Transcript: How to Get A Ministry Job

How to Get a Ministry Job 

All right. We're back. Steve Elzinga here. We're in a class on Enterprise, and  we've looked at things that relate to your personal finances, how to save money  in your personal finances, how to do better in the present job that you may have  and how you might get a raise or how you might get more time - all of it  designed to give you an opportunity to do more ministry. That's what you want.  You want to do ministry. You want to make a difference in your work as well. 

Well finally, we're going to get more into creating Enterprise. So in the next three sessions, we're going to look at how you might develop a ministry job. Then  eventually we're going to look at how you might develop an enterprise thing in  your own life. I want to look at five different options. There's probably more but  these are sort of the general option in terms of ministry jobs that are out there. 

1. First of all, all members are ministers. There's a doctrine in the reformation  that was called the priesthood of all believers regardless of pay. In other words,  we are all ministers. Every one of us is called by God to a ministry. We're all  called to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with the gifts that we have, with our  abilities, with our opportunities, the people that we meet. So in some ways, we  all already have a ministry job. It's just that most of us do not get paid for our  ministry job. So the next four are ministry jobs really that sort of perhaps involve  a little bit of pay. 

2. Tent-making. Now you are getting paid to do ministry, but you're the one that's doing the paying. So you pay yourself to do your ministry. So it's sort of like  getting paid but sort of not. So we'll look at tent-making. 

3. The third option in terms of pay in the ministry is a love gift. Maybe you've  heard of that in your church. Maybe you haven't. A love gift is where we give a  certain amount of money to someone who has done some work for the church  or the ministry organization, and we just give them a specific amount. It's not  related to the hours that they put in. We're not paying somebody so many  dollars per hour. We're giving them a token of appreciation. So it's some money.  Sometimes it can be considerable money, but it's not tied exactly to the ministry  time or what was done. And it's generally a lot less than what you might have  been paid if you were hired. So a love gift. 

4. Part-time ministry. Probably most Christian workers around the world are part time. In other words, they have a regular job, and then they do their ministry.  And the ministry pays them so much per hour. Maybe they work 10 hours or five hours. We have a secretary that works 10 hours a week at our church. We have  a janitor that works eight hours a week. We've got several kids that mow the  lawn, and they get hired for two or three hours. Most of the staff that we have at  church are part-time. They're hired for specific things. They're hired for a specific

number of hours. 

5. We'll look at full-time ministry. Maybe that's what you're interested ultimately  in - full-time ministry. 

So we'll look at all these different options and how you might go about trying to  find them. I know that many of you at CLI, you've taken these classes. God, for  whatever reason, touched your heart in terms of you learning more about God  

and learning more about doctrine and church history and all these things. And  you've enjoyed it, but you ultimately wonder, "Well, what am I going to do with all this? What is God preparing me for?" As you get into it, maybe you become  more and more disillusioned with the work of it you do and how much time that  you have to put in to supply the money for your family and so on, and you'd love  to do more and more ministry. But you don't have enough time or money to do it. This is finally the session where you might learn something about how you might do that. 

I want to talk briefly about the disadvantages to compensation. It sounds like a  good thing when you're not getting paid, and then you hear that this talk is about getting paid. It's like, "Yeah. This is what I want." But there are certain  disadvantages to getting paid. 

1. Low wages. In general, people getting paid in the church or a ministry make  far less than people doing the same job in some secular business organization.  You sort of get stuck in that. Even CEOs in non-profits generally get paid a lot  less than they would otherwise. 

2. You cater to the hands that feed you. The disadvantage to being in a non profit is that there are people that have to supply the money. The tendency then  in the non-profit is to cater to whoever supplies the money. I've seen this all over the world. A person who loves God is called to be the pastor. He gets paid very  little and there are a few people in the church that have a lot of money that  actually pay most of it. And they are the ones in charge. You can't afford to go  against them and do what you think God is calling you, or you will be out of a  job. So the tendency in a non-profit is to cater to whoever pays the bills. 

3. You get caught in the struggle between God and money. Because you're sort  of mixing the two. You have the money thing, you have the ministry thing, and  they're side by side. I think this is one of the issues for Judas. We don't have all  the details of why Judas did what he did, but he was the treasurer of Jesus' little  band of disciples, and it's interesting that he is the one that betrays Jesus. And  in fact, he gets compensated to do this betraying. We don't know what all of his  motivations were, but it's just very, very difficult. 

