Sup­port­ing your Pastor:

Sug­ges­tions for churches and members

By David Cox
[G18] v1 ©2008
This tract can be freely repro­duced for non-profit use

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And we beseech you, brethren, to know them which labour among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admon­ish you; And to esteem them very highly in love for their work’s sake. And be at peace among your­selves. 1Th 5:12–13

Why should you sup­port your pastor?

First we should observe that the min­istry in which he works is the work of God. It is the com­mand­ment of God that every believer attends, sup­ports, and par­tic­i­pates in a good local church. This is sim­ply essen­tial to your Chris­t­ian life. Peo­ple who do not want to be a part of a local church with an exem­plary man of God (the pas­tor) lead­ing it, are very dis­ori­ented in their Chris­t­ian life and in what the work of God is. A good bib­li­cal local church is cen­tral and essen­tial in the life of every suc­cess­ful Christian.

Every church is defined by its min­is­ters and the min­istry that they per­form there. The min­is­ter is the key, and the most impor­tant min­is­ter is the leader, the pas­tor. A good man of God as leader and admin­is­tra­tor of a church makes all the dif­fer­ence in the world, and makes that church either a great bless­ing to all or makes it into a cult.

The min­istry is some­thing very dif­fi­cult. First, the job of all pas­tors is to spir­i­tu­ally min­is­ter to his peo­ple. The min­is­ter is always going to deal with the spir­i­tual prob­lems of the mem­bers; there­fore the pas­tor has to ori­en­tate the church about the prob­lems, exhort or rebuke them when nec­es­sary, and con­sole them when nec­es­sary. Any ani­mal will bite when some­one tries to free an entan­gled ani­mal. Some­times church mem­bers bite and attack the pas­tor that tries to spir­i­tu­ally help them.

Psa 109:5 And they have rewarded me evil for good, and hatred for my love.

The Psalmist encoun­tered exactly what hap­pens to many pas­tors in the min­istry. We serve God through serv­ing the brethren, but in the end, our sheep return evil for our love, sac­ri­fice, and patience.

What does God com­mand about this?

Heb 13:7 Remem­ber them which have the rule over you, who have spo­ken unto you the word of God: whose faith fol­low, con­sid­er­ing the end of their conversation.

The job of pas­tor first and above all is to have an exem­plary life for those that fol­low you. We should honor our pas­tors for their work and sac­ri­fice when they have done a good job. Actu­ally the best you can give to your pas­tor is to fol­low his spir­i­tual exam­ple. There is no bet­ter gift to give him. When there are prob­lems, con­flicts, ten­sion, there is noth­ing sweeter that some kind words of sup­port from one of your mem­bers. When the ser­mons are hard and cause many to get angry and leave the church, there is noth­ing more encour­ag­ing than some­body telling you, “Pas­tor, keep on preach­ing hard.”

1Th 5:12 And we beseech you, brethren, to know them which labour among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admon­ish you;

There is a spir­i­tual oblig­a­tion for every Chris­t­ian to rec­og­nize their lead­ers (those that pre­side over them). Also we should rec­om­pense our min­is­ters with the respect that their work and office war­rant. We sim­ply do our­selves harm when we make fun of or insult them. Our own chil­dren take the same atti­tude towards us that we show towards our min­is­ters, and this causes spir­i­tual harm in their lives as well as ours. We should always call him, “Pas­tor” or “Brother”, and not get so famil­iar with him as to call him by his first name.

How can we honor and help him?

Luke 10:7 And in the same house remain, eat­ing and drink­ing such things as they give: for the labourer is wor­thy of his hire. Go not from house to house.

1Cor 9:7 Who goeth a war­fare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vine­yard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock?

God’s prin­ci­ple is that His work­ers should be eco­nom­i­cally sup­ported by the free will offer­ings of the peo­ple of God where they labor. The min­is­ters should live of the same gospel that they work in. They are not beg­gars, nor should they have to work a sec­u­lar job on the side to sup­port their fam­ily. The eco­nomic pri­or­ity of churches is first in sup­port­ing their min­is­ters, and not in build­ings, mis­sion­ar­ies, nor in other expenses before your church’s own ministers.

