How Much Do You Pay A Pastor Who Does A Funeral Service

"My wife and I had talked well-nigh the funeral," he begins. "We bought the gravesite and the funeral, we paid for everything. I thought that — when she passed away — everything was paid."

Then, 2 days after her funeral last fall, the grieving man got a bill for $i,300, including a list of expenses from the Christian Reformed Church he attends.

The man, whose name and church we are protecting with anonymity, has been a member of this congregation for 64 years. He served multiple terms on Consistory, during which time, he says, the church never charged its members for funerals. That's why the bill, presented through a local funeral home and not by the church, took him by surprise.

And the breakup of costs shocked him further: $25 for an Admin fee; $fourscore for the caretaker; $100 for the organist; $225 for the Pastor'due south honorarium and $400 for the luncheon. The widower just noted the specifics considering he had prepaid, or thought he had, all other funeral expenses.

In fact, that particular church building asks all its members to pay a set amount for funerals. And amid Christian Reformed churches that have a fee, the cost is comparable. Only because this man didn't realize that beforehand, the unexpected bill made the months after his wife'due south death more difficult.

"People tell me to let it go, it'southward gonna shorten my life," he says. "Merely I'm non that blazon. I fight for my rights."

Which begs the question — what are those rights? What'southward the role of a local church in a civilization that has turned death into a business concern? Do you know what services your church provides, and whether honorariums are expected? Whom do we assume will volunteer and who'south just doing his or her job as a member of staff when a church holds a funeral?

"The role of pastor, priest, minister and congregation, indeed the raison d'être of the Christian community, is to uphold and embolden believers, shaken in their bereavement, with the promise of the gospel," Thomas Lynch, undertaker and writer, says. "This is how the true-blue bear both expiry in the abstruse and the expressionless in the mankind. It is by begetting our expressionless from one station to another — deathbed to parlour, parlour to chantry, altar to the edge of eternal life — that we learn to bear expiry itself. Past going the distance with them nosotros learn to walk upright in the religion that God will take intendance of God's ain, living and expressionless" ("Holy Burn down" 2010).

Every congregation has its own policies for how to 'uphold and embolden' bereaved believers; at that place's a broad range of standards for this tough task, every bit enquiry for this commodity shows. The problem arises when congregants don't know their own church'due south guidelines, especially if those have changed over time. Churches need to publicize their policies for providing funeral services, and review them annually. That would help to foreclose the kind of heartache this man describes and would enable the gospel, non gossip, to prevail.

Operating Costs

There's no question that the decease care industry is big business these days. And as the boomers historic period, it's only going to become bigger.

"Funerals are often the third largest purchase nearly Canadians volition brand," a consumers' report says. "They are notoriously expensive."

Depending on where yous live, the boilerplate memorial service and burial costs betwixt five and fifteen k dollars. Cremation expenses — at an average of $i,200 — are noticeably less, which could account for its increased popularity: roughly 65 percent of Canadians at present cull cremation. A memorial service, either before or after the gravesite, is still the norm. But as applied science changes and our home lives become busier, the job of hosting a funeral service in church has gotten more complicated. It requires a growing number of church staff, including volunteers, to clean, prepare music and occasionally create "celebration of life" videos. Do nosotros demand a set fee schedule to regulate this? Or is it part of a church's ministry — to intendance for its congregation from cradle to grave? Ane cynical (and anonymous) quip on a pastor's web log — subsequently the pastor had raised this dilemma — was "What's the going rate for baptism?"

Only maybe, every bit i minister pointed out to me, the peachy variety of do is a expert affair. The Christian Reformed Church building Order specifically says that funerals are not an ecclesiastical thing; therefore, each church building has the right to determine for itself how to handle them.

Given that background, Christian Courier decided to assemble some data on Christian Reformed Churches and funerals today. Our enquiry revealed a wide range of policies. Without a doubt, pastors and lay people put long hours into memorial services for very little earthly reward. With that in mind, we investigated three main questions: Does your church accuse for the apply of its facilities? Does your pastor receive an honorarium, and if and so how much? And is any other staff member remunerated? Information technology apace became clear that no Christian Reformed church is making a profit from funerals.

