FINANCIAL FACTS OF PASTORAL LIFE
Forum
Kevin Miller and Marshall Shelley
January 1, 1987
The church's first squabble was over finances, and ever since, pastors have wrestled with what role to take in church money matters. They are trained and called, as those early church leaders put it, for "prayer and the ministry of the word" (Acts 6), yet ensuring wise management and distribution of church funds is also essential to a church's health.
What is the pastor's role in the financial process? How close to the money should the pastor be?
To find out, LEADERSHIP editors Kevin Miller and Marshall Shelley went to Hartford, Connecticut, a center of insurance and finance, and talked with four experienced pastors:
-Stanley Allaby, who has ministered for thirty years at Black Rock Congregational Church in Fairfield, Connecticut, and serves on the boards of the National Association of Evangelicals and Sudan Interior Mission.
-Ed Hales, pastor of First Baptist Church, Portland, Maine, who served as stewardship director for the Baptist General Conference for seven years and is a member of the standards committee and board of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability.
-Roy Jacobsen, who for sixteen years has served the United Methodist Church of New Fairfield, Connecticut, which is currently in a building program.
-Manzer Wright, for ten years pastor of First Assembly of God in Brookfield, Connecticut, and who has been through three major building projects.
Leadership: Most pastors are called to preach and give pastoral care. How important is it that pastors have a "carnal knowledge" of numbers?
Ed Hales: Whether we want to or not, when we're dealing with a corporation that's expending, say, a quarter of a million dollars a year, we have to be pretty well versed in finances, unless we find other persons to handle it.
Roy ...
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