Fellow Pastors - The Time Prepare Is Now!

Financial Fragility in Pastors and the Pressure to Stay Silent

All right, time for another video. If I look a little bit tired, that's because I definitely am, although my wife is probably much more tired. But my third son was born on November 15th, early in the morning.

Thank you so much for all the well wishes, the congratulations, the prayers, all of that stuff. It really means a lot. Both the mom and the child, whose name is Noah, Noah Matthew Robles, they're both doing really good.

So thank you so much for everything. But I wanted to do a quick video about, not about social justice actually, although it's kind of tangentially related. It's an article I found on crosspolitic .com.

If you don't go to crosspolitic .com, definitely start checking it out. Put it on your rotation. They've got a blog, they've got videos, they've got a podcast. It's a great show. I highly recommend it.

But anyway, this article caught my attention because it was called the anti-fragile pastor. What I thought it was gonna be about was actually a little bit of a pet peeve of mine. I've seen a lot of articles about how hard it is to be a pastor and how it's hard to make friends and it's hard to go on vacation and it's hard to lose weight or stay healthy or something like that.

And I'm sure all that's true. And you should pray for your pastor. That's what the point of these articles are. They're put out and they say, hey, pray for your pastor because it's a very difficult life and there are difficulties to it.

But I always found those articles a little bit weird. Like it's hard to stay in shape, just do it. You know what I mean? Like if that's really a priority to you, you gotta just do it. I know there's difficulties, but there's difficulties in every job.

Everybody's busy, everybody has stress. And obviously the pastoral job is different than any job. But I always feel weird about pretending like it's just different and how it's so much harder than everyday Christian life.

And the reality is it's not that much harder than everyday Christian life. I mean, you have a lot of responsibility, but so does every Christian man. You know what I mean? So anyway, look, if you like those articles or if you feel that way, I'm not criticizing you.

It's just a little, I'm a little uncomfortable with it. I'm just one person, don't care about what I say. But I thought this article was gonna be responding to that kind of thing, but it's actually not.

The Need for Pastors to Be Financially Unfragile

It's actually responding to something much better, in my opinion. And it's talking about fragility in pastors, but it's actually talking about financial fragility. And what it says about financial fragility in pastors is that there are a lot of people that their vocation, how they make a living, how they pay for their families, how they pay their mortgage is through the church.

And that's totally fine. The Bible talks about how we should support men who preach the gospel and that's what their job is and they should have families and they need to be able to provide for their family, so we should pay them.

So there's nothing wrong with that. But there is a danger with having all of your eggs in the pastoral basket, because here's the thing, being a pastor, there is a difficult thing about being a pastor, and that is, you have to say things that people don't like.

You know what I mean? You have to be willing to be the John the Baptist who confronts the king about his adultery and people aren't gonna like you for that. And so you have to say truths that are unpopular, that are uncouth in today's culture, that are heretical in today's culture.

And that can be very dangerous, especially if you make your living preaching the gospel, because it can be very tempting, maybe not to lie. I don't think there's a lot of pastors out there lying. There probably are some.

But it makes it very hard to come against certain things as harshly and as hard as you should, because you're worried about your paycheck. And that's a really real temptation. The real threat that is used against pastors in the church.

And so the way it works is that, you know, is maybe even, so it could be very direct. It could be like a donor, the church's biggest giver comes to you and says, hey, let's, in the article that talks about this, how let's start singing Hillsong songs, because, you know, the youth really like that kind of music.

And you could know in your heart, well, Hillsong, I don't know about that. But you could be flexible and potentially, because you don't wanna lose that donor. I mean, that's your livelihood is there. And, or it could just be, you get canned and you're in a tough situation.

I've had two pastor friends who were both basically run out of town by their churches locally and here in Vermont, because of Calvinism essentially. And one of them was lucky enough to be able to quit.

So he found a job elsewhere and was able to quit on his own terms, but probably he would have been run out of town. And then the other one was essentially launched and struggled for probably a good year after that, because his whole, every egg was in the pastoral basket.

He was all in. And so that can be really dangerous. And I think, especially nowadays, especially in the PCA and the SBC, a lot of people do reach out to me and say that they wanna talk about this issue, but they're nervous.

They don't wanna lose their job. And I can understand why, especially having three kids and all this responsibility, it can weigh on you. And so you wanna be careful about your income. Now, this article makes a good suggestion.

It says, hey, you need to have something else going on so you can tell the truth according to scripture, because you should tell the truth anyway, even if your job and your kids were at risk, you should tell the truth anyway, but it's tempting to sort of find ways around it.

And it's also tempting to find ways around, again, being as hard as you should be in your criticism, because this social justice thing is really dangerous. It's poison, and it needs to be spoken up for what it is.

