’I need your help sorting this out.’
After almost 30 years in ministry - and 10 in business as a Free Range Priest - as a sacramentalist, worship leader, and future of church cheerleader, consultant, coach, teacher, and author - I know a lot of people in ministry. And a lot of them reach out.
They are clergy, (mostly) small congregations, and denominations. Lots of whom are already my friends - or they quickly start to feel like friends. None of whom tend to have a lot of spare cash.
They reach out to talk about a current dilemma in their ministry. I always want to help, and for years I would eagerly schedule coffee or a Zoom chat. I did not even consider charging money for this.
Then my husband pointed something out to me: I was giving away my best work.
I would go to coffee, listen, and strategize. I offered my best advice, encouragement, and counsel. I even followed up with them.
Then I would offer to coach them or consult with their organization. But most never became paying clients.
Why should they, when I had already
provided my work for free?
I had already waded into the messy world of Cage Free Ministry, where it is incredibly uncomfortable to face my own feelings about ‘asking’ for money for work that is intimate, personal, and spiritual. Work that is traditionally compensated as a salary from an organization - so if someone asks for a coffee meeting, the cost of that time (and advice/counseling) is already ‘covered’.
Even though my work involves a LOT of telling other ministers they should value their own work and get paid for it - I still struggle to do the same. And to create pathways for how to do this!
It starts with this: It’s ok to be paid for ministry. It’s more than ok - it’s crucial.
I have a clergy friend - serving as a salaried, associate pastor of a large church - who created a beautiful set of videos that welcomed newcomers to the faith. She planned to make them available to other congregations - and charge for access. Her senior pastor told her she could not, because it is ‘yucky’ to be putting a price tag on religious work.
I launched right into Free Range Priest action mode with her (as a ‘free consult’):
Does a senior pastor have the right to tell a staff member they can’t have a ‘side gig’? Even a spiritual one?
Is it wrong to charge for our creative work as ministers?
And - most importantly - can we look closely at those the ‘yucky’ feelings about ministry and compensation?
This is the question I’ve been asking others to consider, that I have not fully considered myself: sorting out the feelings about ministry compensation.
I also think the future of church depends on it.
LONG gone are the days when clergy got a full-time salary which might have been modest, but usually came with free housing.
The movement towards requiring mainline congregations to provide a minimum approved salary, healthcare benefits and pension payments directly correlates with the decline of the institutional church.
Today, most congregations cannot afford full-time clergy compensation packages, unless they have endowments or other denominational support.
At the same time, I think we cover up our discomfort about compensating clergy for their work - and our increasing inability to do so - by implying that we shouldn’t expect to get paid for spiritual work! (imagine any other profession where the response to not getting paid is ‘you should just do it for free’!).
So we end up with ministers who have to work secular jobs in order to support themselves and their families. And we call this ‘bi-vocational’.
We can’t move forward into new models of what it means to be church if we won’t get real about our discomfort with ministry as a vocation - and a job. With compensating ministers fairly for our work. And expecting to be compensated fairly if we are ministers.
When I decided to go ‘Free Range’, it was partially to use my own ministry as an experiment:
is it possible to make a living in ministry that is not full-time with a congregation?
And the answer is: YES. I think it’s possible. I know it is, in fact. AND … I’m still growing into it myself.
After 10 years, my income is still up and down. I remind myself that part of the reason for this is I take home less than 50% of what I bring in.
My husband’s salary puts me in a high tax bracket - so 25% of what I make goes to quarterly taxes.
And I have what’s called an Extension of Ministry. The bishop approves my work as ministry, then the Pension Fund allows my business (which is just me) to pay into my pension. Which is great, because I am still accumulating years of service in the church. And it means that 18% of everything I make goes into my pension (for at least the next few years until I officially retire).
So taxes, pension, and business expenses eat up 52% of my gross income!
But I’m coming to realize that’s not the only reason my ministry has struggled financially.
As I’ve been on this ‘Cage Free Ministry’ journey, I’ve been dealing with exactly the same ‘yucky’ feelings about compensation for my ministry that I counsel others about!
