Pastors Driving Rolls Royces...

Do they still make those cars?

(Long Post Warning here)

The Senator’s investigation has now drawn numerous responses from his targets. The requests are letter requests with both specific and general questions. Many of the specific questions are based on news media reports concerning the possessions under the control of the church or ministry leader. In fact, many of the items described do seem somewhat flamboyant.

 A key question here is whether the items belong to the church or to the ministry leader. If a ministry leader is compensated by the church and chooses to spend that money on items, that is their choice. If a church buys those items then that is their choice.

Allow me a few stories though to counterbalance some of the mainstream reporting.

 As I wrote in my earlier post, to paint all megachurch pastors as prosperity televangelists is a big mistake.

First story:
Most pastors own their own cars. And most megachurch pastors I have met intentionally purchase sensible, dependable autos.
For the past several years I have had the privilege of working with some “up and coming” megachurch pastors. For the most part I would lable them in the “Live Simply, give generously” crowd more than a prosperity crowd.
Their autos, houses, clothes and other possessions reflect this. (the exception is their fetish for laptops and cell phones.)
I even know many of these pastors that compete to drive the crappiest car, taking pride in their junkers.

I remember being picked up by a pastor in a nice Lexus sedan. When I commented “nice ride”, he told me how it bought it sweet, used and although it already had 80K miles on it, he expected it to give him good service for another 100K before passing it along to his kid.

This is far more typical that the current media stories.

In fact, I know a “prosperity preacher” that I visited in the past year. In his parking space was a small baby Mercedes, probably 8 years old, with a few dings and honestly, needed a wash. He said it was his daily driver, cheap to operate and good gas mileage.

He said he had been teaching his people about the importance of being debt free and wanted to model that value by driving a used, paid for car. Like I said, this guy is a "prosperity" "seed sowing" type of guy, but he preaches about good uses for wealth. I may not agree with all his thinking and theology but the practical impacts seemed about the same as the "no debt" Bible Churches.

Second story:
My wife has a cousin that has been a pastor for years in small towns. He is not a megachurch pastor but rather a patient, loving, shepherd of his flock. His current church has grown over his 17 year pastorate. They have added a building, staff, but still it is nowhere near mega status.
In that town I would label it as “the striver” church. There is a set of “First Churches” in that town that are the establishment, and then churches like the one he pastors.
A few years ago on one of his pastoral anniversaries his deacons got together and decided to do something special for him.They pooled their money, not giving it through the church or gaining any tax benefit, and bought him a new automobile.
The pastor was stunned to see that bright, purple PT Cruiser in the parking lot with a bow on it.

Of course, as he tells the story, he was sure that they bought him a car this distinctive so they would know it was the preacher coming down they road so they could themselves lay aside anything they didn’t want the preacher to see.

Nevertheless, he loved the car (as did his grandchildren), not so much for the “coolness” factor, but rather that his deacons had done something so nice for him.
Somewhat surprisingly a few months later deacons and governing board members from other churches began to accost the generous deacons by telling them how wrong it was for them to buy their pastor something so nice.

The generous deacons response: “Our pastor loves us and we love him. Perhaps if your church loved your pastor like we love ours you would make him a better pastor.”

 The point of my story: Sometimes church members give their pastor nice things without any prompting or leader from the pastor. Our family has been known to give our pastor a gift card or two. When I was pastoring, people gave me clothes, pens, and other tokens of love which I gladly accepted.

In many cases, Pastors are blessed by loving parishoners giving them gifts which are outside of the pastor’s control.

Final story in this never ending post: Culture matters.

 Let’s face it. I grew up in a white bread, conservative church where things like budgets, envelopes and check boxes mattered. Pastors got paid a straight salary.

 However, when I was a giving leadership to a denominational region I found that some churches had other ways of handling money and compensation for their pastors.
Many of these differences derived from different understandings about the relationship of the pastor to the church. Some pastors received small stipend-like salaries through the year, but were given a large “love offering” on their anniversary Sunday. Part of that tradition had its roots in an earlier, agricultural time.

Still other churches used a multi envelope system with one offering for church tithes and another envelope for the pastor’s ministry. In some of those churches, the pastor paid for other pastors through those offerings.

Without going into complete detail, I would say it was another way to look at the system of finance which in turn looks different from my church or some other not for profit organizations.

Other churches have an understanding where all the funds are controlled by the pastor for their distribution to appropriate ministries.

That is just the way they interpret scripture and how it should work.

 Back to the question: Should a pastor drive a Rolls?

A few answers from my perspective:

1. Every pastor has to answer to God for all they are and all they have. Same with other believers. Teachers have double honor and double judgement, so they have to answer that for themselves. You could substitute BMW, Kia or any other word for Rolls and have the same issue. Should the pastor have a home or live in church owned home? Should the pastor have a cell phone?

All of these things are luxuries to someone.

2. In some cultures, driving a nice car is seen as a blessing and an aspirational value to be upheld by the community. In others it is seen as arrogance and a hindrance. The same could be said of houses or clothes, watches and jewelry.

For myself, I choose to live simply. I cant make a choice for others.

 In my final post to come – I will write about information, how it is provided and what the responsibility of the church, government and church member should be from my point of view.

Comments

[fgn]

One of the worst, documented, mega-pastors is John Hagee of Cornerstone Church in San Antonio. He pulls out over $1 million annually for personal gain, not including the money for his wife and son. It is all documented on the internet... search Google for "PETITION FOR PASTOR HAGEE TO REPENT".