It's evil, and it's divisive, and it's antichrist. But a lot of people might not say it that way. They might say, well, I have some problems with it, and I'm not quite there, but I see some of their points and stuff.

And if you do have a nuanced position, then that's fine. But I think a lot of people claiming they have a nuanced position really don't. And the reason that they're saying that they do is because they want to save their jobs.

I think that there are big names, I think, that are this way, that are actually on our side of this issue, but are not coming out strongly against it because they don't wanna lose their jobs. And I'm not gonna tell you who I think is doing that, but I think there are some bigger names that are doing that.

And I can understand why. I'm not saying that I wouldn't do that if I was in their position. I'm not saying that. But thank God I'm not in their position. I don't have a big platform. And I've thanked God for this before.

I'm not in a denomination. So no one has denominational control over me. I'm not paid by my church. So if my church decided that they wanted to go social justice and they wanted to get rid of me, it would not have any financial impact on my life at all.

It would have an emotional impact, obviously. That would be very hurtful. But I would not have, my family would not be put at risk for that. Also, I don't have a real job. I don't have an employer. I own my own business.

So I'm obviously not gonna fire myself. So it's not a safe place to be because obviously I have to find work in order for me to eat. That could be challenging. But it's also, I have my destiny in my own and God's hands.

And so I don't have to worry about getting fired for some of the things that I say. And so the point is, though, that if you're a pastor, man, I think this article has some good advice. Find something else that you can do to make money, supplement your income now, but also keep it safe and keep it easy for you to say what needs to be said.

Stand Firm Against Social Justice Pressure by Securing Your Family

Because if you believe like me that this social justice stuff is poison, it's antichrist, this Marxist stuff is antichrist, if you believe that, you need to say that. You can't just say, well, it's problematic.

Well, it's just not God's best. No, it's evil, but you need to be able to say that. And if you feel like you can't say that, then I think you need to figure out a way to keep your family financially secure so you're not financially fragile.

And you can say the truth as you understand the Bible teaches it. You know, people have tried to pressure me. So this is the thing. So because I'm not in a domination, because I'm not paid by my church, because I'm not given like big platforms at these conferences and stuff like that or promoted, people can't threaten me with that kind of stuff.

They can't pressure me like that, but they still do try to pressure me. I've had people tell me that I'm doing a disservice to the kingdom of God. I've had people tell me that I would never be popular, that I would never have a big following because of the stances that I take.

I've had people tell me that by criticizing these powerful men of God, that I would be forever sullying of evangelicalism and things like that. So people do still try to pressure me to say what I don't believe is the truth through other various means.

They can't do it financially with me, but they can do it through other means. And so I understand, man, the pressure is tough. If you're one of these pastors out there that feels this pressure, that does not want to get fired, does not want to put your family at risk for saying these things, I get it.

I get it. And I don't blame you because I'm not sure that I wouldn't do the same thing that you're doing, but here's what you can do. You gotta do something about it. You gotta do something about it. Find a way to make some money.

Find a way to get a side hustle. Find a way to keep your family financially secure while at the same time preaching what you know the Bible says. Start making plans right now. There's no time like this, this is the end of the year, no time like the present to start making plans for this.

Making plans right now, look, it's not, people would say, oh, well, you should be all in as a pastor. Yeah, you should be all in as a pastor, but you should be all in for, and this article makes this point, for telling the truth of the word of God.

That's what you should be all in on, not the financial aspect. You can absolutely find other means of income to supplement this whole situation because if you can't tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth as a pastor, and you feel like you're handcuffed, a lot of pastors have reached out to me and told me this, then you need to do something about it.

Get yourself unhandcuffed and start preaching that truth as hard as you need to. Anyway, I hope this was helpful, God bless. Look, I know there's gonna be some people that are gonna hear what I'm saying and think it's kind of alarmist and that people aren't gonna lose their jobs and things like that.

The Church, Deplatforming, and the Need to Prepare Now

Look, this is the reality. These social justice people, their whole strategy is to deplatform you, to get you fired, to run you out of town. That's the strategy of a social justice advocate. They are the most intolerant, most ridiculous people around.

And you might say, well, they won't do that in the church. They're already doing that in the church. The liberals do it in the progressive, crazy, non-church land, but they also do it in the church. People are putting pressure on others to not speak about this or there will be financial consequences.

That's already happening. It's happened to me, it's happened to others. Here's the reality, you need to prepare. You might think this sounds like a conspiracy theory, it's not a conspiracy theory. The social justice warriors in the church are taking their cues from the culture at large and this is how the culture does it.

They try to ruin your life financially to make you acquiesce to what they have to say. Pastors, I beg you, if you wanna stand out against this, if you wanna be faithful to the scriptures, that's a great goal.

Prepare now so you can take care of your family.