Sunday, June 1, 2008

Evangelists Pay

So, how do you like the $4.00 you are paying for gas right now? Making the budget tricky? It has affected my family significantly. (I may post more about that in the future.)


Now, what if you were a full time evangelist in the CHM, and your livelihood depended on what the local church decided you were worth for a week?

I know of an evangelist that travels full time in a truck pulling an older trailer.

Truck uses diesel. For some reason, diesel is now more expensive than gas. $4.73 cents is what my friend paid for diesel to get to his current meeting.

His trip was somewhere around 460 miles. He gets 10 miles to the gallon. That would be 46 gallons of diesel to get to his date. 46 X $4.739 = $217.99. Just for fuel to get to the meeting.

This does not count wear and tear on his rig.

This does not count food on the road.

This does not count insurance for the truck and trailer.

Or tires.

Or...well, you get the picture.

And, if we go on the old pay scale for the CHM, he might get $500 to $700 for the week.

And then, he will spend half of that getting to his next meeting.

So, care to be a full time evangelist?


My point is, we need to be re-thinking what we pay the evangelist when he comes through town. $100 per day is just not enough.

3 comments:

Leah said...

Imagine my excitement when I received your email with the information to read your blog! "Oh great!" I said to Dave! Another way to pick and argue with John! Just what I was looking forward to!!! Not reallY!! Actually - this particular post I agree with you on especially since my husband will be traveling a lot from now on! As to the other blogs so far? Not sure I am going there but we will see!!! LOL!!!

Jonathan Walden said...

GASP...inflation affects churches too?!?

Good for you in looking out for the workers. I agree, as a board member of a church, I feel it is important that we are paying our workers properly. What about your pastor's salary? How much driving does he do for the church and is he adequately paid, or was his weekly allowance determined in 1985? The trouble is, during these times of inflated gas prices and overall expenses increasing, you may find donations to the church are going the other way!!

Jody J said...

Good post, John. It is really sad when evangelists can hardly make ends meet! Thankfully, there are a lot of good churches out there that are taking inflation into consideration, but I'm sure there are others who could use some education on that!