Christians are merely slave labor.
I have seen (many) job postings for churches that read such:
Wanted, Youth Pastor.
Must have Seminary Degree and at least 5 years exp. Prefer married man but will make exceptions. Must be available to work 31 hours a week. Must be able to attend Sunday nights and Wednesday night Bible study in addition to regular duties.Starting pay, $700 /month. No Benefits.
If you do the math, this means they want a person who has just shelled out $30,000 for a Masters to work nearly full time for about $5.64 an hour (plus however many hours they want for Sundays and Wednesday nights). Ouch.
We do not get into ministry for the money.
Sometimes it is OK to work for free (or close to free). I was reading this post when I lost my mind. The abridged version is; John Saddington asked his community (those who read his site) to help him come up with a business card design. He did not have money or prizes to offer, but would give recognition to the artist.
Turns out, this injured someones pride.
There is a “no-spec” movement among graphic designers to make sure they paid for every second of work. One such artist started a comment “flame” war on John’s site. He chastised John in public instead of in private as the Bible tells us to. The artist in question claims to be a Christian. He fails to see this is a community of Christians who love helping out others. He is also ignorant to the insane amount of free resources John has released (free) to the internet community through various outlets. Many of us, myself included, are very appreciative of John and his work.
Our economy, as Christians, is easy to take advantage of.
Out of love for Christ, we often give away our goods and services. I have benefited from this many times. I have also helped others to benefit from this as well. I have been taken advantage because of this. Sadly, I have taken advantage of others as well. There is a thin line we walk as Christians in terms of our labor. We have these gifts given to us which we should use to glorify God. Christians should be ready to sacrifice time, talent, and money to help others.
The last thing they should do is, turn someone down because it would “de-value” them.
This is the problem with the “no-spec” movement. They cannot stand the fact people would look at them as any less than they are worth (whatever that may be). They are more concerned with their appearance among men than their appearance to God. Instead of using their talents to further the kingdom, they are using it to fatten their wallets. Like I said, this is a fine line we walk. We should guard ourselved against abuse and being taken advantage of.
Anyone using even a little common sense could see John was not seeking to take advantage of anyone. Unfortunately, it appears most people do not have common sense. Even Christian artists who would rather profit off the Gospel rather than help a brother out.
Ok, I am wearing my flame proof clothing.
Fire when ready.
-Don-
Wow dude. That was some crazy comments over on human3rror! I am surprised he didn't lash out like I would have!
Speaking of free—thanks a TON for hosting my website for FREE!
You Rock!
BTW, you are about 45 days away from having to renew your domain name…
The difference between John and I is, he has a filter. I don't
(I voted on your comment and you "leveled up" before my eyes…)
ah, if people had some perspective on these things. thanks for being supportive bro…!
Anytime man. Like many others, I have benefited from your sites, a lot. Keep up the good work.
Just read some of those responses to your post… I seriously hope that no non-christians ever read some of those. It's kind of embarrassing to be associated with people like that.
This kind of utter lack of Acts 2:44-45 in America is exactly why we don't have any Acts 2:47 going on.
For reference:
"All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need." Acts 2:44-45 (NIV)
"…praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved." Acts 2:47 (NIV)
I think the above part (Acts 2:44-45) is really just a true understanding that God provided for others and they were a means for that provision. Because of that understanding, people started "being saved"
Exactly. It strikes me that when we lose track of that understanding, you really don't see so many people "being saved". At least not like they were back then.
Look at the Vineyard. They based their entire church off of showing God's love "giving it away". Even though one could make a long list of everything they do wrong, they became one of the most successful churches in the area by simply acting on that "true understanding that God provided for others and they were a means for that provision."
I like helping my brother out.
Yea, if you were a no-spec artist, family get-togethers would be weird…
Heh.. I don't really do family get-togethers. :/
Oh yea? Well, I bet if I went to our home town, you would "get together" with Jill, the Boys, and I.
That is very true. I would.
I remember a while back at OverClocked ReMix (really cool community centered around making free rearrangements of videogame musicks; check it out: http://www.ocremix.org) someone posted a little thread on the forums. The guy basically was designing a game (for X-box live, I think) during his free time and was asking for someone to do the soundtrack.
Then guess what happened? Some audacious musician (from the free video game music-making community) offered to make the soundtrack for free to get his name out there. Everybody flipped. Well, not everybody, but what ensued thereafter was a nice little respectful (hah, right.) debate between professionals about whether or not that was acceptable. One side argued that it was disrespectful to other professionals and made it hard to find work (translate: waaaaah I want money). The other said that it was perfectly fine, and that the "professionals" (who were very professionally whining like children) should make their work worth paying for and STFU.
I tend to agree with guy number 2. If everything was free our economy would crumble… because everything would be free and awesome and we wouldn't need an economy. I've often said that I don't like capitalism (not that the alternative is any better). This really isn't true. The idea of capitalism is fine, I just don't like capitalists. Nothing wrong with trying to make a buck, but I can't stand people who only whore out their God given talents when cash is involved. It's selfish, it flies in the face of what Christian behavior is supposed to be about, and it's what makes this country suck.