My brother worked at a non-profit in Kentucky for many years. He was working  with a young man that truly loved God, wanted to be used by God. My brother 

was mentoring him and training him. But in the end, he stole from the little non profit store that they had. I remember my brother being disillusioned with the  whole thing. Here I've been working with this guy for six months, and then he  steals from the very people that are trying to help him. 

I tried to explain to him, "My guess is his heart was good. He really truly wanted  to serve God. But every time he met with you for Bible study, you're talking  about the Bible, and God and you had this big bag of gold sitting right next to  you." 

My brother was in charge of the organization. He was connected to all of the  money up north that flowed to this ministry. And my brother has a nice car and  all these things. So every time they talked, he wanted to listen about God, but  he was blinded by the bag of gold that my brother was sitting next to. So  eventually, he just took some of it. Well, you might do the same thing. The  temptation, the problem of the money and the non-profit and all those things  being sort of together gets confusing sometimes. 

4. The disadvantage of getting paid to do ministry is you get this hired hand  mentality. The idea that the ministry now hires you - we are paying you and so  you must do the work. They're the ones in charge. As a ministry, you're  supposed to have God in charge, and you're following God, and you're  mobilizing the people to do the ministry. But a lot of times, when compensation  is involved, people have it the other way around. "We're paying your salary. We  are your boss." 

OK, Advantages. There are some advantages to compensation. 

1. You have more time for ministry. When you're volunteering and you're doing a little bit here and a little bit there, you don't have time, you can't do big things,  you can't follow through. A lot of times you can't do things that take years to  build on. 

2. You are more focused on ministry. The other way, you're busy trying to make  a living, and then with whatever spare time you have, you quickly throw it onto  ministry. But you don't really have time to focus on it. 

3. There's a more consistent leadership. "I'm running a church and they can  count on me. They know that I'm going to be there. They know that if things  come up, I'm going to do it because this is my living. This is what I do." 

All right, Back to this business of being hired. 

A reason for a church to hire 

This is very important. The church needs leaders, not doers. It doesn't mean  that the church is always aware of this, but ultimately what a church needs in  terms of ministry and paying for ministry is leaders, not doers. Ephesians 4:11. 

"Christ, himself, gave the apostles, the prophets, evangelists, the pastors, and  teachers," - these are all the leaders. What is their purpose? To equip his people for works of service. Who is doing the works of service? It's the people. 

The mistake in getting hired is to think that they are hiring you to do the ministry.  Hiring you to do the visiting, hiring you to do all the organization, hiring you to  take care of the finances, hiring you to do the music, hiring you to do all the stuff  that goes on in a church. They're not hiring you to do all those things. They're  hiring you to get other people doing those things. The people have to be doing  these things. If they hire you to do all these things, they spend all this money to  get one person doing something. What a church really needs is a leader who  gets 10, 15, 20 people doing things. So you're 40 hours becomes 400 hours. 

When I planted my church in Vancouver, I had a tough time trying to convince  my start-up team that I was called to get them to do stuff. They kept bringing  people and they'd find somebody that had all of these needs and then they'd  come to me and say, "Here you go. Now you have to take care of them." 

I came back at them and I gave them this phrase. It's a fishing phrase. "You  catch them, you clean them. In other words, you go fishing and we catch fish. All of you church members go out and you catch all these fish and then you bring  them back to the church and then you plop them down on my desk. Now, I have  to clean the fish that you caught? My job is to teach you how to fish and to get  you motivated to fish. But when you catch a fish, you clean them. When you  reach a person, you train them. You reach a person, you help them get closer to  Christ or whatever their problem is. I will help you do that. But don't make me  the one worker here in the church. 

Connection 1. Step one to compensation. We're going to look at several steps  on how you get to compensation. Step one to compensation is to volunteer. You  don't get any compensation for this. Volunteer in the seven connections. First of  all, you have to have your own walk with God. We've gone over the seven  connections many times. But you need a walk with God. If you don't have a walk with God, there's no point in trying to get a ministry job. Why should a church  hire you if you don't even have your own walk with God? 