My business has not been consistently successful because I have not taken it seriously as a business. And I have not taken it seriously as a business because I am a minister.
I recently answered a question at ‘Ask Father Cathie’ about whether we can provide pastoral care and sacraments to members of a former congregation.
My short answer was ‘yes’, in some contexts, and hopefully in conversation with their current pastor. And that we should charge money for it! It is, after all, what salaried clergy get paid to do most often: pastoral visits and sacraments.
But even as I said it, I knew I would never go to someone’s hospital bedside with an invoice!
This feels far too transactional. And honestly, the doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers are not talking about money when we’re there at the hospital, either. But we do get a bill. And we expect one.
As I answered the question about pastoral care, I did think aloud about how to bridge that gap. One possibility is to offer ourselves directly to congregations/other pastors as ‘pastoral visit specialists’ or ‘funeral and wedding specialists’ - and create contracts with communities so they pay us for a certain amount of visitation per month, or directly for funeral/wedding officiating.
In other words, there are ways to preserve the sacred nature of our vocation - and also get paid for our work. That’s what salaried ministry traditionally does!
The trick is re-working the formula in ‘Cage Free’ ways.
And tolerating our complicated feelings about it.
It’s a trick I’m both teaching and still learning.
The truth is, if it were not for my husband’s corporate salary, I would not be able to pay my bills, and certainly not live at the economic level I do. That’s hard for me - for so many reasons:
I want my ministry to be an example to others that new ways of sustainable ministry are possible.
I measure my ministry’s success partially in financial terms. I think this is important for the church overall:
people pay for what they value.
If they value their work, they pay for it.
If we value our own work, others will, too.
If people aren’t paying for ministry (or giving to the church), then it’s obvious they are not seeing the value in it. This is a spiritual problem.
I’m someone who has supported myself financially all my life, and it’s very hard to feel dependent.
I call my husband ‘Jeff - my patron saint’. He also says that the most important work in the family is mine.
When I started Free Range Priest, I left a good-paying Diocesan job with benefits to basically make nothing as a start up. Jeff and I had two kids who were about to start college in the next two years. We did the math, and realized that we could make it work financially while I got my business going.
Then, just weeks after I made the leap, Jeff got laid off.
We went months without any income at all.
I asked him if he wanted me to go back to a regular church job. He said, ‘Is that what God is calling you to?’
No.
’Then let’s have faith that we’re going to get through this’.
And we did.
All of this has shaped my own complicated feelings about money, ministry, business, faith. It has also made it SO clear to me that I cannot ignore the issue of sustainability if I want to be serious about the future of church.
None of us can.
And it’s giving me the incentive to be as honest as possible about it.
That this complicated topic is holy, because at it’s core, it’s about how the Holy Spirit is transforming the practice of ministry. And how we share the love of God in new ways.
I believe it’s always been complicated. All the way back to the beginnings of the church. So it’s ok to continue to wrestle with it today.
Today when people want to talk about a ministry dilemma, I send them my coaching link so they can schedule a time - and pay for it in advance.
Mostly. This is still a growing edge for me. I’m still a minister. If you grab me in the grocery store (or at a great party, as happened to me not long ago), I’m going to listen and give you my best advice.
Or if you are truly one of my besties, you will forever get free coaching. But I’ll tell you when I’m putting the coaching hat on, and when we’re just talking as friends.
Not long ago, I got an email from a former colleague. He was looking for some advice on how to to pivot his ministry. I replied with warm words - and my coaching link. I did not hear from him again.
I let myself struggle a little bit with my ‘yucky’ feelings - I should have helped him for free. He ‘just wanted to talk’. Then I reminded myself that this is my business. He was specifically asking for advice and direction, because I have expertise about how the church is changing, and how we can change our ministry to meet this moment.
And I realized I was taking my own advice by insisting to myself that my work is valuable and important.
Can Cage Free Ministry be truly sustainable?
I think it can be. I think it will be. I think it needs to be.
But it takes courage, vision, and faith. Which is still a work in progress for me.
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