The Church and $80,000

0:02 Looking at our world from a theological perspective. This is the Theology Central podcast making Theology Central. Good afternoon everyone. It is Tuesday, February eighteenth, twenty twenty five. It is currently five twenty nine pm Central Time, and I am coming to you live from the Theology Central studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. Eighty thousand dollars per year, eighty thousand dollars per year. Now, I don't know what you think about that. Like, if you were trying to get a job and they offered you to pay you eighty thousand dollars per year? Would you think that was good?

0:50 Would you think that was bad? Would you take it? Would you turn it down? How would you perceive eighty thousand dollars per year? How would you process that? Good? Bad? What do you think? Now? Now let me now change it up. What do you think about someone being a pastor making eighty thousand dollars per year? Does that change your perception at all? Does that impact you in any way? Are you like, no, eighty thousand dollars you would see it the exact same way or does it begin to make you start questioning? I don't know the entire this entire. Institution we call the church. Would it start impacting your perspective in any way, shape or form. Now, we just the other day we did a broadcast. What we talked about ten secrets your pastor doesn't want you to know about the church. And one of the things that person criticized the church for is that, Hey, look, whether anyone wants to admit it or not, the church is a business.

1:50 We can try to pretend that it's not, but it is a business. And we talked a little bit about that. Well, today I heard something well that brought the eighty thousand dollars per year number right to the forefront. And while it added well. To me, it adds to our discussion about well, the church being a business. Here's what happened now. Earlier this morning, I was listening to you know, I was listening to the different chapel services, and in the middle of one Ambassador Baptist College chapel service, I snuck out of chapel And while I did a broadcast about grace. I think that was a very important one. Hopefully it's led to some good discussions on your side of things.

2:31 Hopefully you've been thinking about it all day because that's a very important discussion about the nature of grace. Okay, so please go have that. But as that ended, I had a little bit more time to listen to some things, and I ended up at I think it was fair Haven Baptist Church and College, fair Haven Baptist Church and College. I think it was like a chapel service for maybe for the college. It may have been a chapel service. I didn't get to hear the beginning or the end, but I heard just like about just a couple of minutes of it when I was doing other things, and the person was talking about this young man who had called to ministry, gone to Bible College, and he was trying to get his first job at his first church, and they were excited to recommend him or whoever he was telling the story about.

3:21 I think this story went basically, they were recommending him, but they were kind of depressed and they were kind of sad when they heard what happened. Because the young man was offered a job eighty thousans or a Yeah, he was offered a job, but he turned it down. This is how the story went. He turned it down, and when they asked him, why did you turn it down is because he was expecting at least eighty thousand dollars per year, plus housing and a car allowance. So it's his first opportunity in the ministry. But he's like, no, if I can't make eighty thousand dollars per year, have a housing and a car of some sort, some kind of car allowance, I'm not going to tell the job. And they were talking about well, you know, pastors thinking too much about themselves or whatever, and they had their own point they were going to make.

4:08 But all I could get around was the eighty thousand, eighty thousand, eighty thousand, eighty thousand, because to me, it brought to mind many other questions. Right, and we've talked about this before, but I want to return to it. So here was a young man who wanted to go into ministry, who was offered a job. They were going to pay him less than eighty. Thousand dollars a year. I don't know if they had a house or a car allowance that was added to what they were going to give him, but it didn't come out to eighty thousand plus these additional benefits, so he turned it down. Now a lot of times the people sitting in the pew will say, well, he's not committed to God, and you. Know they will do a lot of criticizing it. Well, it's good for you with your job and you have everything you have to criticize the person who's going into ministry, Well, I don't know, because they want a place to live and be able to pay their bills and be able to live. So it's really sometimes people have very drastically different perspectives.

5:05 I want to make this very clear. This episode is not about me saying should a pastor turn down a job if it's not eighty thousand dollars? Is that right? Is that wrong? Is that ungodly? Is that spiritual? Unspiritual? How should the people sitting in the pewfill about it? Should they offer more money? Like, I'm not here to get into that discussion. That we could do a podcast episode and all of that, and we could look at it from a lot of different perspectives. For me, I heard eighty thousand dollars a year, and immediately you probably know where my mind went. Okay, So if a church is paying a pastor eighty thousand dollars a year, or if they're paying a pastor seventy thousand dollars a year or sixty thousand or fifty thousand.

5:56 That means a good portion of the money coming in to just keep the church operating goes directly to pay a pastor's salary. If you're paying a pastor fifty thousand, sixty thousand, seventy thousand, eighty thousand, ninety thousand, or even one hundred thousand, depending on the size of the church, how much of the budget just simply pays his salary. And then I started asking the question, you know what, I'm getting ready to say, Well, see what are the people sitting in the pew getting for fifty thousand, sixty thousand, seventy thousand, eighty thousand, one hundred thousand dollars a year? What are they actually getting? How many sermons a year does that even represent? What does that break.

