Since when are Adventist church workers just employees? They are demanding their rights. Not Christian rights, but worldly rights.
Pastors it seems have more time off, less work hours, more pay, and it seems to have become just another job.
So if young people going into the ministry are choosing a career instead of a calling, darn straight they will want the perks of a career.
Does your pastor turn off his or her phone? Do they visit less? Do they lead church activities less? Do they seem to take more vacation time? Hmmmmm. Something behind the scenes is going on. Perhaps our pastors are now getting comp time. Or feel that if it's not a paid part of the job, then they won't do it. Perhaps they think that after 40 hours of "church" time, they cannot (shouldn't?) Work any more. After all, they are demanding what the world gets.
Some pastors even will not preach on the fifth Sabbath of the month. What other job does that? Anything special about working weekends? We at the Undercover Adventist have never heard of anyone getting the last days of the month off because they have worked their allotment of Mondays, or Tuesdays, or Wednesdays....
If you don't like the struggles that come with being a pastor....DON'T BECOME ONE! Simple! Don't become a pastor and then....
DEMAND YOUR RIGHTS!
Christians give up their "worldly" rights anyway. You are not heirs to the world so stop acting like it!
It looks as though pastors will one day demand comp time. After all, how can they spend hours on a sermon, then do many hours a week on visiting, research, counseling, teaching, leading, praying...
We can see it now. Cutting a prayer meeting short because one has already prayed a certain number of hours.
And women....please stop demanding equal rights. (Notice we did not say you don't deserve them?) Demanding this and demanding that are NOT Christian attributes. In fact, just the opposite. You are to be humble. You are to serve. You are to sacrifice. You are not of the world. So why act like the world owes you? You don't work for the world. You work for God. You do service for Jesus.
There are a lot of lay people in the church who are the backbone. They do more work than many pastors do with their whole bodies. And they don't ask for recognition. They don't demand something. They are supporting you. They are making YOUR job easier.
You look foolish when you start treating your pastoral duties as if it was a job, complete with a benefit package, vacation, union contract, etc.
We suspect pastors will start a union some day.
After all, the Adventist hospitals have had to accept unions...of course we won't comment here on the extremely high salaries of hospital leaders.... But we have no trouble debating whether EGW would accept hospital CEOs being paid millions.... We suspect she would not.
Speaking of debate...why is the debate about women being ordained never done in the light of Christ? It's always done from a world point of view: We demand our rights!
As the Adventist church gets filled more and more by young people who just make a career choice, the more demands will be made to be more like the world.