ShareThisWhenever I encounter clergy, regardless of faith or denomination, I inquire about the demands placed on their ministry. Apart from their duties of preaching, teaching, and leading worship for their congregations, what assistance do individual members ask of their pastors?Predictably, ministers acknowledge that men and women of faith seek their counsel in solving personal problems, among them sex, marriage, child-rearing, employment, addiction, and dealing with parents and in-laws.However, the principal subject of concern that individual churchgoers bring to their clergy is something else altogether -- paying their bills. Ironically, the advice of clergy -- among the least-highly-paid professionals in American society -- is sought not just for matters of the spirit, but for how to manage Mammon.It's not a skill they were taught in the seminary, but today, more than ever, ministers and priests find they must function as financial advisers, not just to individual members of their churches, but to large groups within their congregations.Today, more than at any time in our nation's history,Americans are financially overextended, many of us with maxed-out credit cards and some with mortgage indebtedness greater than the resale value of our houses.Ovetta Wiggins, in a front-page story in The Washington Post, explains what pastors in the Washington, D.C. area are doing to assist their members in keeping financially afloat. First, they preach sensible spending. She quotes the Rev. John K. Jenkins of the First Baptist Church of Glenarden, Md. on thrift: "We tell our members, don't buy dresses and shoes (or) take trips, all on credit."Jenkins told Wiggins that he recently implored his congregation to come up to the altar, cut up their credit cards, and drop them at his feet. "If we want to have victory, we have to come out of financial bondage," he explained to her.She writes of a Catholic church in suburban Maryland that hosts a foreclosure workshop to help those of its parishioners at risk of losing their homes. The parish has added a social concerns minister to its staff who offers credit counseling and helps needy families obtain meals from a food bank.I can attest that such assistance is far from premature. In my own Virginia county, one in every 92 households has received a default or foreclosure notice this year.Wiggins tells the story of Katrina Clements, a 56-year-old nurse, who found herself with credit card debts totaling $30,000. She enrolled in her church's Financial Freedom class and within 15 months was out of debt.She thanks God: "It wasn't for me to figure out, it was me turning it totally over to God to figure out."Of course, her church and clergy also deserve credit for helping her to manage Mammon.(David Yount's new book is "How the Quakers Invented America" (Rowman & Littlefield). He answers readers at P.O. Box 2758, Woodbridge, VA 22195 and dyount(at)erols.com.)
Clergy increasingly asked for financial advice
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In one of the fastest-growing forms of identity theft, crooks are stealing tax refunds by swiping personal information and using it to trick the Internal Revenue Service.