Bearing with Each Other

Out of the 26 churches across Canada and the U.S. that participated in Christian Courier'due south online survey, 82 pct practise non charge their members anything for providing a memorial service (some will accept voluntary donations). The remaining eighteen percent require some hire for using the building. In some cases, this goes to the janitor, depending on his or her contract and whether funerals are considered extra; some churches had a fee for both.

When information technology comes to paying the pastor, opinions diverge greatly. Many ministers told u.s.a. that they regularly say, "You don't need to pay me, I'yard an employee of the congregation." In keeping with that mentality, 30 percent of survey respondents said that their church did not call for an honorarium for the pastor later on funerals. Nonetheless, at that place's no denying that funerals are a lot of work for ministers — from visiting the family to preparing the liturgy and the meditation. We found out that it's not unusual for a pastor to spend 20 hours on 1 funeral, although the boilerplate survey answer was between 11 and 15 hours. That puts the honorarium, varying from $100 to $250, which 70 percent of CRC churches crave, in context.

"The math is piece of cake but the significant proceeds non from what we purchase but from what we do," Lynch points out. "It is the deeply human business concern of witness, of watching and waiting and keeping runway" ("Endpaper" 2000).

And no donation tin truly repay the pastors who keep those hard vigils with the dead, the dying and the bereaved.

Sometimes all that tin can be washed

Is to salvage one sadness from the mass of sadnesses,

To comport i body home, to lay the dead out

amid their people, organize the flowers

and casseroles, write the obits, encounter the mourners at the door, […]

They serve the living tending to the dead ("Local Heroes" 2005).

I proceed leaning on Lynch, whose lyricism and insight into our lives in the moments we confront decease are unmatched. He knows better than anyone the patterns of the people who step upward to assist "serve the living tending to the dead."

At near Christian Reformed churches, those tasks are voluntary. Those who work the sound and media; those who perform music, serve lunch; unlock and lock upwardly afterwards: in one-3rd of churches, these people are officially unpaid (although grieving families may still choose to thank them financially). Sixty-four per centum of the surveyed congregations, however, have a policy in place to recompense volunteers. This varies from $25 to $100 per funeral, mostly for sound and video techs. It'south worth noting that while these amounts are often called "donations" or "honorariums," the funds receive no tax receipt and tin't legally exist claimed as a donation nether Canada Revenue laws.

Given the growing complication of who to pay and how much, some churches attempt to simplify the process past making arrangements with local funeral homes. In doing so, they avoid having to collect whatsoever funds themselves: costs are itemized, presented, accepted and redirected by the funeral managing director rather than the pastor or church secretary.

That's the arrangement the church of this grieving widower has with a local funeral home.

"It's painful [for the church] to send a bill or collect money," its minister told me. "For convenience, and to make everything more uniform, it'south simply easier to [have this] taken out of the easily of the church."

He says his church building doesn't charge for the apply of its church building building; information technology donates the java and facilitates volunteers to serve and clean up the nutrient, which just costs $2 per person. Unfortunately, the widower was not fabricated aware of these policies alee of time. It's a sad postscript to what was a cute funeral service for his wife, the minister adds. Thankfully, the misunderstanding is slowly being resolved, and church policy on the affair will be brought to the congregation's attention. Both parties hope that this commodity will be a catalyst for chat, so that better communication between churches, funeral homes and church building members volition aid forbid this kind of misunderstanding in future.

"We've buried the hatchet," the widower concludes. "Make it so people volition know."

In the end, the method of interment means very little; it'southward how we mourn that matters. The bereaved cannot learn to carry death cached in unexpected postal service-funeral bills. And the pastors and community members who flank the grave alongside them deserve deep thanks as they help bear our dead from this life to the next.

Angela became Editor of CC in 2009, having learned English grammer in Moscow, research skills in grad schoolhouse and everything else on the wing. Her vision is for CC to give body to a Reformed perspective by exploring what information technology ways to follow Jesus today. She hopes that the shared stories of God at piece of work in the world inspire each reader to participate in the ongoing task of renewing his creation. Angela lives in Newcastle, Ontario with her married man, Allan, and three children.

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