thee, a morsel of bread in thine hand. And she said, As the Lord thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but an handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse: and, behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die. And Elijah said unto her, Fear not; go and do as thou hast said: but make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it unto me, and after make for thee and for thy son. For thus saith the Lord God of Israel, The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the earth. And she went and did according to the saying of Elijah: and she, and he, and her house did eat many days. And the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord, which he spake by Elijah.” (1 Kings 17:10-16)
It is a rare thing for the servant of the Lord to impoverish himself for the sake of the needy, and then he himself be forgotten of God. In fact, we should say it is a thing unknown. THE PROFESSIONAL PROBLEMS The problem of educating in the grace of giving.— The average church lives at “a poor dying rate,” and the average gift of its members is a fair measure of its spiritual life. In most cases the fault is more with the pulpit than with the pew. The preacher who practices tithing and then preaches tithing in the power of the Spirit, will see his membership grow in the grace of giving. In a somewhat wide observation, we have seldom seen even a small country church dry up and die out under such a ministry. On the contrary, we have seen a multitude of them become fairly efflorescent in both giving and growth, having caught the spirit of their leader.
Such changes do not take place over night. Time is an essential element in teaching; a task that may look even hopeless at the beginning will look better at the end of a year, and still better at the end of five. Line upon line and precept upon precept make their impression, and the final product is fruitfulness. Teach and tell men what God has to say upon the subject; repeat His deliverances over and over until the mind is impressed with them, and the heart is moved by them.
I doubt if any church is, by nature, more stingy than another. The practice and preaching of an A. J. Gordon will produce a Clarendon Street for giving. The problem of directing expenditure plans.—Here God pity the minister who lacks in judgment or who fails in leadership. It is not at all unusual to have building committees go awry at this point.
Some years ago I knew the chairman of a building committee to decide upon a location for a new mission house. On the south side of this location was a dangerous street car track-crossing for unattended children; on the north side of it a big park with no population; to the west a beautiful church house of another denomination, and to the east a successful church of the same denomination as the mission itself. When we were taken to the place and shown it, we prophesied its failure; but rather than have trouble with the committee men, we subsided in opposition and let the building go ahead. It ran for about a year, and was closed for lack of patronage, and we regretted not having taken stronger ground against the investment.
Some times people build a house unto the Lord when their ambitions are bigger than their abilities to pay. In several cities of America such temples stand today more in mock than mark, for they have been lost on mortgages; and in the secular uses to which they have been put they point with unerring finger to a pastor’s weakness in permitting the procedure. This thought ramifies in different directions, and no man can be a successful shepherd of a flock, whose influence is not great enough to determine the church’s expenditures. The problem of compelling official honesty.—The young man who enters the ministry is altogether likely to meet some shocking experiences in this matter.
Think, for instance, on this as an example: A church, dwelling in a fine building, characterized by considerable wealth in its membership, collecting through the dual envelope arrangement for missions and current expense account, found itself running behind in the payment of current bills. Its officers met and by a motion unanimously carried, ordered the treasurer to take from the mission fund sufficient amount to meet the current shortage.
More than once evangelists who have gone to American churches with an agreement that when the current bills of the campaign were cared for, the offering made to the evangelist in envelopes should be his compensation for the service rendered, have discovered that portions of the same had been kept back. In fact so often has this occurred that many of the evangelists have had to do the apparently discourteous thing of insisting that the envelopes should not be opened except in their presence, or in the presence of a trustworthy representative.
These things sadly reflect on official honesty, and every pastor should make it known to his church and committees that he expects, and shall demand, common honesty in such matters. THE PRECARIOUS PROBLEMS
There are more of these than can be mentioned in the limits of this brief chapter. We select, however, three or four of supreme importance. The proposed support of the Church by various sales. —There are hundreds of churches in America where those in charge of the money raising seek to make the members, and the public in general, pay die bills by varied barters,—church fairs, popular lectures, church suppers, etc. Such a church lives at a “poor dying rate,” to use the phraseology of a sentence from one of our hymns.
