[CS-FSLUG] United Church ministers want to unionize

[Timothy R. Butler]

>
> The call of God...Life of Poverty?
> In Ecclesiastes 9:16 the Bible says the poor man's wisdom is despised, 
> and his words are not heard. Poverty is definetly not included in the 
> call of God. Men in their desire to do right can be misled by 
> religious tradition. The Gospel can't be taken beyond our four walls 
> without the means to get it there, and if you accept poverty as part 
> of the call that gets rather contradictory to your purpose.

	Not necessarily. Jesus sent the disciples out without basically 
anything.

	Of course, accepting absolute poverty probably isn't wise -- after 
all, you don't want to starve to death, then you can do anything 
helpful at all. But, I suspect almost no one can go into a legitimate 
ministry and *expect* to make a fortune at it (paying back seminary 
bills alone is probably a worthy goal for awhile).

	Of course, some will make it off big time -- take Rick Warren. But, 
those are few and far between. And ones that do so and aren't corrupted 
by the money are even fewer. Mr. Warren is giving back all of his 
salary from the past 20 years plus 90% of what he has earned off his 
books... but, it just doesn't usually happen that way. :-)

	That's not me saying that pastors should *not* be paid well, but 
facing the reality that they are not.
	

	-Tim

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Timothy R. Butler       Universal Networks      www.uninet.info
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