Friday, December 09, 2005
UMC Parsonages
A lot of churches are selling their parsonages and giving their pastors a housing allowance. What do you think of this trend?
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15 comments:
With the current overblown housing market, this probably makes good fiscal sense. They sell the parsonage and use the extra money to pay down their remaining debts or finance new facilities. 'Tis a sellers market.
I'm enjoying the housing allowance and the fact that I am living in a house that no one, including dogs and cats, has lived in before.
I think it also gives pastors more freedom in that they don't have to keep that hideous lime green couch in the living room just because Virginia So-and-so donated it in 1968. My Sr. Pastor was commanded years and years ago to put a piece of furniture back where it belonged instead of in the attic where he thought it looked best. That's a bunch of bull.
It's a good idea, IMHO. Not every pastor needs the same type of home. Plus, for pastors with kids it means that they can spend more time in the same school district.
Depends where you are. Many urban congregations in the UCCan have done that. THey sell the manse and are required (usually) to invest the money from the sale. The interest earned then goes to pay all or part of the housing allowance.
In rural areas it tends to be a bad solution. Rental or affordable to purchase housing may be scarce. A pastor that purchases may get stuck with a house they can't sell when time comes to move. And currently interest on the sale proceeds wouldn't come close to paying a housing allowance (the amount of which is set/approved by Presbytery).
In general, I think it's a good idea. It will require, however, more substantive and honest consultation prior to appointment making to make it possible for pastors to stay in the church longer to make it economically feasible.
I think a housing allowance is a good idea simply because not every pastor has the same needs. Some come with small children, and some with no children but animals. A parsonage would seem to limit a church's choice in pastors. After all, a church can't sell and then buy a parsonage later for a pastor who may prefer a parsonage.
I agree with Matthew. Pastors and their families live in enough of a fishbowl that there needs to be a place to excape from that - and a parsonage isn't it. Being a PK I have plenty of horror stories about living in "someone else's house" and never really having a home.
The two previous pastors refused to live in our parsonage. One had a kid in a wheel chair, so it wasn't suitable, the other one said it was too big. We rented it out, which turned out to be a nightmare. Then someone offered to take it off our hands at a price that was well above market. So we sold it. We have toyed with the idea of putting up a manufactured house on the empty lot next to the church, but shelling out the housing allowance is much easier. Our current pastor rents a house in town.
It's also not ideal for the pastor and his/her family to live that close to the church. There needs to be a little distance so there can be boundaries. When I was in junior high our too small parsonage sat in the "L" of the church and was literally connected by a fence. Also, to top it off, the plumbing was connected so anyone at the church could actually hear the water flowing in the pipes when we were in the shower or when a toilet was flushed. And, initially, there was only one phone number for the parsonage and the church so whenever we were on private phone calls, someone at the church could pick up the phone and listen. Likewise, we could pick up the phone and end up hearing a confidential call my dad was on. Also, people would drive by and always wonder why we were up so late because they saw lights on at 2am. Privacy means nothing when it comes to the parsonage family.
Even though that's not even the worst story I have, it certainly illustrates the point that it's not a good idea to live quite so close to the church.
You know what would be a really cool book? An anthology of PK horror stories.
Gee, I guess I'm the odd man out on this. I think it is a terrible idea. It weakens the connectional system. It limits pastor deployability. I have some very, very good friends that won't leave the Jackson, MS area because they own their own homes. When they move, they move across town.
My appointment last appointment was in a fast growing suburb of Memphis. I coulnd't have afforded to rent or buy a house (my salary was supplimented by the AC).
Longer deployments are generally good. But we live in a connectional year to year appointment. If you want to own your home, then I suggest you may not have really submitted to the conference requirment of going wherever you are sent.
Owning your own home is so Baptist.
Also, pastors (and the conference) shouldn't be basing an appointment on whether a pastor can sell a house or
I agree that there are certainly benefits to living in a parsonage, like not having to worry about a lot of the issues that go with renting/buying. But there are certainly a whole bus-load of negatives.
My mom likes to put those electric candles in the windows at Christmas but we were expected to have them at one church because the previous pastor's wife always had them out. At a transition service, she actually presented them to my mom so they could still be used in that parsonage. For the 4 Christmases we were there we didn't put candles up. Ah, tradition.
Here's one of the worst: we didn't find out until later but, in one of my dad's first churches - when my brother was a toddler - whenever my parents would go out on a day trip one of the church ladies who had a key to the parsonage would come over and let herself in to observe how my parents lived and comment to the rest of the congregation about how messy the house was. To think, a house with a toddler where both parents work full-time might be a little cluttered!
I won't even get into the issues of the appointment system on PKs. Again, there are postitives but I wouldn't want to go through it again.
I have never known where my pastors have their parsonages. I have never visited them, and I never intend to. This Christmas, my pastor is having some sort of open house at his. I suspect that it is a church tradition that he must maintain. I will not attend because I believe in respecting his privacy.
Because I don't have an appointment yet, I certainly don't have a parsonage but my mentor's wife told this story. At their first parsonage, she went up to the front door for the first time to go in. When she turned the nob, the door fell off its hinges.
May I be blunt?
Parsonages are abominations which support a system of trying to maintain the outdated concept of the itineracy. Case in point: Longer deployments are generally good. But we live in a connectional year to year appointment. If you want to own your home, then I suggest you may not have really submitted to the conference requirment of going wherever you are sent. I understand what you're saying, Tim, but that conference requirement is simply ridiculous. I realize the need for some semblance of authority, but the track records of too many UMC are of a revolving door in the parsonage and steady decline in attendance, membership and ministry.
Simply put, the parsonage is a leftover from a bygone era. It serves to elevate the authority of the local church over the pastor in every aspect of life. It's a tool of control in a place where the church shouldn't have control -- in fact, it should be the other way around.
My church has a parsonage. I refused to live in it. That was the deal going in. I live in a mighty rural area, but there are plenty of rentals within 15 miles of the church doors -- some of them owned by church members!
The resale of housing should be a matter of faith, shouldn't it? I'm staying where I'm at for a while -- not because I fear reselling this house (although I don't look forward to it) -- but because I'm involved in this ministry.
And if a church is hiring a person to do ministry, they should be paying enough to allow him to get housing somewhere within a few miles.
Talk to some newly-retired or soon-to-be retired pastors who face the problem of finding housing without an appointment for a unique perspective.
Maybe that's why I have such a strong position on this one.
I hadn't visited this post since I posted and the subject is a bit stale now, but my response to rev-ed would be this:
Itineracy is. Plain and simple. To call it an abomination is to rebel at the very heart of our connectional system. It is to rebel against being a United Methodist.
Very few professions provide housing to their employees. By in large, UM clergy are well compensated AND have their housing provided to them. To the retiree and those approaching retirement, if you haven't been putting back money either in retirement (the smart choice because post-retirement pension funds spent on housing can be tax free) or some other savings plan for your housing then frankly I don't know know how to respond to that kind of irresponsibility.
If a parsonage is provided to you, your pension plan contribution is figured at your salary plus 25% to help you prepare for such an eventuality.
People employed in other fields have to pay for their housing out of their own salary, why can't clergy do that too? (In this case saving a part of their salary towards the eventual parsonage.)
And all the parsonage horror stories should have been resolved through the PPR and the DS. I would call the police if anyone came into my house without my permission.
Weak pastors, weak DS's, and weak PPRC's are to blame for the parsonage horror stores listed here.
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