Christian Elites and Lay Christians

 It is a holiday today and I called in on the AskDrBrown radio show.

I was on hold the entire hour. Towards the end, Michael Brown asked my question for me and when I tried to ask further, my line was cut off and dropped from the program. While I was patiently listening to them and waiting for Mattera and Brown to let me speak, I was thinking how true and relevant my question was - not just to prophets, but also the "offices" of pastor, teacher, prophet etc. Are they roles or offices? Professional Christians  including the two gentlemen (both PhDs) have defined them as offices. This has split American Christianity into two castes. The upper caste of Christian Elites, and the lower caste of us Ignorables. The Christian Elites have the microphone. They are pastors, worship leaders, church staff, seminary graduates, ministry leaders. The rest of, the Lay Christians are Cannon Fodder. We are to give 10% of our incomes as tithe, make up the numbers and volunteer when childcare, office cleaners and ushers are required. They say they are the church and quote all the scriptures to make us think that giving to them is giving to God. Serving them is serving God. They are destroying the real church. No wonder there are so many scandals among professional Christians (just go to christianpost.com to see one almost daily). No wonder so many lay Christians are wounded and devoured by the wolves. We were meant to be Living Stones (1 Peter 2), not Cannon Fodder! I have experienced this part of American Christianity for 24 years, and I am done with it. No More!

The solution to the Tithe controversy

 The solution to the tithe issue is found in the book of Acts. Seminaries should turn out bi-vocational pastors so that they can meet their financial needs and also earn some money from preaching. Seminaries should teach skills and trades like Plumbing, carpentry electrical, computer software, medical assisting Etc. Or even better, they should have tie-ups with the local trade schools so that those trade schools can teach them the skills. Then no pastor needs to feel he has to compromise and insist on people's tithing 10% of their income. Then whoever preaches the sermon and not just professional pastors, but even people from the congregation, can get paid for their sermon preparation and teaching. This is completely biblical. Then the line between professional Church staff and the lay congregation will be completely removed. This is biblical.

Currently pastors are only trained in theology and languages like Hebrew and Greek. They are unemployable in the secular world. If they leave their pastoring vocation they usually end up in lawn maintenance or sales jobs that don't require training or specialized skills. The income gap is too high. Hence they should learn a specialized trade as part of their Seminary degree and requirements.

As a software professional myself I can tell you that anyone who can get through Seminary can also learn 1 or 2 programming languages and a few computer subjects at the same time as part of their Seminary training and learn the basics of software and get a job as a software QA tester at least. This will help them in the hard times.