“I rely on part time work officiating funerals and weddings and earn a very modest living… I always receive compliments from the families afterward, telling me how touched they were. Then they fail to pay me a single red cent!” (From Dear Abby in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, 7.18.2010.)

Abby’s advice: Set a fee. Yeah, right.

None of us entered the ministry for the money, and we don’t stay in the ministry because of the big bucks. We are in ministry because we believe God wants to use us to change lives. Because eternity is at stake and we want more people to go to heaven and less people to hell.

Some ideas then about receiving love offerings and honoraria:

Set the example. Be generous; lead your church to be generous. Your church and church members can learn from you the importance of meeting needs through giving, love offerings, and honoraria.

Expect God to meet your needs. Stranded, I walked the street and wondered how I would get enough gas to get home in my truck. “Lord, I’d rather depend on you than anyone else,” was all I could pray. A guy in a truck pulled up next to me and said, “You want to earn $20 moving a piano?” God provided that piano-it was the only honorarium I ever received for doing anything musical.

Be honest. If you need money to do ministry, say as much. “Can you cover my expenses?” is not an unspiritual or improper question. But honesty requires that you don’t “play games” with the honorarium. Don’t inflate your expenses; don’t publicly pray and thank God for getting you to the church on “those worn out old tires;” don’t whine in your sermons about how people don’t give to love offerings any more.

Keep records. Regardless of what you may think about love offerings and honoraria, they are income. And you owe taxes on them. Keep records of the love offerings, and the expenses. Report them and pay taxes. Churches are not required to report the honoraria if they give less than $600 per individual, but it would be a good thing to do so. (Its’ o.k. to vote for someone who will lower your taxes.)

The Scriptures say that a workman is worthy of his hire. God said this, He believes it, and will see to it that the workmen’s needs are met. Usually He uses the church, but He may use who and what He will.

Finally, the staff of the ABSC is prohibited from asking for, or expecting honoraria for the work we do. We are not prohibited from taking such if it is offered. We are grateful for opportunity to serve the churches of the ABSC. Thank you for your Cooperative Program gifts that enable us to do our ministry.

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