6:37 Down to to the cost per sermon? What is the quality of the teaching? What is the quantity of the teaching? If teaching is the primary thing. Now, again, if you're a sacramental church, well then you're paying for that pastor to be ordained so that he then has the spiritual authority to administer the sacraments, which you drastically need for your Christian line. But if you're not a sacri mental church, then the only thing that pastor can really offer other than maybe some counsel, right, I guess he could hang out and be your friend, but for the most part, you are paying him to provide you teaching from the Word of God. Well, how much teaching are you getting for sixty seventy eighty thousand dollars a year? So I started looking up and trying to.

7:23 Do a little research. From what we can tell from the latest statistics as of January twenty twenty five, average sermon average pastors, their average salary per pastor is around about sixty thousand. I'm kind of rounding it, rounding it to just a specific number. I think it's maybe just slightly lower, but it's about sixty thousand dollars per year is what the average pastor makes in the United States. I didn't look globally, just in the United States usually though. Added to that sixty thousand is housing and a car allowance and maybe some other things. So in reality that sixty thousand is actually a little more when you add the additional benefits that they may they may receive and depending on the church.

8:11 Maybe they receive some kind of health benefits, who know, sometimes they don't, but there's other benefits. So it's actually more than sixty thousand. So and this is crazy. Churches in the United States allocate a significant portion of their budgets to pastoral and staff salaries. On average, approximately forty five to fifty two percent of a church's budget is dedicated to compensation alone. So about fifty percent, maybe even more than fifty percent, of all the money that comes in, and when the people are putting that money in the offering plate or they're sending it via their bank account, over fifty percent just goes to southes. That's it.

9:02 Fifty Now, pastors can stand up behind the. Pulpit and say, you need to give to show your love for God, and you need to be a good steward of the money you give, and you give your tithes and offerings to God, and you do it for God, and you do it for God, and about fifty percent of what you're putting in that offering plate is coming into my pocket. That would be more genuine, right, Not that you're doing it for God. You're ultimately doing it for me and guess what. The people in the congregation know they're doing it for him. So, in a roundabout way, we pay your salary, you work for us. Whether it's ever explicitly stated, everyone kind of knows the game over.

9:44 In some cases, over fifty percent of the budget just goes for his salary. That's that's crazy. And again I would say, what are you getting for that? What are you getting for that? What are you getting for eighty. Thousand, seventy thousand? Now, now I did some and this was from church salary dot Com. I looked at a number of different places also utilized AI. Given this, if a church spends between sixty thousand to seventy thousand annually on a pastor's salary, it suggests that the church's total annual operating budget would be somewhere between one hundred and fifteen thousand and one hundred and fifty five thousand.

10:33 That means, on average, for a church. Just to stay open, just for operating costs, you're gonna pay one hundred and fifteen thousand to one hundred and fifty five thousand just to keep the church operating. That's all you're doing. All that money is coming in just to keep the building, just to keep the people employed. That's all you're doing. That's all the money. You forget going to God, forget furthering the Kingdom of God, all the stuff that we wrap it all up in and try to make it. Oh, we're doing this for this reason. We're doing that, We're going to reach the law. You're just doing it to keep the building operating and to have someone actually working there, called a pastor or a youth pastor, or an associate pastor or anything along those lines.

11:25 Just think about that one. Hundred and fifty five thousand dollars a year to keep a church operating. Now you can just consider your church. Let's say your church is taking one hundred and fifty five thousand to operate. I want you to consider the quantity and the quality of teaching you are receiving for one hundred and fifty five thousand dollars. I want you to consider the quality and the quantity of teaching you're receiving for one hundred and fifteen thousand. If we go in the lower end. Beyond salaries, churches incur various operational expenses. Typically, facilities and operations account for twenty to thirty percent, so if fifty percent, around fifty percent is just a pastor's salary, well, then you go almost up to thirty percent for everything else.

12:18 That's sixty seventy eighty percent. I had, you know, I had to count it out. I know you're you're laughing at me. It's math about eighty percent then of the total budget just goes to salaries and the building, for crying out loud, eighty percent. Just to keep the building going. If you then if you had covering costs such as mortgage, rent, utilities, maintenance, and insurance would be added in that. You know about thirty percent. Program expenses, including funds allocated for ministries like children's ministries, youth ministry, and adult programs, constitute around ten percent of the budget. So when you finally get to actual ministries, when you actually get to you know, teaching and maybe materials, you're down to ten percent of your budget.