Give it away, give it away, give it away now.
<repeat>
Sorry, couldn't resist.
Yea. I was going to continue the song, but it is rather unappropriated…LOL.
What are you talking about? I was talking about free donuts . . . .
Earlier today I was thinking about how Christians (myself included) get so protective our of personal time that we tend to live selfishly rather than sacrificially. We worry too much about our free time (to read, play video games, watch TV, shop, surf the web, spend time with God). We say it's okay because we're valuable. We're supposed to have boundaries. We need our rest. We don't want to get burnt out. What a bunch of crap!
I think it is similar to giving away our skills and talents. We don't want people to take advantage of our time or our services… yet the Bible commands us to be generous, sacrificial servants of Christ. We need to trust God more with our finances and our rest… if we really believe him when he says he's the source of both of them. We need to care about the salvation of others if we really believe that to be part of our calling.
I remember a while back at OverClocked ReMix (really cool community centered around making free rearrangements of videogame musicks; check it out: http://www.ocremix.org) someone posted a little thread on the forums. This guy basically was designing a game (for X-box live, I think) during his free time and was asking for someone to do the soundtrack.
Then guess what happened? Some audacious musician (from the free video game music-making community) offered to make the soundtrack for free to get his name out there. Everybody flipped. Well, not everybody, but what ensued thereafter was a nice little respectful (hah, right.) debate between professionals about whether or not that was acceptable. One side argued that it was disrespectful to other professionals and made it hard to find work (translate: waaaaah I want money). The other said that it was perfectly fine, and that the "professionals" (who were very professionally whining like children) should make their work worth paying for and STFU. I tend to agree with guy number 2.
If everything was free our economy would crumble… because everything would be free and awesome and we wouldn't need an economy. I've often said that I don't like capitalism (not that the alternative is any better). This really isn't true. The idea of capitalism is fine, I just don't like capitalists. Nothing wrong with trying to make a buck, but I can't stand people who only whore out their God given talents when cash is involved. It's selfish, it flies in the face of what Christian behavior is supposed to be about, and it's what makes this country suck.
That is a bold last sentence. I think you will like my post tomorrow
I'm torn on this. On one hand people do not want to be taken advantage of. On the other hand it is good to donate time and energy to causes you support. I suppose the problem is how do you decide what to do for free, and who do you charge. You could do all work for churches free, but what if you make your living creating Christian art and designs? Do you miss a mortgage payment because you do all church work for free? Taking everything case by case is also problematic. How do you decide a certain job is free and another is not? The ideal solution seems to be a blanket policy of "I do everything for free" or "I charge for everything." Then you are simply following a precedent you have already set and you can never be accused of being unfair. If you do work for free you are undercutting others. We can accuse those who complain of being greedy, but if that is how they pay the bills and feed their family, how could I even ask them to work for free? We're talking about buying some chicken for dinner, not a yacht. That's hardly selfish. It seems like a tight-rope act to me.
I agree with the tight-rope analogy. It is hard to cover anything with a blanket. I guess giving more of the surrounding circumstances could help. In the land of computer geeks, there are those who contribute to projects under the GPL and Open Source movements. Many of these people do A LOT of work for free (like John). However, John also designates some of his work for a fee. For instance, he makes several free web site themes for wordpress, however, he charges for others. How does he designate which one is free and which one is not? Good question. You would have to ask him. If his fee based themes support his open source themes, I am all for it. Sell a handful and keep releasing some for free. Make sense?
When you get into the Christian aspect of this, it gets cloudy. The main transgression is more or less that John was asking his readers, who are his community, for help when someone else butted in. This person chastised a community for doing what it does, helping one another. This person had an issue with it because he felt it furthered John's web marketing prerogative. Instead of letting a community interact how it normally does, someone disrupted it. If he actually knew John, or at least stopped by his site on a regular basis, he would know John was not trying to rip anyone off, but that he was continuing to build a tighter community.
So, all that said. What is free and what should be for pay? I do not know. I know I pastor for free right now, but I would love it if I was paid. I would much rather get paid doing what I love to do instead of having to make it my part time job. I do, however, offer many services for free (like web hosting and CSS editing) and even some computer and networking skills. Others I charge for. I really guess I base it on who I know.
I hope this made the mud a little more clear.
While on the subject of controversy and flame wars: In the wake of Sen. Kennedy's death, I have been thinking about the Gospel of Mathew and how it relates to government social programs. Specifically the health care debate (if screaming at each other passes for debate these days).
You know me, I am in the minority. I think socialistic health care is not entirely a bad idea. I just wish Obama would take his time, make it right, and eliminate some of the problems (long health care lines, underpaying doctors, medical professional shortage etc). I know he wants to get this through, and fast
But then again, I listened to a lot of Rage Against the Machine in High School.
I think you are only in the minority for your social circle. This particular opinion would fit well in my crowd.