When you're clergy you have a decision to make: to put a clergy sticker on your car or not? A clergy sticker does have it's benefits at time: decent and most of the time free parking spaces at hospitals. No questions when you park in those spaces for the pastor. But it also has its draw backs for me. If you get pulled over driving, you generally get the "you of all people should have known better." Then there's the whole thing of to honk or not to honk, to give the New York wave or not. To speed more then just a few over or not? I do have a clergy sticker on my car and I do find myself going ohh...maybe I shouldn't do this or that. Some days I think I just scrap the thing off. I'm not sure that it stands for what I once thought it was and I'm not sure that I like being defined by a sticker on my car. I don't think the perks of having the sticker on my car outweigh everything else. So I guess I just created a new project for myself. I wonder how long it'll take to scrap the thing off my car window?
As a minister I have the honor of performing rites and ceremonies for people at a variety of stages of life: baptisms, blessings, marriages, funerals, etc. I usually enjoy planning and leading these events. But lately I've had a rash of folks shocked that as a minister, I would have a fee to do some of these services. So lets talk about why I have fees. To start with, if you are a member of my congregation you do get my services as a part of my contract with the congregation as long as they are spelled out in the contract. Generally if you're a member of the congregation I serve, it is expected that I will preform baptisms, blessings, funerals, weddings, etc for you because I want to remind you of God's continuous blessing in your life and especially at important moments in your life. However some folks are shocked that there would be an honorarium suggested for the minister. The reality is that these blessings, weddings, funerals, etc. are extra work in our wee...
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