13:06 Everything else is going to just the building. Everything else is just going to someone's salary before you even get to an actual ministry, and in many cases those additional ministries. Have you ever noticed this. The pastor may be making seventy or eighty thousand dollars a year, but in many cases, those other ministries, they're being led and taught by people not getting paid a dime. They go home, they go to work, they go home, and they got to put together the Sunday School lesson or the small group lesson. They're not getting paid for it. The pastor is getting paid. And many cases the pastors don't even teach Sunday school.

13:48 That's always blown my mind. The pastor is making seventy eighty thousand dollars a year and in many cases you don't even teach Sunday school. Now, I've got to go to Sunday school for someone who didn't go to Bible College, didn't go to seminary, teaching the adult Sunday school class. Now, sometimes maybe the youth pastor will be being paid. Sometimes this will be an associate pastor who may be teaching the adult Sunday school. But depending on how you break the adults down, some churches have like fifteen different adult Sunday School classes. Here's for people who are seventy. Here's for people with blonde hair. Here's people forty. Here's for people who are single. Here are people for divorce, here who are divorced. Here are the teenagers. Like they have like seventy five Sunday school classrooms. I don't know why you have to have all of that.

14:29 You could just put people in the sanctuary, and I don't know. The pastor could teach a Sunday school lesson. I don't know. Okay, I mean he's getting paid money to do so, but no, let's give it over to people not getting paid to do so. That's just insane. So then you're paying the pastor sixty seventy eighty thousand dollars a year and then he doesn't even have to prepare a Sunday school lesson, and he just got to prepare the sermon. And in many cases on Wednesday night that don't even show up to do a sermon. They may do a fifteen minute devotional. And then you go quote unquote a prayer meeting, and in some cases Sunday night you don't have church. You break that off into small groups. Nobody's even meeting in the building that you're spending one hundred and fifty five thousand dollars to keep open. You go meet in someone's houses and people's houses with people who are not being paid who had to put together the lesson where's the pastor the whole structure is broken.

15:25 So so additionally, many churches set as out approximately five percent to ten percent of their budgets for savings or emergency funds to address unexpected expenses. So you look at that, you've now about one hundred percent of the budget. Guess what one hundred percent of that budget? Look at if you look at it, if you take the that's the average. There's always exceptions. None of that even accounts for because typically mission giving has to be on top of what normally is brought in. So you do You're like, here's how much money we need to get the church operating. Now, above and. Beyond that, we need you guys to give more to missions. See we're gonna give this much to get the church going, but now we need you to give more to so we can do missions. So in many cases, you have your budget, you don't really many cases, have any money to really help people in need. Many cases, you don't have much money left over for outreach, I.

16:16 Mean the whole thing. Like, what is happening all right now? AI? Now this is AI? AI said, Well, it took it from a number of sources. It gives me one two three, four, Like five sources here. It is important to note that these percentages can vary based on factors such as congregational side, geographic location, and specific ministry priorities. Regular financial assessments and strategic planning are essential for churches to ensure their budgets aligned with their mission and operational needs. Do you hear that regular financial assessments and strategic planning are essential for churches? Wait, that sounds like a business. It sounds like a business.

17:03 So I was like, okay, this is already depressing. This is already discouraging. All right? Are you ready? So for most churches, just. To stay open and cover basic operational expenses pastoral salary, facility cost, utilities, insurance, and any ministry program, the annual cost exceeds one hundred thousand dollars a year. Just for a church. This is operational cost. One hundred thousand dollars a year.

17:45 One hundred thousand dollars a year. That's the operational cost for most churches. Some churches the operational cost will be much higher. Look at their building. Look at their building? How big is the building? Is it new? Are they still making a mortgage payment? Right? Look at the upkeep it will take. Look at the sign they have in front of us. Some churches pay a lot of money just to have their sign. Just look at it now, And typically you could when you drive by a church, just look at it and say, okay, average, you can say, maybe that's one hundred and fifty thousand to keep that going. Maybe that's two hundred thousand. You can make a pretty fair assessment. Try to be fair. Then go home, look up on their website and look at how much teaching that comes from that church for that much money. Forget the quality of it, because that's subjective.

18:32 The quantity is not subjective. That is an objective standard. Smaller churches may operate on a lower budget, sometimes around fifty thousand to one hundred thousand, but many midside churches typically require at least one hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty thousand per year, and a larger church can easily surpass five hundred thousand to several million dollars annually just to operate. So AI then broke down some of the key factors pastoral and staff salaries about in most cases over fifty percent of their entire budget building building expenses is going to be somewhere around thirty percent.

19:21 Then your ministry outreach, maybe ministry and outreaches combined you may get up to fifteen percent if you're lucky maybe, and then administration, technology and savings five to fifteen percent. So you really have to kind of put that with the building expenses. If you're going to take administration and technology, that's really going with building and everything. Maybe that goes with ministry outreach. But so again you can just see the breakdown. It says even churches that own their buildings outright still faces maintenance, utilities and insurance costs, making it difficult to operate on a much lower budget. So then AI asked me, do you want to cost analysis benefit I'm like, yeah, give me, give me the cost analysis benefit.

