I Need Work that Pays

Written by Warren |Posted on March 1, 2009 | Comments

This morning at church I was trying to keep my mouth shut. I don’t want to speak anything about theology. I don’t want to think much of them. Two weeks ago I dropped all my ministry activities, kept myself away from books and forced myself to reading the Bible in 30 minutes or less. Though there were many occasions that I would love read more theology. Sometimes when you get to know Christ it becomes too addictive that you just don’t want to stop. But I needed to be more realistic here. I needed to improve our financial status. Needed to find a stable job. For the past few days this was my only concern. No more listening to sermons. Nor updating my podcast lists. Nor even praying. Nor the idea of being a pastor or worker someday. I dropped them all as I cling on to my shovel and start digging for gold like crazy.

Working as a minister here in the Philippines is really tough. You better be ready to become poor. And being poor means you will lack resources in books, education, and family’s needs. That would mean poor sermon preparations. I’ve seen many pastors here in the Philippines purchase the one-year sermon outline book from Christian bookstores. Its a one year supply of sermons and there’s No more need for exhaustive study on Systematic Theology, Biblical Theology, Linguistics, Histories, etc. These are typical of pastors here in the Philippines. Mention to them doctrines and they would go “oh boy, here we go again.” thinking that their training in seminaries are enough to sustain the rest of their pastoral careers. As a consequence, many church members lack the feeding of the Word thinking that discussing things outside the Bible from the pulpit is more beneficial than hearing expository sermons.

But that’s the consequence of being a pastor here in the Philippines. No wonder many leaders who pursue studying in seminaries in the US almost always never come back to minister. They would say “I will be back” upon leaving but as soon as they graduated, the filipino community in the US are already waiting outside to hire them with tempting benefits for their church! Wait in line folks!

As for me I don’t want to think about those things for awhile. Please don’t discuss to me theology cause it will only arouse my heart for more studying. I can’t afford to loose my family for the ministry. But I’d rather think that I’m ministering first to my family than thinking that I’m disobeying my calling to the ministry. I need a stable job.