My synod’s efforts to help pastors with their finances
Meeting personal money challenges can’t be the responsibility of ministers alone.
A Lutheran woman named Brigette made a midcareer decision to enter pastoral ministry. She and her husband paid as much as they could out of pocket for seminary expenses (even as they tried to help their two children with college), but her debt upon leaving seminary was $50,000. As it happens, that is the average seminary debt for people entering ministry in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
Such a large debt complicated her desire to serve the church wherever needed. “We are committed to honoring where God may lead me in the church, and so there is tension between honoring the call to ministry and care for our family,” she said.
A pastor named Todd sent a note about his financial situation to the ELCA’s Rocky Mountain Synod. “Life is unexpected, and my divorce left me in a very different place than I ever expected,” he wrote. “One of the consequences of divorce was debt. Money was tight and credit was loose. As my credit balance increased, so did my payment amounts until I could no longer afford them.”