20:09 Right, This is what AI says. A cost benefit analysis. Of churches based on their annual operating expenses versus the quantity and quality of teaching they provide could lead to the following conclusions. Here are some key considerations. Many churches operate somewhere between one hundred thousand and one hundred, well between one hundred thousand and five hundred thousand, maybe even up to a million per year to operate depending on the size of the church. As we've already stated, a significant portion of that budget goes to the salary itself of the pastor then you have facility costs, etc.

20:50 Right, as we've. Already broke broken down now benefit perspective teaching quality and quantity. The quality of teaching varies greatly. Some churches may provide rich biblical exposition, while others focus on entertainment driven and surface level messages. The actual quantity of teaching is often limited. Weekly sermon somewhere between thirty to forty five minutes. Thirty to forty five minutes is the average length. You just think you're paying this. Guy fifty sixty seventy eighty ninety one hundred thousand dollars and he's going to deliver you a thirty or forty five minutes sermon on a Sunday. I'm sorry, what what is that? What is that? What do you know? What is that? And just remember in the Catholic system that would make some kind of sense, right because he has the authority of the church to interpret scripture, where you, the person sitting in the view, you don't have that authority.

21:56 And he has the authority to administer the sacraments, which you do not, so you can understand why you're paying him, even if his homily is only fifteen to twenty minutes. He's the one who can do it. You can't. But in the Protestant world, where you pay the pastor makes this much money, right, Yet the people in the pew can say disagree, disagree. You're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong. I'm going to another church. Well, then what's the point of even paying a pastor when you can just sit there and telling that he's wrong. Why are you paying him? You're not paying him because you think he's an expert. You're the one judging the expert, so you're actually the expert. You should be saying you should pay me, because I'm the one telling you if you're preaching is right or wrong.

22:37 The people on the pew should demand money. Right, the whole system is messed up. But thirty to forty five minutes sermon occasional Bible studies and small groups. But remember in many cases, the Bible studies and the small groups many cases are led by not anyone unpaid staff, meaning that despite the high cost, are you ready to listen to this. Despite the high cost, actual formal biblical teaching may be quite low. What the hours actually given two?

23:17 Actual formal biblical teaching from the person you're paying money to may actually be very low. How do people in churches not go in a minute, this seems kind of messed up. We're paying all of this money to keep this building going, We're paying all this money to hire this guy, and his actual teaching amounts to Basically I could get more listening to a sermon on the way to church. Okay, it says, online resources, sermons, podcast theology courses are often free, and they're always far cheaper. Raising the question is the teaching provided by a local church worth the financial overhead? I did not write that a I said that. Okay, let me let me let me let me tell you what AI said. Okay, is the teaching provided by a local church worth the financial overhead?

24:22 Ask a question? I said? It said? It asked the following question, is the teaching provided by a local church worth the financial overhead? Is it? We're I'm gonna say absolutely not. And I used to complain about this years ago, when I was like, pastors, you've got the technology. This is way back. I mean you're talking like early two thousands. I mean like early two thousands, because we were a little church in the middle of nowhere. I was not getting a dime. I was not making a penny, right, I refused any money from the church, and we were I was producing for hours of content a week just at the church. I taught Sunday school an hour. I taught Sunday morning an hour.

25:06 I taught Sunday night an hour. I taught Wednesday night an hour. I was full time military, a full time student, still producing four hours a week of teaching. Oh and guess what else I was doing. I always recording hour after hour after hour after hour of what yet wasn't called podcasts, but I was broadcasting, and I wasn't making a dime. And then there's these other churches where the pastor's making eighty thousand dollars a year and was barely putting together two hours of content a week. And back then I even had phone calls from pastors. How do you do that? Many hours of teaching a week? How do you do that? What do you mean how do you do that? You wanted to be a pastor?

25:47 Why wouldn't you want to preach every chance you got, and you're taking the money from the church and you're giving them two hours a week of teaching. You don't feel a little bit broken, a little guilty about that. What I mean Now, again, if you're a sacramental church, then this doesn't apply to you because you're getting paid to provide the sacraments. You're getting and especially if you believe in a magisterial authority, you have the magisterial authority to interpret the scriptures, which the people in the pew don't. Okay, that's in the Catholic system, but in the Protestant system, especially a non sacramental Protestant system. But even AI is like, wait a minute, this raises the question is the teaching provided by a local church worth the financial overhead? So then AI says, if a church spends about one hundred and fifty thousand per year and offers one hour of teaching per week, that equates to are you ready? So if they just do one hour of teaching, are you ready?