Such sales affect an anti-Christian influence; they dry up the fountains of benevolence, and they leave the church of God on a little better financial basis than that of the beggar.
Years ago Dr. Arthur T. Pierson, speaking on this subject, said: “We have fallen upon a day of universal patent automatic sweetmeat machines, which guarantee to return a package of sweets for every penny put in the slot, and their influence seems to be perceptible even in our church life. We have heard of a little fellow who, on putting a penny in the offertory box on Sunday, asked his mother which she thought would come out, chocolate or caramels. We shall never have well developed beneficence in our churches until we get the sweetmeat machines out of our thought; and nothing will impress the true law of unselfishness in beneficence but a bold and constant advocacy of every form of benevolent work. The pastor must insist that the church doors shall swing open for all benevolent enterprises, and that all waters which carry healing and help to humanity shall find a channel for their stream through the house of God. He must not be afraid of the effect of such insistence and persistence. The historian Froude, for his singularly bold treatment of historic questions, has had attached to him a new word—Froudacity. We should be glad to see every pastor deserving of some such descriptive title in view of the courageous perseverance with which he educates his people in benevolent activity .” The Pastor must watch against the promotion agent. —This fellow understands the power of influence and seeks to secure the same in his own financial interest.
More than once this author has been offered a beautiful trip for both himself and wife, without expense, going or coming, to the oil fields of California and the oil fields of Oklahoma and of Texas. All that they demanded was that he should grace the party by his presence, but knowing what lay back of that invitation, he has politely declined.
Some years ago an ex-evangelist, a member of this author’s church, handed him several thousand dollars worth of stock in a Canadian Gold Mine; “a mine where millions of dollars were in full view, and only a few weeks would be required for this stock to skyrocket to the point where all his future needs would be forever provided.” The stock was instantly and politely handed back with the explanation that we could not accept it for the very simple reason that we had not seen the mine, and our ownership would induce others to purchase.
Suffice it to say that nothing ever came out of the mine; but the agent had a serious court fight to keep out of the pen. Don’t be put in the position of decoy ducks. The specious plea of the denominational program.— The principle of cooperation is beautiful and biblical. If one can chase a thousand, two can put ten thousand to flight. To link hands with our brethren in accomplishing desirable Christian ends should be our common custom; but to back every kind of program because some denominational officials put their seal upon the same is to show lack of discernment or want of courage.
Why should a man who believes the Bible to be “the very Word of God” and Christ to be “God manifest in the flesh,” who believes what the Bible teaches about the atonement, back programs on foreign fields that go contrary to these truths, or lend his assistance in constructing a church at home that stands for none of them, simply because the denomination undertakes such acts as a part of its program?
We have no sympathy whatever with any organization which declares its intention to destroy the denominations; nor with any which announces as the occasion of its gathering “the holding of the post-mortem of the church.” We do not believe that the greatest sin of Christendom today is denominationalism. On the contrary, we hold it true that denominationalism has been a blessing to the world, and that the friendly spirit of rivalry between the varied sects can offset the slight differences over the essential doctrines of the church. But while we thus hold, we cannot advise men to transgress conscience in the interest of ecclesiastical favors, to support blindly every proposal handed out from the office of the secretary of a board, or to approve and back programs which are not in accordance with the revelation of the Book.
It has become a habit now with every examining committee, to inquire of the candidate for ordination whether he will back the denominational program. It should be an equal habit on the part of that candidate to respond, “Yes, willingly: provided it is in keeping with the teachings of God’s Book; and not otherwise.”
OUTLINE OF CHAPTER THIRTEEN THE PASTOR AND THE PROBLEMS OF FINANCE I. THE PERSONAL PROBLEMS a.The problem of the tithe. b.The problem of honest payment of debts. c.The problem of lending to the poor.
II. THE PROFESSIONAL PROBLEMS a.The problem of educating in the Grace of giving. b.The problem of directing expenditure plans. c.The problem of compelling official honesty.
III. THE PRECARIOUS PROBLEMS a.The proposed support of the church by various sales. b.The pastor must watch against the promotion agent. c.The specious plea of the denominational program.