Connection 2. And if you're married, a walk with God with your spouse. If you're  not walking with God with your spouse, then don't try to get a ministry job. 

Connection 3. Walk with your family. You've got to have a daily time of praying  and reading the bible and singing together as a family if you expect to be hired  to lead that in the church. 

Connection 4. Start a small group. If you've never started a small group or led a  small group, then why do you think you could be hired to help a church? You  have to volunteer first for these jobs.

Connection 5. Volunteer in the service. Volunteer to pray, volunteer to do the  music, volunteer to do something in the service. 

Connection 6. Learn from other churches. Talk to other people. What's going on  in other churches? Become aware of what's going on in society. 

Connection 7. Share your walk with God with others. 

The seven connections, if you're not doing these things, if you're not living the  authentic Christian life in your personal life - your marriage, your family, small  groups, the church, the Kingdom, the world, then there's no point in trying to get  anyone to hire you to do these things. 

Step 2 to Compensation in ministry is to get an education. You have to know  something. You have to learn something. The Apostle Paul first trained as a  Pharisee. He worked at this his whole life and then God converted him. But God still used all the training that he had. 

Jesus, Jesus grew up in a small, rural little town. But every Jewish boy had to go to the synagogue. By age 12, they had the first five books of the bible  memorized. You have to have some education if you hope to get hired. 

Christian Leaders Institute, that's what it's all about. To help average people,  people that don't have enough money, people that don't have time, help them  get an education. If you want to get compensated for ministry, you have to have  some education. You have to take enough classes. So if you're just starting,  keep going, keep going. You need more education. 

Step 3 to Compensation in ministry. Start volunteering. Yeah, but then you don't  get paid. Yeah, that's right. But why should someone pay you to do what you  have never done before? What experience do you have? 

It's that problem. People want you to have experience. You go for a job and they say, "We'd hire you but you don't have experience." 

Then you say, "How can I get experience? No one will hire me." 

In the church, it's perfect because there's this thing called volunteering. You  can't just volunteer at some company, but you can at church. So start by  volunteering. Get some experience in the church. 

On-the-job training. Volunteer to lead a class. When I went to seminary back in  the day, one of the first things I did is I volunteered to teach Sunday school for  an entire year. Third-grade Sunday school. Never done it before. Then the next  year, I volunteered to teach the seventh-grade catechism. 

Seventh graders are horrible. You have no idea whether you're doing anything. I  remember the whole year thinking, "I am not accomplishing anything. I don't  think these kids are getting a thing." Five years later, I did a chapel at the school 

that I once attended. After the chapel, I was walking in the parking lot, and all  these kids that I had taught in seventh grade came running up and they thanked me and told me how great it was back in seventh grade. So you have no clue  what you're doing sometimes or how God is using it. 

On the Job Training 

3. Discover your gifts. How do you know you're given anything? I was not a  speaker. I grew up, I had a hard time reading. I was in a special class for the  kids that didn't know how to read. In third grade, my teacher told my dad, "Teach your son a trade, because he's never going to go on to any college or anything  like that." 

I didn't do plays. I didn't like reading aloud. I was not a candidate for speaking or being a minister of any sort in the world. 

Then God, through some crazy thing when I was in grade nine, I ended up in  some speech contest because no one else would do it, and the teacher made  me do it. I didn't want to do it. The night before, I decided I was going to make a  total fool of myself, and so I decided, "If I'm going to make a fool of myself, I  might as well just go all out." So the next day, I went all out, lost my place three  times. But I spoke with passion. And I won. And all of a sudden, "Maybe I can do these things." 

So you have no idea necessarily what you can do, but you don't know what your gifts are until you start trying them. You need an opportunity to go out and try  things. Who knows what you can do or not do? The first time you sing, it might  not go that well. It doesn't mean you're not a singer. The first time you speak, it  might not go that well but who knows? You have to try these things, and that's  what the church is all about. The church has all these things you can volunteer  for, and the church is not always that discerning in terms of whether you're good  at it or not. "Oh, you volunteer? Well, thank you." It's a beautiful place and  people are forgiving. And they're very encouraging. So try everything. Volunteer  for everything. You don't know what your gifts are until you actually try it and find out. 