26:48 If you do one hour of teaching and it's costing the church around one hundred and fifty thousand per year total, with everything that would be the additional benefits, with everything about one hundred fifty thousand. This would equate to two thousand, eight hundred and eighty four dollars per teaching hour. That means that sermon you heard cost you and that church two thousand, eight hundred and eighty four dollars you paid two over almost you paid almost three thousand dollars for an hour of teaching. Are you out of your ever living mind. I'm gonna start putting all my content behind a paywall, and I'm gonna start charging two thousand, eight hundred and eighty four dollars per podcast hour. Everyone would laugh, You would mock that, You would say, greedy, ungodly, fleshly of Satan. How dare you? You do realize every time a pastor preaches, if you break down the cost depending on how many hours he's producing, it's cost an average amount of and we'll break it down a little further.

28:04 But if it's just one hour a week, if it's just a Sunday morning sermon, you're paying about three thousand dollars for that one hour of teaching. That's ridiculous. Now, the average seminary tuition for a master's in Divinity is between ten thy to twenty thousand yet many pastors with such education still deliver shallow teaching. You know why, because you go to seminary you'll learn all this stuff, and then you get to the church and people like, I don't want it to sound like a college campus. I don't want it to sound like a seminary. I don't want it to sound like a university. I want a thirty minute little devotional. Well, you want a thirty minute little devotional that's going to cost you around three thousand dollars. And why did I go to seminary spending all of this money. The whole system is broken, ladies and gentlemen, When are we going to acknowledge it? The whole thing is broken. We need to burn the entire system to the ground and start over. And this is what AI says, and this is crazy. AI names sermon audio. AI names sermon audio. AI says online theological education, books, podcast and free resources. Example, sermon audio, it literally names sermon audio provides deeper teaching at a fraction of the cost. It literally names sermon audio that is fast, that cracks me up.

29:38 In other words, you can go online find far better teaching well, obviously, for a fraction of the costs because well, just for me to produce all the episodes, right all, I mean you look at all the episodes that produced, right, I mean we're almost at four thousand episodes for the Theology Central podcast. Four thousand. Now, if you just look at the podcast, we're already we are in a category. Even AI says, as many podcast episodes as I have produced, I am in like rare air compared to most all podcasts. Most podcasts never make it to four thousand episodes, right, We're almost at four thousand, but four that's over four thousand hours of teaching. That's easily over four thousand hours of teaching because most of the time I go over an hour over four thousand hours of teaching. And if you look at the total cost to produce that one year to keep your church operating, I've given I could give you. I could give you eight thousand hours of teaching for what your church costs to just have a building for one year.

30:55 And that's just not me. Anyone with a microphone and a laptop and an internet connection with and you just named the platform, Oh, they got to pay to be on that platform. We have to pay to be on the platforms that we are on. It cost us money, but the cost for me to do it. Give me a break. You're gonna pay all this money to keep the building operating. This is crazy. For the price it takes to keep the church operating for one year could literally pay off my entire mortgage and allow me to do home improvements. Okay, fix some things up, and I would be set for the rest of my life and be able to broadcast five hours a day. I mean, come on, for what it would take to keep a church going for one year, it is insane to see the difference. So AI says, maybe maybe this causes us to consider some alternative models.

32:05 A I suggest maybe house churches or smaller gatherings can drastically cut costs while maintaining strong biblical teaching. Maybe you wipe wipe out the whole overhead. And you do something smaller. Not to do something smaller. Now the pastor has to give up his dream of standing in that pulpit in a sanctuary of five hundred people, because most pastors have some kind of a dream, like you stand up there, you open your Bible. There's all these people hungry, they're excited for the word of God, and you preach and they're like, oh, pastor, that was the greatest thing I've ever heard. You all have a most pastors have some, even if it's not a five hundred, You do have this idea of leading and guiding and spiritually feeding people. So you kind of got you would have to kind of give that up. And of course the bigger the church, the more money you make of you.

33:02 Now AI suggest something here, I know everyone's going to go against. It says what about an online church? It says online churches, theological study groups, and parachurch organizations typically provide richer teaching without the financial burden of maintaining a building and staff. AI goes on to say, from a pure cost benefit perspective, the traditional church model appears financially inefficient for teaching purposes alone. The high operational cost does not translate into better or more teaching. If a church does not provide deep, transformative, philologically sound teaching, the financial burden is not justified if one values in person fellowship quote unquote pastoral care, which is, you know, call the pastor and he better tell me what I want to say, because if he doesn't say it, I'll just go to a different church. Okay, all right, yeah, I'm very jaded on that. Community programs, missionary work. Those factors may then justify the costs beyond just teaching. But please note in person fellowship, so a lot of people are paying that money.

