Harry Boessenkool

To James D. Maybe we should ask the accountants at the CRCNA how much the corporate CRCNA spent on airline travel for the last ten years. Year by year so we could see the growth. Or if stewardly  the decline. "if somewhat cynical query," as per your comment.

WOW!

Discipline is out in:

Churches, use of Technology, Relationships, Spending, Government.

The only places were some discipline is still in effect are airplane and train schedules (if the folks are not on strike).

You need some personal discipline.  I was transferred to a place where I had to take the train to work and home.  Miss the 7:05 am and you lost  half a day. Miss the 5:19 pm and you'd be home at 8:30. Follow this schedule this in your pastoral work.

Evenings I used to study at  nite school 2 nites a week and home work one night, Never did anything for work or study on Fri, Sat and Sun nights.

Meetings can not start before 7:30 pm or go beyond 10:00 pm and I walk out if they do (that means the closing prayer at church meetings starts at 9:45 to everyone a chance to participate). Meetings have an agenda and those times are on there. 

I was told sermons take up to 15 hours to prepare. That is two full days or 4 half days. You are unavailable PERIOD! during this time. Post your schedule in the bulletin for 3 weeks and then once a year as reminder. During sermon prep turn your cell phone off and put land line on call forward.

(Many churches are down to 60 services a year counting special holidays + funerals. That is down from 112 + funerals  15 years ago)

Read the book of Nehemia. He was one of the best planners in scripture.

On the money side get a trusted adviser to sit with you once a quarter for an hour and half till you get it.

Blessings brother, we need folks like you for more than 5 years!!

Many churches are down to one sermon per sunday so it would be logical to expect the quality of the sermon to get better. Mr. L raises a good point. I for one would be unable to "officially" critique a sermon. Making comments like : "I enjoyed the sermon" or "Wow that was a really good sermon!" don't cut it. 

Could Consistory (Council) not transcribe into words a sermon at random and have it evaluated against some predetermined criteria? We have technology that can put spoken words into written words.. What Mr. L wants is the criteria. That's a good idea. I am sure it's around somewhere!

Harry Boessenkool

I wonder if we can move this discussion to the impact of how the CRC Pension Fund deals with the issue of salary. 

Colin in fact raises the question by having "only" a salary.  I understand the pension arrangement for CRC pastors are based on average salaries. I wonder how these are reported. In the case of Colin his salary would include the housing allowance, whereas if they used our Pastor's salary the housing allowance would not be included. 

On balance I have for a long time advocated for an "only" salary position and letting the Pastor do his or her own taxes. I was even in favor of the church paying for professional advice.

Of course the impact of this on the Pension Fund is not insignificant. Average salaries would rise if all Pastors in the plan went on a salary "only" basis.

This could also have an impact on those Pastors who have a full time job at the CRCNA HO in Burlington (in Canada's case). The salaries on that position are on a fixed grid which is generally significantly higher than that of a Pastor at a local congregation.

1) We have received information from CRA that the  value of the housing allowance is also to be included in calculating EI premiums. This is especially so for Youth pastors who may be part time and get a partial housing allowance and their salary alone is below the EI cut off.

2) We use a payroll service and have asked them to include all allowances ((study, car, hospitality etc.) as tax free. We leave it up to the Pastors to keep receipts for those expenses related to these items to at least the amount they receive. If they have more receipts they can claim the excess only.  We have been challanged on this procedure by the payroll service. They also said these amounts must be included in the EI  premium calculation

3) One commenter noted we should simply pay a Pastor a total wage and let him/her be responsible for filing the taxes. I like this approach but living in the greater Vancouver area I suspect we would have trouble determinening what this wage should be if no house is being provided. Maybe we should add that as a seperate discussion. 

3) When I read all the comments it appears churches may want to have some consistent advice and what we should do in regard to the allowance situation for Pastors.

The discussion is focussed on the overall decline in membership over time. For Canada I researched (10 years ago) the data for the United Church of Canada and the Anglican Church of Canada. At about the same time I reviewed the data for the CRCNA.  The human conclusions for all three denominations was that the UCC will become non-sustainable sometime in 2025, the ACC about two years later and the CRCNA in 2037.

Dr. Carlson's analysis, which is well done, if projected forward, would probably show to show about the same outcome as mine which used data between 1997 and 2012 and forecast it forward based on trends from those years.

The good news is that annual percentage declines will never get you to zero!

Well done! 

One of the items permanently on the Classis Agenda is Finances.   Classis should add an item on Church Membership.   Here is some interesting information:

Summary of Year Book CRCNA 2013
                                              USA                  CND
Members                               76%                 24%
Classis                                   79%                 21%
Churches                               80%                 20%
Churches <100 members      90%*               10%**

*USA  has 296 churches with under 100 members
**Canada  has 28 churches with under 100 members

Classis are the perfect place to discuss this. Churches with less than 100 members are not sustainable IMHO. When new church plants are recommended Classis should ensure affordability and that they will be subject to a "sunset clause".

This sound may business like. But I am a Christian business person and would deal with a church in a stewardly Christian business manner. Btw it takes about $200,000 per year in fixed expenses to run a church.

Sounds to me some Classis have some work to do to help each other out.

Here what I wrote when I first saw the announcement.

This is a novel idea. What safe guards are in place to prevent this idea from spreading throughout the denomination and or individual churches? Is there an element of risk involved to the churches' reputation? Are there legal issues involved or tax issues of Canada vs USA. I noticed receipts can be provided.

Thanks Jerod keep these info bits coming.