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If you’ve ever been a member of an evangelical church you’d see why it’s a great example! That still doesn't answer the question about following the Lord's command that Paul references. Maybe fully paid support to a missionary Pastor is wrong then too. I for one don’t support that. I'm certainly th...

I feel like if the New Testament actually told us that deacons and bishops/presbyters/elders should be full-time, paid positions, it would say so. Yet it never says this directly. The duties of deacons are otherwise well laid out. The closest thing is an appeal from a specific apostle for support, ...

The system used in the Catholic church, evangelicals, and others, with a paid ministry and paid bishops, doesn't seem to have delivered good fruit. I think it is worth considering one of the conservative Anabaptist distinctives is an unpaid ministry. (Liberal Mennonites do pay their pastors, and I ...

My interpretation is this means we should pay for missionaries and for visiting preachers, etc. who incur travel expenses and miss days of work in order to come travel and preach to us. Back when my family was in evangelical circles, you would sometimes hear this message preached from as as "g...

1 Corinthians 9:9-14 New King James Version 9 For it is written in the law of Moses, “You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain.” Is it oxen God is concerned about? 10 Or does He say it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written, that he who plows should plow ...

Most of my experience in churches before I came to CA circles was in churches with paid pastors. My family's, too. Over and over again, there were crises where the congregation was unhappy with the pastor and one way they can express that is by cutting back on offerings. The pastor salary is usuall...

More specifically, if a congregation is unhappy with their paid minister or bishop, can they stop paying them? In effect, it makes the minister or bishop a hireling of the congregation. (The episcopal model is even worse where the congregation has basically no say at all in how things are done and ...

If you pay someone, can you fire them? Were they hired, might be the more important question. More specifically, if a congregation is unhappy with their paid minister or bishop, can they stop paying them? In effect, it makes the minister or bishop a hireling of the congregation. (The episcopal mode...

What do you guys think a possible solution could look like? Are unpaid & fully salaried the only two options? As noted in this thread, our process of choosing leaders is quite different than churches that hire pastors. If we believe God chooses someone from within the congregation to assume the...

It is assumed, but is it actually accurate, to think that a paid leadership would accomplish more than an unpaid? I mean, on paper it seems so. But reality? I question it. We have unpaid preachers who are very rarely (by the looks of it) being limited by the lack of salary. Many of them are above t...