34:28 In many cases, they don't really care about the teaching. They like the potluck, the picnic, the I don't know, get together for this, get together for that, sit set around a circle and seeing kumbaya. I'll have a coke and a smile, hold hands, hum, I don't know. They like all of those things. A church, softball team, a church, this a church. They like to get together, get together because I can't live my Christian life alone. Okay, whatever the case may be. All Right, that's still a lot of money for that, it says, But strictly as an educational investment, alternative methods provide higher quality teaching, greater quantity at a much lower cost, it says. If a church operates with an annual budget of say one hundred and fifty thousand, and provides three hours of sermons per week, then basically what you're paying, you're paying almost one thousand dollars per teaching hour.

35:35 So even if your church provides three hours. Even if it provides. Three hours, you're paying one thousand dollars per hour. You're paying one thousand dollars per hour. If I received one thousand dollars per hour for the amount of hours I produce in a week, not only could I make my mortgage payment, I could I could be buying things that I want. I could be paying for home improvement. I could be I could be doing Because you I, in many cases I produce over an hour per day, some cases two hours a day, sometimes three. I think of how many hours I produce in a week if I was being paid one thousand dollars per hour. And it's so weird because people will be like, I gotta go to this building, and I gotta give this money to keep this building operating. But if I really want to be spiritually fed, if I really want to be spiritually trained, if I want to be spiritually challenged, I'm gonna actually listen to something online. But I'm gonna give all my money here. I'm gonna give all my money here. But I gotta really go here because whatever the case may be, I'm not getting spiritually fed or there's just not that much feeding to be happening. But so I'm gonna give them my money. I'm gonna go here to get all the benefits, but I'm going to give them all. I'm gonna take the benefits from these people, but those people

37:06 get the benefit get the money. I get the benefit from their teaching, but they get the benefit of my money, my attendance, my engagement, my volunteering. The system is broken, ladies and gentlemen. The system is seriously broken. And what drives me crazy it's just even churches and their online presence. Okay, So there was a church the other day. I don't even know what day it was. May have been Sunday, No, it may have been Saturday. I think it was Saturday. I think it was Saturday. They did a message. On sweet words nonsweet words, something about sweet words, right, okay, And so they did it for their live I guess it was a Saturday service. I don't know what they were doing. It's now Tuesday.

37:58 They've not even uploaded it yet. They've not even uploaded it yet. So in many cases, these churches, even if they provide teaching, they don't upload it yet. You say, well, what's the significance of that? Now? Wait, a minute. Just think about this, and every church, A lot of people don't consider this. And every church you have all kinds of volunteers, nursery workers, Sunday school teachers. They are not in the service. They're not in the service. They're missing hour after hour after hour of teaching. They come to church to volunteer, so they're working the nursery, they're doing this, they're doing that, they don't hear any of the teaching, and then that church doesn't bother to upload their messages. I don't know, like fifteen minutes after they should be uploading it as soon as possible. I do understand things happen, but there are at least three messages right now that I heard. I think Saturday may have been Friday of last week. They still haven't even been uploaded, and it's Tuesday. So guess what. The people who were there Sunday who didn't hear it, or their Saturday and didn't hear it, guess what. They still haven't even heard the message from their own church, which they're dedicating their time and most likely giving their money to keep that church operating.

39:15 And then that church can't be bothered to give their people the. Messages so that they can actually learn. But they got no problem taking those people's time and taking their money. Hey, I'll take your money. I'll take your time. But hey, we're don't really care if you get teaching, because you can go get teaching from someone else. But keep giving us your money, because you've got to bring the money into the storehouse of the Lord. It's got to be the local church. You give me the money, you can go get the teaching somewhere else. I remember the big, the big Assemblies of God church here in Abilene, that's right off the Winter's Freeway. I remember that that pastor had been kept being asked by people in the church. I want I want something more in depth. I want some I want and his recip I wish I had the audio. It's not my job to feed you. If you want something deeper, if you do it on your own. And I was like, yeah, but how much are you paying.

40:15 Him per year? How much? So they were listening to other people online, of course, so they were giving their money their time, And the one person I knew who attended that church was a part of the worship band, giving their time, dedicating their time, showing up for rehearsals, doing all of that to ensure that the church had everything they need. But the church didn't feel like they had a responsibility. And I heard the teaching from that church, even from a charismatic perspective, I thought it was bad. As far as its depth concern. I thought it was bad because of its care of its theology, but from its basic just the depth, there was no depth. It was shallow. I had Ai if you analyze a sermon just before I went live from a charismatic church, and it talked about it being shallow, not going in depth. And it's like, so when AI looks at a sermon like this is shallow, this is when AI is criticizing the depth of the teaching. Then for crying all up, AI takes it and says, this is not going in depth. But people are paying what one thousand dollars per teaching hour, three thousand dollars per teaching hour, two thousand dollars per teaching hour. Can you imagine if you set your kids to a private school, right and you're paying a certain amount of money for

41:47 the tuition for them to go there, and you found out that they're only being taught maybe one or two hours a week, and the teaching is kind of a joke. It's not in depth, and your kids don't know anything. They can't read, they're historically illiterate, they're geographically illiterate, mathematically illiterate, they don't know anything. You'd be like, why are we paying all this money to send our kids to this school? Well, you should be asking why are you paying all this money to keep your church operating? And yet you have to rely on everything else for you to really get taught.

