Lesson #7: Sustainability

Getting paid for our work is critical to ministry

When I was a shiny new priest, single and in my early 30s, I went a clergy conference in the diocese of New York, where I served. We met at the magnificent Cathedral of St. John the Divine, in upper Manhattan.

As a special favor to the Diocese, the speaker that day was well-known financial consultant Suze Orman. She was amazing - and she changed my life.

She was there to talk with clergy about money, and about taking our finances seriously, and we were all intimidated, afraid, and conflicted. We weren’t supposed to care about money - we weren’t in ministry for the money.

At the time, I was making $19,000 a year. In New York City (and living in a church-owned apartment. But still…).

Suze was having none of it.

’How much do you think I usually get paid an hour for a talk?’, she asked us (as part of the favor, she was speaking to us at a reduced rate). This was 1999.

$25,000. An hour. That still seems astronomical to me, though I’m sure she makes much more than that now.

She turned to us and said: ‘I bet some of you don’t make $25,000 a year for people to listen to you speak’. Bingo.

But what she said next was what changed everything for me:

”Do you think that what I have to say is more important and valuable than what you have to say?”, she challenged.
“I don’t.
I think what you have to say as clergy is far more important than what I have to say. I just wonder if you value it as much as I do.”

About one hundred clergy sat in stunned silence. She was right. At least, I heard her loud and clear:

It’s not about the money we personally made in from our ministry (though I still think it is a bit about that…). It’s about the value we place on the work that we do - the Good News that we share.

If we don’t value it, who will? And if it’s not seen as valuable, who will listen?