Discover your passion. Who knows what you'll like. It's hard to know. Do you like teaching? Who knows? Try it. Do you like preaching? Who knows? Try it. I  preached long before I went to seminary. I gave it a shot. Most of it was a  disaster, but I told one good story that was effective. Then I thought, "Well,  maybe I can do this." What is your passion? You don't know what your passion  is until you get out there and do something. 

5. Demonstrate your gifts and passions. The church again gives you an  opportunity to demonstrate what those things are. 

6. Discover the possibilities of God at work in you. God has a plan for your life. 

Your problem is you don't know exactly what it is. Get out there and volunteer  and find out. If you don't do that, why would anyone hire you? 

Step 4 to Compensation in Ministry 

Try tent-making. Tent-making is what Paul did. He made tents that paid his  eating and living expenses, then he did ministry. So in other words, you're not  getting money from anybody. You're sort of doing it and paying yourself. 

The difference between tent-making and volunteering 

1. Non-staff vs. staff. When you volunteer at a church, you're not staff. But when  you're a tent-maker, you're actually paying yourself and you can get hired as  staff. You're actually a staff member, but you pay yourself rather than the church  paying you. 

2. The difference between volunteering and tent-making. Volunteering is  temporary. You volunteer for this little thing or whatever it is. Tent-making can be more permanent. This is now my job. I am a staff person at this church or  ministry. 

3. Relationship to job. When you're a volunteer at church, it has no relationship  to the job that you do to make money. But when you're tent-making, it does.  Because I'm making money here, and this money is the money that is  sponsoring me at the church. So there's a closer connection. 

How do you approach a tent-making ministry? That's what you want to do. You  want sort of a permanent staff position in a ministry or a church. But you’re going to pay your own way. What do you need to do? 

1. Find a job that pays well, that gives you flexible time, gives you free time.  Because you want to get paid for whatever it is that you do, but you want to  have time to be a staff person in this ministry. 

2. Begin looking for existing ministry positions. Are there positions out there?  Look in your own church. Maybe your church is already looking for somebody to do something - the youth, or the education, or the visiting, whatever it might be.  It might be just the janitor. It might be cutting the lawn. It doesn't matter. Start. 

Start with your own church, then in churches within your own denomination. You have a connection. If you're in a denomination, there's a connection between  churches. Or in the neighboring churches. Get to know the church scene and  what is out there right now. What is the need right now? 

3. Prepare to apply for these positions. How do you do that? You pray. Is this  what God wants me to do? Get your family supporting you. This is the number  one problem. Henry and I, long ago, we were teaching church planters. We had  this big church planting thing. Church planters come from all over the country,  and they're going to learn how to plant a church. The first part that we taught is 

you have to have a marriage walk. So we did this whole thing and then the  problem was the church planter went home. He was so excited about what he  had learned, but his spouse hadn't heard a thing about it. So it just didn't work. 

After that, we had our church planting seminars and so on, but we made the  spouses come. "You have to come because husband and wife on the same  spiritual page are absolutely essential." It's no good to have one who doesn't  care and one who's in it. So you need the family support. 

3. You need the pastor's support. If you're going to try to tent-make, if you're  trying to get a staff position in the ministry or the church, you need the pastor's  support. A lot of times, pastors are kept at a distance. Sometimes pastors think  you're competing or your unhappy with his job. You really need to be walking  side by side with your pastor. 

Prepare to apply for these positions, finally, with a resume. Give something - this is who you are, this is what you can do. We'll talk about that in a minute. 

4. Approach leadership of your church with your desire to do ministry without  pay. You want to tent-make and this is your goal. 

How to write a resume 

1. Your personal information, who you are, how old you are, those kinds of  things, your skills. 

2. What are you good at? Your past work or your ministry experience. 

3. What have you done? That's probably the most important. What things have  you done? What have you accomplished that relate to ministry? 

4. Your education. This is where it's important that you do. If you're doing CLI,  you have all these certificates, degrees, the path that you've taken, you list all  those things down. 

5. Your most proud of accomplishments. What have you accomplished? My wife and I went to the Philippines for a year, and we sponsored the first indigenous  songbook that they'd ever done. It's now in the eighth edition or something.  That's something I put on my resume. We did this long ago. We were young. We tried it. And it's going still to this day.  

6. Your vision for the job. Why do you want this? What do you see in this thing?  People need to see what you really dream of and want. 