42:29 I know it sounds like this is about me, it's not about my podcast. Ladies and gentlemen, there is a round two million Christian podcasts out there depending. That's what the Edifi podcast app I know. Now it's kind of obsolete. It didn't last very long, but they had calculated I think two million Christian podcasts two million. Now, I don't know if that number is accurate, but that's what they calculated it as. I'm not quoting, I'm just not making up a number. Well, let's say there's a million Christian podcast out there putting content out content, content, content, content, content, content, content content, content, Bible teaching, devotional messages, cultural commentary, this this philological discussions, church history, this philosophy, going on on on on all this content, and they're all doing it at a fraction of the cost that it keeps to keep a church, just to pay a pastor's salary. If you're paying sixty thousand dollars a year for a pastor's salary, sixty thousand, that's on the low end.

43:41 Remember that one. This all started because this young man was like, if I don't get make at least eighty thousand with the housing allowed, Like eighty thousand was his starting point. Well, let's say it's eighty thousand. Do you realize eighty thousand dollars, just just if I took no money for myself, no money going to my house, no money, eighty thousand dollars would pay for this podcast to operate for basically forty to fifty I don't even know. I don't even know. I would have to do the math it probably forever. Eighty thousand dollars would cover the cost of this podcast for literally life. And that's if I wasn't my age now where I you know, probably dead within ten years, nine years, however many years I've got left. I think I calculated that I probably have nine left. If I have nine left, okay, then I'm dead and nine I know that's kind of a morbid and probably cynical. But if I have nine left, okay, obviously it covers.

44:40 It for nine. But if I was twenty and I got that much money. I would the podcast would be paid for forever, ever, the entire life of the of the person broadcasting or the church. By the next year, you got to have the same amount of money just to pay the pastor's salary. Now you say, well, what if a podcaster wanted a salary, Well, yeah, yeah, now you could get back into the same situation. You could. But the difference is the difference is the pastor the pastor.

45:23 We've got pencils rolling off the desk here. You've got pastors. To operate the church that they have to do all of these other responsibilities. So maybe that salary would require more than a podcaster. But even if a podcaster, even if a podcaster got a salary, even if the podcaster wanted a salary of eighty thousand, right, even if he wanted that, you still wouldn't have all the other overhead and all the other costs, which can bring it up to almost one hundred and fifty five thousand. So I guess what I'm saying is eighty thousand could probably give a podcaster not only a salary, it could also probably basically keep that podcast on the air force forever. Where a church, eighty thousand just gets you to the next year, just gets you, just gives you twelve months and that.

46:10 And just think that eighty thousand does not have anything to that doesn't even cover technology, recording, sermons, uploading, that's just the man's salary. So all right, there you have it. Eighty thousand dollars. That was from and again I don't think it's been uploaded yet. I've been looking. I think where's my notes? Yeah, that's from Fairhaven Baptist Church and College. The sermon has not been uploaded yet as when I went live. You can be looking for them on the sermon's two point oh out, look for the one that's uploaded today, and then you can try to find that illustration about the eighty thousand dollars.

46:54 Hopefully I got all the facts straight. I wanted to play the audio. For you, but they never uploaded it, so I'm like, okay, whenever they get around to it, it'll be too late now, but you can hear the story. So, this young man was offered a job, he turned it down. They were sad that he turned it down, and why did he turn it down because he wanted eighty thousand and housing allowance and a car allowance. And they were obviously kind of criticizing what he did. But for me, that's a whole different subject. The thing is is, so the church has to pay eighty thousand just to have a pastor who may produce two to three hours of teaching a week. I can produce two to three hours a day, and nobody's sending me eighty thousand dollars. Okay, nobody's sending nothing close. Now, for those who do give, I'm very appreciative because they do. So far, we've got the cost, the cost of the podcast has been taken care of, and we're very grateful for that. We're very grateful for that, very grateful for that. But yeah, it's just such a weird, a weird dynamic the way it is.

48:06 And now some people may feel like, well, I give one hundred thousand to the church, or you know, or let's say that I give my money to the church. At least I know where it's going, but yeah, you do know where it's going. Over fifty percent of it is going to pay his salary, and you're getting won in return. It's going to pay to keep electricity on, the heat on, the the AC on that that's what you're paying for. You may see where it's going, but where it's going is literally. A building and a person. Almost seventy to eighty percent of the budget's just going to those two things, that building and that person or persons, depending how many people have on the staff, and that will increase then the amount of the budget going to just people. And then you have to ask yourself how many hours of the teaching and the church per week is done by paid staff and how much of it is done by volunteers. I used to teach adult Sunday school, did not get paid.

