Please note: Though these posts are reactionary, my goal as I write is to explore the AA traditions and see what churches might take from them to better glorify God. I do not believe that there is one way to do church right and all the rest are bogus. I do not have one church in mind as I write; I have a conglomeration of all the churches that I have been privileged to be a part of and / or visit. Please do not read these posts as an attack on anyone. They are not intended to be. The traditions are raising important questions for me with which the church needs to wrestle as it attempts to remain faithful. If these posts send people back to the Scriptures and places them on their knees to seek what direction the Spirit would have them take then they have done far more than I hoped. I simply wanted to figure out whether I could use the 12 traditions well in creating a church geared toward helping addicts in recovery and people trying to lay down the idols of Western culture discover the Triune God as a worthy and faithful Higher Power.

Comments

[Barefootmeg]

"I don't know where that figure came from but it is VERY inflated."

I'm guessing it's some sort of average and that there are outliers (mega-church pastors, for example) that skew the data upward.

The pastor of a church we attended in San Francisco (about 400 attenders at the time -- this was 8 years ago) was making well over $100,000/yr. One assistant pastor was at $80,000. And that was with a congregation in which only about 10 - 20% of the people put anything into the offering basket. (I was the treasurer for awhile so I saw all the numbers. The pastor guarded his salary like a hawk, though, and didn't want anyone in the congregation to know what he made.)

[Ike]

I don't know where that figure came from but it is VERY inflated. Most pastors I know make less than rookie school teachers.

Some I know drive bus, work at UPS, roast coffee just to make ends meet.

[Barefootmeg]

I think these have been great posts! As I read I go back and forth between thinking, "Yes! that's exactly what we need to keep in mind as a church!" to "Oh, I can see where that would work for some people, but I don't know that it would work for me."

I think there are some personalities that deal well with, and even grow and thrive, in an AA type environment. I think there are other personality types that would feel really uncomfortable in that sort of situation and it would be such a distraction that they wouldn't be able to think of anything else. But just because their personality type is different, that doesn't at all meant that there's not still something the one type of person could learn from the other.