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New member here

I didn't realize how many Baptists there were here. I'm not really surprised because despite the fact that they have made A LOT of their own rules they do try to get us to study the Bible for ourselves. Yes, I am a former Baptist. I was raised in an IFB church, and I have also graduated from an IFB college. I pastored a couple of churches, one a southern Baptist church, but most of my work was in IFB churches. Personally, I love the people even though many of them are "faking it till they make it," but there are many of them that are sincere and really love people. I talked to the pastor I served under the most about polygyny, and he's actually a well-known preacher in those circles, and he was very gentle towards me. Naturally, he disagreed with me, but he basically acknowledged that he could not prove polygyny was sin. He also wanted me to keep attending. Although I've served with the iron-fisted type of preachers before, I can't help but think that there might be just as many preachers who are just deceived as there are willingly ignorant. For all their made-up rules, I agree with many of the IFB doctrinal positions.

Personally, I think it's God's will for pro-polygyny churches to be established. I think God would be pleased if a few like-minded believers moved to the same area to form a pro-polygyny church. If this were to be done in a few different places I believe God would bless our movement. The local church is God's vehicle of choice to bring the truth to the world. Perhaps these new churches could also help us gain a louder voice in our government.
 
FollowingHim said:
The opposite does occur also. After finding out that the pastor of a church was being paid considerably more than I or anyone in my family had ever been paid in any professional career, I stopped donating to that church as I considered it would be poor stewardship of my money to fund such extravagance. If a pastor is to be paid, they should receive a reasonable salary, ideally comparable to the wages received by the men in their congregation - not too much less, but also not too much more.
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To put this in context, the reason the pastor is paid so much is because of competition. They can't find a pastor. It seems to be normal to have a pastor for only about 5 years or so. Then they will go many months without having a pastor, because there just aren't any available. They are all old and either dying off or retiring. The pastor we had 3 pastors ago has retired 3 times already but keeps being called back. And even while in 'retirement state' keeps having to do guest sermons.
It's been mentioned to our son to be a pastor, and it's honestly never a job I saw him in, but they want young people going into the ministry.
Our current pastor is leaving in May, and there is no way they will find someone new by then. They don't even know where they're going to get a new pastor from at all.
 
FollowingHim2 said:
To put this in context, the reason the pastor is paid so much is because of competition.
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This.

And there's also a misunderstanding of clergy compensation, because the fringe benefits and tax benefits are impressive.

A friend of mine once lamented that we pay our priest so little. I pulled the last church financials report and demonstrated that via housing, utilities, various stipends and tax exemptions he made well over 73k a year.

Ministers who don't understand the value of their total compensation package often feel they are underpaid, and push for for higher wages, even when the congregation is already providing substantial benefits and stipends.

I work at a tax firm and with church finances. This is kinda my wheelhouse. :)

My dad pulled our family out of an independent Baptist church when I was a kid because the pastor tried to raise funds to replace his wife's current Mercedes with a newer model. My blue collar father was rightly scandalized.
 
FollowingHim said:
. It does make practical sense for many congregations to hire somebody full-time to teach, visit the sick, administer various programmes etc.
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And if you look at the NT scriptures you'll see that these are all things that are either an outflow of normal life together as a congregation or for which the Spirit gifts people with the ability to do. As in different people. The NT never envisioned all those things done by one person much less someone hired in to do it.

In other words the solution to your looming labor crisis is already there all around you. In all likelihood the Spirit has already equipped people for it, either there now or who will be.
 
NBTX11 said:
Same. Like I said, I wouldn't attend a church like this now if it was the last church available. Too many man made rules and regulations and errors in doctrine.
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Well I am friends with Bob Vacendak! He was my youth pastor and one of my teachers in grade school, and was a HA grad who actually married the daughter of Mr. Anderson, but he helped me realize that those rules I was embracing in my formative years, were really nothing more than legalism. The church started to evolve away from legalism after the DH debacle, but ultimately ended up splitting. The sad thing was, my father getting booted out for his shameful behavior, had a lot to do with the split.
 
blessedwith1 said:
I didn't realize how many Baptists there were here. I'm not really surprised because despite the fact that they have made A LOT of their own rules they do try to get us to study the Bible for ourselves. Yes, I am a former Baptist. I was raised in an IFB church, and I have also graduated from an IFB college. I pastored a couple of churches, one a southern Baptist church, but most of my work was in IFB churches. Personally, I love the people even though many of them are "faking it till they make it," but there are many of them that are sincere and really love people. I talked to the pastor I served under the most about polygyny, and he's actually a well-known preacher in those circles, and he was very gentle towards me. Naturally, he disagreed with me, but he basically acknowledged that he could not prove polygyny was sin. He also wanted me to keep attending. Although I've served with the iron-fisted type of preachers before, I can't help but think that there might be just as many preachers who are just deceived as there are willingly ignorant. For all their made-up rules, I agree with many of the IFB doctrinal positions.

