It’s a good question.
I certainly didn’t “have” to. I was paid full-time by our church and the elders were glad to continue paying me. There was no financial struggle involved.
So, why do it?
I’ll give you 4 reasons.
- It’s a joy to do ministry for free.
When we moved back to Lubbock after graduating from seminary to start our church, we had no income. Our sponsor church was unable to help us financially, so we had to raise our personal support and also a budget for the church.
We had many generous people give to help fund a salary for me and my family and a start-up budget for our church.
Once our church started, all of the tithes and offerings went directly to church ministries because my salary had been covered for the first 2 years. I loved this!
After 2 years, the church had the funds to bring me on the payroll, and while I was grateful, I really enjoyed not being on the payroll. Soon after coming on the payroll, I remember beginning to consider ways to do tentmaking so I could come back off the payroll again.
I identified with Paul in 1 Corinthians 9:18 in desiring to preach the gospel “free of charge.”
My dream was to one day be able to contact the elders and have them reduce my salary to $0. When that day came, years later, I remembered again the joy of seeing my salary going back to the ministries of the church.
- I wanted to lead by example in what we were teaching.
You can read more about what we were teaching in our book, From Megachurch to Multiplication.
Part of the teaching was that all believers can make disciples and plant churches. The problem was that most people viewed disciple-making, and especially church planting, as the job of paid clergy. After all, how could they make disciples and churches with a full-time job? We were encouraging them that they could make disciples & plant churches with full-time work but it was certainly hard to believe. And there weren’t many examples of people doing that.
I thought I needed to come off the payroll to demonstrate for them what we were teaching. I needed to show what it would look like to be a businessman and still make disciples & plant churches.
- I was convicted by Scripture and prayer that the Lord wanted me to pursue tentmaking.
This is clearly the most important reason to pursue tentmaking.
I was inspired by Paul’s example as I mentioned above. He had a “right” to be supported as a traveling missionary, but he didn’t make use of that right at various times so there’d be no hindrance to his work in a particular area. He “worked hard” to provide for his own needs (Acts 20:34-35). I felt a similar conviction in our own ministry.
While it’s common in the West to have paid pastors, it’s quite uncommon in certain other parts of the world. In many cases, they don’t believe it’s wise to pay pastors because their goal is to multiply disciples to reach their entire nation (in response to Matthew 28:19-20). They realize they’d never have the funds to pay all the pastors needed to serve these churches as they multiply. I was convicted similarly that I needed to serve in a way that is scalable to accomplish our mission. I had to make sure I wasn’t leading in a way that was difficult to multiply.
These convictions, combined with prayer, helped us sense the Lord wanted us to begin a tentmaking journey.
- I believe it’s wise to have multiple streams of income.
I’ve written about this extensively in other blog posts and I’ll link those here & here.
King Solomon said, “Invest in seven ventures, yes, in eight; you do not know what disaster may come upon the land… Sow your seed in the morning, and at evening let your hands not be idle, for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well.” (Ecclesiastes 11:2,6)
I regularly encourage people, especially pastors & missionaries, to prioritize acquiring multiple streams of income. Since we want to be willing to follow the Lord wherever he leads, even if it doesn’t pay much or at all, it’s helpful to have other streams of income. That way we are never tempted not to follow God’s call simply because it doesn’t pay enough (or at all).
Add this to the fact that giving to the evangelical church is in decline. John Dickerson, author of The Great Evangelical Recession, says, “The traceable trend is that giving is dropping severely across the United States… Unless giving trends change significantly, evangelical giving across the board may drop by about 70 percent during the next twenty-five to thirty years.” Dickerson continued, “While our hope should not be placed in these dollars, the thought of American evangelical ministries attempting to function without funds is devastating. Such a drought of dollars would certainly accelerate the decline of evangelicalism as we know it. If we actually lose half of all gifts in the next thirty years, the consequences will be catastrophic. Half of the pastors you know would be unemployed, as well as half of the professors, parachurch employees, and so forth.” Add to all of this a recent global pandemic that has dramatically affected giving to churches. To me, it seems wise for those in ministry to have other sources of income.
Perhaps some of theses reasons resonate with you and the Lord is leading you to begin a tentmaking journey as well. If so, you’re connected to the right community and we are glad to help you along the way!