49:06 I used to be the. Youth pastor who taught the youth, did not get paid. I used to be the singles quote unquote pastor taught every Sunday for an hour, did not get paid. And that not only did I teach Sunday morning for an hour, then on Sunday evenings I started doing things like having a class around five o'clock who wanted to come to church. I was teaching two hours a week and I wasn't getting paid. The pastor taught for one hour on Sunday and a sermon was only about forty minutes. And in Wednesday he made downe of ten minute devotional, but a ten minute devotional and then we had prayer meeting. So I, as an unpaid volunteer, was teaching at least two hours a week at minimum, and sometimes more. I was teaching more than the lead pastor. That's a joke, ladies, and Jim, that's a joke. That's a joke. I mean, there's no words for it. When most of the teaching, and if you look at the church, you had Sunday School, Women's Sunday School, and all of those Sunday school classes, all of those special classes were taught by people not the pastor, not on paid staff. So if the majority of the teaching is done by people not even on paid staff, the system. Yeah, all right, well I'll stop there. I

50:39 just had to talk about it, wasn't I know, You're like, well, it's not really a listen, I know, it not really a lesson, because well, I had an appointment in the middle of today and didn't have a chance to do more. But I did do the thing about grace earlier. That was a lesson, okay, and this was more about well, that's what happens when I listened to things on the sermon's two point zero app I've been preoccupied with it all day. Eighty thousand dollars. Man, I can't imagine if my first, if my well, I mean, it's going to be the only church. I can't imagine if I ever would have been making eighty thousand dollars a year as a pastor. I don't even know how to process that in my mind. I don't even know what that would be like. I have no clue. The maximum I have ever made is just my house payment, a house payment being made per month, which is about one thousand dollars per month. So the maximum I've ever made in twenty something years as a pastor is about twelve thousand dollars. Now, I'm not complaining about that, not complaining about that, but I'm just saying I do. The one thing I do know is for that twelve thousand dollars, I've given the church four hours of teaching.

51:54 A week in the building. And now when things now, things have changed a little bit, because you know, basically the church is coming to an end. But if you look at how many hours I produce each week behind this microphone, you break how much money the cost per hour for them, and you take how many four I mean, just the Theology Central podcast. I doesn't even go to the things I did before, four thousand hours just the Theology Central podcast. If you go to things I've done before, I mean, I have probably produced and it's probably not even exaggeration, probably between twenty thirty thousand hours of teaching probably and my entire time, not including all the sermons at church and all the podcasts I've done. Now, that's not because I'm better or spiritual.

52:42 That's just because I feel like that the ministry is supposed to be providing, providing, providing, providing, providing, feeding. Feed the flock, Feed the flock, feed the flock, feed the flock, feed the flock. Teach, teach, teach, teach, teach, teach, teach, teach. Challenge, make them think. And I just I came into the ministry at the time where technology was allowing you to be able to do more and more in a lot easier way. But before I even had the technology, I was making cassettes, doing extra hours of teaching and not even in the church. So yeah, I don't get it. But it's almost like we've kind of fallen into this pattern.

53:27 Well, the pastor gets paid this much money and we get this much in return, and we're happy with it. And most of the teaching happens by people not being paid, and everybody's good with the system. That's like running a business and most of the work is being done by people not getting paid. That it's a weird system. Now, some people say, well, that's the spirit of ministry, that's the way it should be. Okay, I you may could have an argument, all right, thanks for listening. I say, burn it all to the ground, burn it all to the ground and start over. I don't know, and I know. That's easy to say. It's always easy to kind of be like, burn it down. It's easy. It's much different to then build something back that would would capture it.

54:15 But it is a fair argument that the church is a business. And what I've said before is that's never going to change. We just have to be more willing to acknowledge it and say, well, yeah, it's the case. And hey, guys, when when you give money, I know we say you're doing it for God, but let me make it very clear. Over fifty percent of what you give is coming right here to my back pocket or to my bank account. Now, no pastor wants to admit that, right, because that creates a weird dilemma. Right, and then the people can say, well, then I'm getting ticked off at you. I'm not going to give any money. I mean, that. Dilemma already exists, that dynamic, but it would be even more like. But at the same time, how can you sit there and try to act like it's some spiritual thing when and the money goes to a person into a building over eighty percent of it.

55:08 In many cases, some. Of the teaching doesn't even happen in the building because you have people meeting in homes for their small groups. I don't even know why you're paying for a building. At that point. The whole thing is just so weird. All right, Thanks for listening everyone, have a great night. God blass.