Personally, I think it's God's will for pro-polygyny churches to be established. I think God would be pleased if a few like-minded believers moved to the same area to form a pro-polygyny church. If this were to be done in a few different places I believe God would bless our movement. The local church is God's vehicle of choice to bring the truth to the world. Perhaps these new churches could also help us gain a louder voice in our government.
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You and I are on the same page regarding starting pro-polygyny churches! I have the same vison. When you have a pastor who leads such a church, if that church can grow like gang busters, it will make the other church leaders stand up and take notice. A church or denomination leader won't debate someone who has not accomplished something that they would find noteworthy, but if we can reach lost souls for Christ, they cannot deny that the Holy Spirit is at work in those of us who embrace this.

The dirty little secret about where pastors make their money, is from the sale of books and speaking engagements. They gain their experience through pastoring a church, and once they have material that they can write about, that insight or the tale they are able to write about, how God moved in their congregation, is what sells books.
 
Daniel DeLuca said:
Well I am friends with Bob Vacendak! He was my youth pastor and one of my teachers in grade school, and was a HA grad who actually married the daughter of Mr. Anderson, but he helped me realize that those rules I was embracing in my formative years, were really nothing more than legalism. The church started to evolve away from legalism after the DH debacle, but ultimately ended up splitting. The sad thing was, my father getting booted out for his shameful behavior, had a lot to do with the split.
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I fight this with everything I have. I have no time for man made rules and regulations. I am a conservative Bible believing Christian. I have no time for the commandments of men! The type of churches I attended when young regulated seeming every thing in your life. Music you listened to, condemning movies and TV, clothing you wore, hairstyle you had, Bible version you read and much more.

I have no time for fake made up non Biblical rules and regulations!! Does the Bible regulate that activity or did you just create that out of thin air on the principle of being "worldly".
 
Daniel DeLuca said:
You and I are on the same page regarding starting pro-polygyny churches! I have the same vison. When you have a pastor who leads such a church, if that church can grow like gang busters, it will make the other church leaders stand up and take notice. A church or denomination leader won't debate someone who has not accomplished something that they would find noteworthy, but if we can reach lost souls for Christ, they cannot deny that the Holy Spirit is at work in those of us who embrace this.

The dirty little secret about where pastors make their money, is from the sale of books and speaking engagements. They gain their experience through pastoring a church, and once they have material that they can write about, that insight or the tale they are able to write about, how God moved in their congregation, is what sells books.
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You are right about the speaking and books, but from what I've seen the books are the cherry on top. Most of the books from the IBF churches don't usually sell more than 5000 copies. However, the speaking engagements appear to be an "I scratch your back, you scratch my back" arrangement. The church pays their salary while they are off preaching somewhere else, a sermon you already preached at home. The books are made from a sermon series they preached last year, and possibly church members helped put it together. One of the churches I was a member of had a guest speaker almost every month, and of course, that gave our pastor the weekend off. Although many times when we had a guest speaker, our pastor would be preaching somewhere else. On top of that, our pastor was already well-paid.

I will say in my former pastor's defense that he was extremely generous, and he wrote very good books.
 
And who publishes these books? Very often it's not Christians. Yet this is how 'big name' preachers are made. How who has influence over the direction of American Christianity is decided.
 
MemeFan said:
Publishers don't matter. What matters is public accceptance.
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Publishers matter most. They gatekeep what gets published. And only their books get the PR, get talked about on the radio and in the pulpits. The same goes for booksellers. And for who get's on the radio, etc.
 
rockfox said:
Publishers matter most. They gatekeep what gets published. And only their books get the PR, get talked about on the radio and in the pulpits. The same goes for booksellers. And for who get's on the radio, etc.
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They can influence public.

We are having variant of discussion who is more powerful. State or market (population). In the end population always wins.

Here is publishers vs public. Public will win.
 
rockfox said:
And who publishes these books? Very often it's not Christians. Yet this is how 'big name' preachers are made. How who has influence over the direction of American Christianity is decided.
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There are a lot of "ministers" that are only out to take advantage of people. Your disdain for them is probably well-earned.

The ones I'm the most familiar with were self-published and printed by a church in Canada. I know that there are a lot of men who are just in it for the money, but the preachers I was close to sincerely cared about people and loved the Lord. No, they were not perfect, but they were not wolves in sheep's clothing either.
 
blessedwith1 said:
You are right about the speaking and books, but from what I've seen the books are the cherry on top. Most of the books from the IBF churches don't usually sell more than 5000 copies. However, the speaking engagements appear to be an "I scratch your back, you scratch my back" arrangement. The church pays their salary while they are off preaching somewhere else, a sermon you already preached at home. The books are made from a sermon series they preached last year, and possibly church members helped put it together. One of the churches I was a member of had a guest speaker almost every month, and of course, that gave our pastor the weekend off. Although many times when we had a guest speaker, our pastor would be preaching somewhere else. On top of that, our pastor was already well-paid.

I will say in my former pastor's defense that he was extremely generous, and he wrote very good books.
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Good assessment.
I would just add that being a published author of multiple books gives you a leg up in the credibility game, even if they only sell at the book stand in the lobby of the venue where he is speaking that day.
People are genuinely hungry, but they have been taught easy believism, tickle your ears theology, so they go from one to another “spiritual leader” trying to fill the void. Buying books as the wolves…., er, pastors pass through.
 
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