Okay, step 5 to Compensation in ministry. We looked at volunteering, tent making. Now we're going to look at something where you actually get some  money for the ministry that you do. 

Work for a love gift. Remember, I explained what a love gift is. It's a church or a  ministry just giving you a certain amount of money. It's not tied to hours. It's 

generally a lot less than what you're worth, but it's a start. 

Advantages to a love gift ministry 

1. Authentic witness to people inside and outside the church. People know you  are not doing this ministry just to get money. Because the money is way less  than what you'd get paid otherwise. So people inside the church know that, that  your heart is ministry. And the people on the outside of the church, more  importantly, they see that too. That you're getting a love gift. It's something that  helps free up time so you can do ministry, but it's not what you're worth. You're  sacrificing to do this ministry because you really want to do this ministry. That's a powerful witness. 

2. It gives you some independence. Because they're not really paying you what  you're worth, they don't own you. It's not like you're their employee that they can  just push around. 

3. Less likely to burn out on both sides, ministry, and business. A lot of times,  people go full-time in the ministry and then they burn out in the ministry, because every day is just the stuff, and people, and problems. Maybe God made us to do something with our hands too. Or if you're constantly trying to make a living with  your work and then you're trying to take your spare time and do ministry, it's like  you have no time. But when there's a nice balance, you have some work, and  you have a little bit of compensation from the ministry so your finances are taken care of. Maybe it's a nice balanced approach. You can go in with enthusiasm  with both. 

4. More likely to get hired. You're more likely to get hired if you go to a church  and ask just for a love gift than if you ask for a part-time job where they have to  pay you what you're worth. Churches are reluctant sometimes to add ministry.  They have a budget. "We're behind already. How are we going to add this?" 

But when you come and offer them, you give them an offer that they can't  refuse. "You get all this ministry for this little bit of money." Sometimes, it's hard  for churches to resist. 

5. With the love gift, you might free up more time for ministry, because you get  something. Maybe you can work 10 hours less at your job. Now, you're getting  something, so maybe you can afford to do that and now you can plow that into  ministry. 

Well how do you approach a ministry with the whole love gift idea? It's really the  same as doing the tent-making. 

1. Find a job that pays well. That's ideal. That gives you flexible time, gives you  free time. 

2. Begin looking for existing ministry positions in your own church and the 

churches in your denomination or the neighboring churches. 

3. Prepare to apply for these positions. Pray again. Family support, pastor  support. Write out a resume. This is who you are. 

4. Approach leadership with your desire to do a ministry for a love gift. So  ultimately, you come to your own church and say, "This is what my goal is. This  is what I'd like to do. What do you think about that?" 

Step 6 to Compensation and ministry 

Now we move to part-time. We started with volunteering, tent-making where you pay your own way, love gift where you just get a specific amount, not tied to  hours and so on. Step 6 is part-time. This is where you're going to get hired for a specific job or specific hours and you're actually getting paid for what you do. 

Advantages to part-time ministry 

1. It's an authentic witness to people inside and outside the church. Again,  because you're willing to give of yourself and it's not a full-time salary. It's part time. People realize you have to make a living outside too, and you're giving up  time for the church. 

2. There is some independence because you're the whole salary's not  dependent on the church. 

3. Less likely to burn out both sides of ministry and business. Let's say you're  half-time in business, half-time at church. It's like you have these two worlds and the one is sort of a break from the other. And you don't burn out from either one. 

4. You're more likely to get hired part-time than you are full-time. Again, it's a  hard leap to add a whole new ministry to a church. So it's like getting into the  water slowly. 

How to approach a part-time ministry 

1. Find a job first of all that pays well. A regular job. It gives you flexible time,  gives you free time. Again, it's the same as the others. 

2. Begin looking for an existing ministry position. Start with your church, start  with your denomination, start with the local churches. Get to know them. Do they have part-time jobs already? Look for areas of need. Maybe you can help out. 

3. Prepare to apply for these positions. Again, pray, family support, pastor  support, write out your resume. 

4. Approach leadership with your desire to do ministry for pay, though it would  be part-time. 

All right, let's say you do all that? How do you negotiate a part-time salary?

