A Need for Restored Hope – Katie Barrett Todd
Call me discouraged. Call me disillusioned. Call me frustrated. You can even call me unfaithful here, but don’t call me hopeful…about the proposed Board of Pensions changes that will be determined in March.
I’m a cradle Presbyterian and I grew up in a large congregation that always took complete care of our ministers (plural), and was often annually generous enough to give a bump in salary to them as well. Now I’m a Candidate for ministry, Certified Ready to Receive a Call. I’m a wife of a Presbyterian minister. I live in a small town in Western Kentucky and we serve a small congregation. I’m a mom of one young boy and we have a daughter due in April. I’m also currently unemployed. Oh, and I have debt. From seminary and life. And I have a house in my previous home state that I’m still paying a mortgage on, with no housing allowance because we live in the manse.
When we accepted the call that God placed on both of our hearts it meant a lot of sacrifice, but we knew we could trust God in this call because the Presbyterian Church (USA) has always taken care of it’s pastors – all of them. We knew moving here would mean that I’d be unemployed because there are very few childcare opportunities, and if I were able to be employed, it’d be on an hourly basis with no options for benefits. We knew that my husband would be accepting a pay cut from our previous churches, but we calculated numbers and knew that we could make it work, primarily because we knew we wouldn’t have the financial burden of a health insurance premium. This would mean, however, that’d we’d have to give up our dental and eye care coverage, and that we would also, for the time being, not have additional life insurance coverage or retirement contributions. We were okay with that because, after all, God was strongly calling us to serve this congregation in this community.
I am a cancer survivor and therefore must have private health insurance coverage to make sure that I get the proper care and treatments I continue to need. Luckily my children will be eligible for Medicaid, but then I struggle with that option for them. What message are we sending to our congregations and communities if the Pastor’s family is utilizing government assistance and medical care in order to provide for their families? I also struggle with the idea of having to add more to a state that carries a burden of nearly one million citizens utilizing Medicaid with a cost of nearly $6,000,000,000.00 in costs for the program alone.
As more information has become available about the proposed changes, I’ve become less hopeful…about my chances of finding a call, our ability to make ends meet monthly, our congregation’s ability to help us make up the differences required either of them or us when these changes take affect, and about our Church’s ability to care for the least of our own in terms of the small congregations. As we’ve entered the world of ministry to congregations through means of Ordination (we both served congregations in non-ordained positions) I’ve learned more about the PCUSA that has made me less hopeful. For instance, I recently learned that while we receive some minor assistance from the Presbytery for Seminary Debt Assistance, we don’t qualify through the PCUSA because of the means through which we attended seminary; as part-time students ineligible for traditional educational loans. (You can read more about that particular journey here.) And now this with the Board of Pensions.
Have any of those who will have a vote actually done the math that those of us “out in the field” have calculated? And if so, how can they possibly think that this becomes just to the smaller congregations and those that pastor them? The math is fairly simple, and I am not even good at math, people. A uniform 4% increase, from 21% to 25%, is less harmful than the 19% + premium proposal, which harms those of us who are serving smaller congregations and make less than $100,000 in effective salary. I won’t even bother venturing into the whole argument that this plan change will create further division in the denomination between large/small churches as well as young/old pastors. I’ll just stick to the numbers. 46% of our pastors currently claim full family coverage. Why would we intentionally isolate and penalize 46% of our families who have chosen a life service to others, at their own family expense or sacrifice?
In short, you can infer on which side of this argument I stand. I’d really like to continue helping my husband serve at this current congregation. The reality of the situation, however, is that even if we put our children on Medicaid in 2014, we still can’t afford to live under the new BOP proposed changes; meaning we can’t afford to continue to serve this congregation.
I still feel that God has called us here. I still feel that God has called us as a family, and as individuals, into ministry. And I still feel that the Presbyterian Church (USA) deeply wants to continue to care for its families – all of them. The financial situation of our church (and country for that matter) is grave, but not so grave that we need to be seeking ways to discourage the youth of our church to run from ordained service as quickly as possible. And that’s what’s happening, I fear.
I trust that all of this will be prayerfully considered rather than just looking at the numbers from a business perspective. I trust that God is working in our midst to bring about change. I trust that financial ends will be met. And I trust that the BOP voters will work to restore hope to all of us “out in the field.” At least, that is my prayer. Lord, hear our prayers…
Editor’s Note: On February 11, 2013, the Board of Pensions announced that they were postponing a vote on changes in the medical plan till their meeting in June 2013. Here is the announcement. Posts for this week were already prepared before this announcement was made. Conversation partners encourage continued care and attention to the decision-making process through June.
Katie Barrett Todd is a Certified Candidate in the PCUSA and a small town, small church pastor’s wife. She’s a graduate of Union Presbyterian Seminary with a dual MDiv/MACE degree and currently is a stay at home mom while she seeks a call. Katie has done some freelance writing for Chalice Press, as well as serving voluntarily in the local congregation.
I don’t want to be the guy who knocks over the punchbowl here, but let me suggest that this problem with BoP medical insurance is simply the first wave of a whole series of major problems we will soon face.
The elephant in the room is that the PCUSA is old and dying. Our median age is 61, and if you throw out all those 17-23 years olds who became members in high school and are still on the rolls, but will probably never return to become active adult members, the actual real age is even higher.
Look back at the Board of Pension presentation at the last GA and their “pig in the python” statistics for both membership and clergy and it is obvious that over the next 10-12 years the PCUSA is in for a time of historic membership loss. We may have half as many members and half as many clergy as we now have in ten years.
The current Board of Pension medical model can’t function in the same way in that coming reality. I think what they’re now trying to do is, in part, to live into that new normal with a system that can adapt to it.
Frankly, much of the structures and system that we take for granted in the PC(USA) won’t be able to exist either. They are too expensive. In ten years, most of our income will come from people on fixed incomes, living off accumulated assets. And, if there is some financial crisis or crunch (and, how can there not be), discretionary church giving will plummet.
I’m not trying to simply be contrary, but simply trying to solve this problem by tweaking the current system and not seeing it as a part of a larger problem will not solve anything. This is just the first wave of the tsunami.
I have little doubt that the Board faces a financial problem. Here’s a few things that could be done that would not penalize people already serving with high debt and low pay.
1) Have their Board meetings at less expensive venues. I have served at the GA level on committees for some years, and we NEVER met at Hilton Head or at the Ritz-Carlton. Something’s wrong with this picture — and savings could be realized by choosing retreat centers (including our own, like Stony Point, Montreat, and Ghost Ranch, for example)or lower cost hotels.
2) Cut the pay of those on staff. Choices made by people who make six figure base salaries that have the most impact on those with much less income are not just choices.
3) Raise the cap on the percentage that goes to Pension and Medical. If those making more paid more, the pressure would ease off those who make less.
Anon, you’ve spent a number of posts on this issue telling writers where they are wrong or misinformed. I ask you both to make yourself more visible, as the writers have done, and to offer solutions rather than only pointing out the failings to those who have written.