Ever had reason to consider giving up? Here’s mine

I can recall distinctly praying that I would never complain about the pleasure and honour of serving God.  Even as I prayed that prayer way back in 2003, I did have the vague feeling that I would come to regret it, but I trusted God.

One of my favourite lines in the Bourne series starring Matt Damon is the quote: “Look at what they make you give.”  The ‘asset’ is an assassin, and they always put their lives on the line in the service of their lethal craft, always either cheating or meeting death.  The past 16 years of my life, from this vantage point today, feel a bit like this.  “What’s it been for?”  “Has it been worth it?”  Of course, the idealism that I had 16 years ago has long vanished.  Indeed, the threat these days is cynicism.  Let me attempt to explain that.

The day I received my letter of offer for my first full-time pastoral role was the same week that I had just received a pay rise in my secular professional employment.  It was a no-brainer for us to accept the pastoral role because I was called to it.  We were delighted at this development, yet there were two figures in front of us: $63,000 and $115,000.  The $63,000 ‘grossed up’ was more like $77,000 so we could actually entertain living on it.  Obviously, a huge disparity.  It was a leap of faith, that worked out for us — in the short term.

Many pastors will know that getting pastoral work is one thing.  Keeping it, especially if you advocate for people, can be another matter.  Pretty soon I found myself out of work, and then we were very blessed that my wife found work.  In the three years I was in full-time pastoral ministry, we lost Nathanael at the halfway mark.  A significant portion of that time was marred by thoughts of loss and then eventual grief.

Being out of work you take whatever work you can get, even as you turn yourself inside out trying to make meaning out of why everything seemed to have gone wrong.  I was fortunate to get a job one day a week as a maintenance person, and even though I didn’t enjoy the work, I held that position for two years.  I also took on work with my ex-wife, delivering meals for her and her husband’s catering business, which was very gracious of them, but again it was work that I didn’t enjoy.  My wife and I were very thankful, however, for that 10 months of work two days a week.  I was also employed as a chaplain at the school where I was the maintenance person, and I remain in that position.  I was very thankful for this appointment.  More recently I have been engaged by another not-for-profit, a charity, and together with one day a week as a pastor in my local church (on a small honorarium) I now work six days per week.  I love it, apart from the fact that I’m always working, because I’m working for God, and for 16 whole years now all I’ve wanted to do is to work for God: to help people. It’s all I want to do.  It’s all I feel I can do.  It’s what I feel I’m made for; to give help to people that I once received, to pay it forward, because when life broke me, serving God became the only thing that made any sense.

Now to the practicalities of the finances and conditions:

As a pastor, I have successfully completed 32 academic Masters units — almost the equivalent of three MBAs.  Three quarters of this has been done on loan — we owe over $60,000 to the government.  I have spent 7.5 years learning the craft to be a pastor and counsellor.  For all sweat and tears of all those studies, we cannot afford to live.  If you have have told me, a tradesman in the late 90s, that one day you’ll have four degrees I’d have said, “Haha, you’re dreaming...”  I feel very blessed.  But...

... we are in a new situation.  For the past nearly four years my wife has been earning enough money on her three days per week at the local council to sustain us financially, especially when I was on part time hours.  My wife earns the same amount in her three days as I do in my six.  We cannot afford for me to serve God for a living, not on chaplaincy or not-for-profit wages.  Think about it.  We want people to serve God, but we are not prepared to pay them enough money that they can live on.  Other school chaplains I know are paid the same low, kind of entry-level wages.  Especially in the context that they and I are working with teachers who for the main are paid pretty well, actually roughly double, I find it hard to comprehend.  Teachers work incredibly hard, don’t hear me wrong.  But how much does society value the work chaplains do?  Ponder that question.

16 years ago, I was well and truly prepared to work for nothing just to help people.  I just wanted to earn enough money for my family to survive, to get by.  Well, we can’t get by.  In my earnest desire to help people, and especially in my relentless sowing during the past four years, where I’ve done countless hours volunteering in my profession (which I did mainly with great joy), we are at a point now where I must look for secular work.

I must find a full-time professional position that will pay a six-figure salary in case my wife can’t find work.  It does not matter what my heart says.  This is the reason why I wanted to give up.  Not for any other reason.  If you ask my wife, she would tell you that the only thing that ever bothers me is what I do, and I know you might say, you are more than what you do, and I know that.  I dream of a situation where my work is not the main driving priority of my life.  But that hasn’t been my luxury for so many years now that I’m conditioned to feel like giving up.  If that makes me weak, so be it.  I just want to be on record to say that it is ridiculous to encourage people to take up a call of God and not support them in it.

While we’re at it, in 13 years of marriage the longest holiday my wife and I have had away is in the order of three to five days — no overseas or interstate holidays.  We own basically nothing except for the tools of our trade — a couple of old motor vehicles, computers, books, etc.  All this would be okay if only we could live.  We covet nothing in the material sense.  We just want to afford to live.  And serve God.

I want to affirm you if you can’t see God moving in your life right now, because it’s a reality we all face eventually.  Not being able to see does not mean that God isn’t moving. Indeed, we are told the evidence of our faith “is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”  (Hebrews 11:1)

We must hold onto hope even when all seems hopeless.  And I need to take my own advice.

Image: preaching my first sermon in Gnowangerup, July 2005.