1. Be indispensable. How can you be indispensable? You're indispensable when you first volunteer. That's why volunteering is so important. You volunteer at a  church, the church is not going to refuse you. You want to volunteer, they're  going to let you volunteer. Now you go in and you volunteer and you become  indispensable, become something that church could not do without. Now you  approach them and say, "It would be really cool if I could do this a little bit more,  and I could if I could get a part-time wage." Because you volunteered, they  already understand that you can do the job. And because you've done a good  job, they need and perhaps even want you. 

2. Offer more value than what you're asking for in compensation. You'd like to go in and say, "This is what I'm worth. This is what I get paid in my other job. So  this is what I should get paid here." But remember, churches need to warm up to this. It takes time. It's not like somebody has the money. The money comes from everybody. Generally, the money's already been accounted for. "We didn't think  about this. This is your idea." People have to ease into this whole thing. So start  sort of on the low side of things. 

3. Get support for this possibility ahead of time. Before you even ask, start with  your idea, talking to key leaders. "This is what I'm thinking. What do you think?"  Get the conversation going. People need time to get used to things especially  when it comes to money. 

4. Be patient with timing and the process. My first church was a country church.  It was a 100-year-old church, and things were changing and moving. The church doubled in size. We had 500 people and we had no secretary. So I proposed  that we get a part-time secretary. The response was, "We've existed 100 years  without a secretary. Why do we need one now?" 

It was like, "Now, how do I get this going?" What I did is I made a proposal. I  said, "Okay. You were going to offer me a raise this year of some amount. I will  give my raise for this secretary if you all match it." That was the proposal. It  passed. 

I remember a guy came up after church and said, "Man, I'm surprised that that  passed. I didn't think it would ever pass. For 100 years, we didn't have a  secretary." 

I looked at him and I said, "Really? If I am willing to pay the same amount that  ALL of you together for something that benefits you all, shouldn't you just trust  me that maybe it's needed? Why in the world would I do that otherwise?" But  that's sometimes what it takes. It takes a little time, and you have to be patient.  You have to keep coming and you have to go little by little by little if you're going  to create a ministry position that doesn't exist at present. It takes some time –  it’s in God's timing. You have to be prepared to put in that time.

Last one Step 7 to Compensation in ministry. This is full-time. Advantages to full-time ministry 

1. When you're part-time, it's like you're half in one world, half in the other world, and it sometimes feels like you can't do either one well. 

2. More commitment of the church to your leadership. When you're part-time,  people think, "Well, you're part-time." They don't necessarily follow you. When  you're full-time, they've either got to follow you or get someone else. 

3. More pressure to be a leader, not a hired doer. When you're part-time, a lot of  times, they hire you for a specific thing. "We want you to take care of the youth.  We want you to take care of the music." When you're hired as a full-time leader,  

you are hired not to do all the work. You are hired to maximize all the leaders  and all the people, develop leaders to get as much out of the people. Your job is  a manager, not the doer. 

Where does one find a full-time ministry job? 

Some way, it's for many of you that have taken a lot of classes here at CLI, this  is your big question. "I have all these classes. I've got my thing. I've got my  degree. I've got all these courses. What am I going to do with it? Where are  these magical full-time jobs out there? I'm ready to stop doing this work and I  really want to serve God." 

1. Where does one find a full-time ministry job? In the place you volunteered,  worked for a love gift and already were hired part-time. Some of you are going,  "Oh man. I haven't done any of those things." You don't just get a full-time job.  You have to work into it especially if it's your own church. So if you haven't  volunteered, that's where you start. If you haven't done the love gift, then that's  where you go. In other words, it's a process. Your education is a process. So is  getting a ministry job. 

2. Check with your denomination. There might be a church out there that is  looking for a pastor. If you have the training from here at CLI, get them to  recognize that get your denomination to recognize that to honor you, to even  ordain you, and then perhaps this church that's in need could just call you. 

3. Check with the churches near you. There are churches in need, pastors are  leaving all the time, crises in churches. Get out there and look. It's not like full time ministry jobs are just going to come to you. You have to go to them. You  have to be active, and looking, and talking, and planning. 

4. Plant a church. If no church wants you, plant one of your own. 5. Start a ministry. Start your own ministry. 

These two topics are the topics of the next two sessions - planting a church. 

We'll talk about one session about that - starting your own ministry.