1Co 9:11 If we have sown unto you spir­i­tual things, is it a great thing if we shall reap your car­nal things? 14 Even so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel.

Mat 10:10 Nor scrip for your jour­ney, nei­ther two coats, nei­ther shoes, nor yet staves: for the work­man is wor­thy of his meat.

Gal 6:6 Let him that is taught in the word com­mu­ni­cate unto him that tea­cheth in all good things.

Rom 15:27 It hath pleased them ver­ily; and their debtors they are. For if the Gen­tiles have been made par­tak­ers of their spir­i­tual things, their duty is also to min­is­ter unto them in car­nal things.

God com­manded that His work func­tion by means of men of God who by faith, believ­ing that God will pro­vide for their neces­si­ties and that faith­ful and mature Chris­tians will rec­og­nize this as the will of God and that they will sac­ri­fice to sus­tain their min­is­ters. This does not speak of a response only in cases of a dire need on the part of the min­is­ters, but it speaks of a respon­si­bil­ity of every mem­ber of the church to faith­fully and reg­u­larly give to their min­is­ters for the work that they do on a week by week basis, whether they are broke or not. It is a beg­gar men­tal­ity to never give any­thing unless the pas­tor is broke or has finan­cial problems.

We are not just talk­ing about tithing, but cov­er­ing the finan­cial oblig­a­tion of the min­istry through eco­nomic sup­port. He should receive a just and fair salary, ade­quate for a per­son to live nor­mally. Beside his neces­si­ties, we ought to give extra to them even though they may have their very basic-most expenses cov­ered. God sees how we treat our min­is­ters and returns what we have sown.

Gal 6:7 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for what­so­ever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

How much should we give him?

It is inter­est­ing that the Jews had a rule that they could not make a new syn­a­gogue if they didn’t have at least 10 income pro­duc­ing fam­i­lies to start with. If each fam­ily gave a tithe, then they would give what was an aver­age salary of the group, which went to the rabbi. The rabbi’s tithe went to pay for build­ing expenses. Every­body pitched in to actu­ally build the build­ing. Any church with 10 income earn­ing fam­i­lies should be able to give a pas­tor a fair salary, which would reflect the incomes of the peo­ple of that church.

Other rec­om­men­da­tions would be to give them some­thing spe­cial in dif­fi­cult and spe­cial times in their life, and to try to give them extra when they have extra min­istry related expenses. Paul thanked the Philip­pi­ans when they helped sup­port him (Phil 4:6). For exam­ple, many churches give their pas­tors extra money for gaso­line when he has vis­its to make, or an expense account for buy­ing min­istry related books, or even pay for a type­writer or com­puter. At times they will help him pay for his vehi­cle, or help him with rent or med­ical expenses.

1Ti 5:17 Let the elders that rule well be counted wor­thy of dou­ble hon­our, espe­cially they who labour in the word and doc­trine. 18 For the scrip­ture saith, Thou shalt not muz­zle the ox that tread­eth out the corn. And, The labourer is wor­thy of his reward.

The mem­bers should remem­ber that any worker will not work at his best if he has a lot of need and does not receive the just rec­om­pense for his labors. If a min­istry shows extra effort and excel­lent qual­ity in his work, he should receive extra. God demands just rec­om­pense of all that receive ser­vices and ben­e­fits from these work­ers, and God con­demns those “employ­ers” who are not giv­ing a just salary to their work­ers (Mal 3:5; Jer 22:13; Deu 24:14; Lev 19:13).

Jas 5:2–4 Your riches are cor­rupted, and your gar­ments are moth­e­aten. Your gold and sil­ver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a wit­ness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped trea­sure together for the last days. Behold, the hire of the labour­ers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, cri­eth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.