THE UNEASY MARRIAGE OF MONEY & MINISTRY
An interview with Jerry Hayner
January 1, 1987
Jesus said no one can serve two masters; either God or mammon ultimately takes control. Yet despite desires to serve God, church leaders find money issues unavoidable. For some reason, God seems to have wed money and ministry, even while warning of the dangers of money's allure. How does the church leader deal with this uneasy marriage?
LEADERSHIP sought out a pastor who has known years of both lean and fat.
Jerry Hayner grew up in West Virginia, one of four sons of a glass-factory worker, and as he says, "We wore out the erasers on pencils because we didn't have a lot of paper." A basketball scholarship put him through college, and he later graduated from Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. He has pastored in Vanceburg, Kentucky; Knoxville, Tennessee; and Gainesville, Florida; and is now pastor of Forest Hills Baptist Church in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Many pastors feel guilty or embarrassed talking about money, whether the church's or their own. Why is that?
Money seems so "unspiritual." It's mammon, which represents the selfishness of life. Our Christian faith accents self-denial. Money can buy you comforts, which hardly seems like self-denial. Also, Jesus was poor by the world's standard, and he moved among the poor. These combine to make many assume there is something spiritual about a lifestyle of poverty.
Let me hasten to say I don't agree with that concept. Money is not unspiritual. It's a fact of life, and the important thing is what we do with it, whether it controls us or we control it.
It's been said that money is one leading cause of ministerial casualties. How so?
Many churches today are caught up in the business model. The pastor is seen as head of the corporation, and if the annual report doesn't ...
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