Transparency

Today was a difficult day for my husband and I. We recently had Martha Tennison and her husband, Don at our church. During one of our many conversations, Martha and Don corrected Patrick and I for withholding personal information from the congregation. So today, we walked in obedience to our elders and talked with the congregation.

The two areas that we don't discuss openly is team ministry, and salary. Withholding the salary part, well, that's easy, because we're certainly not in this for the money, so its easy to not talk about the money. The team ministry part? Well, it just never occurred to us that we needed to address it. We have always operated as a team and its normal for us. Martha asked if we had ever addressed it from behind the pulpit, we told her no, and she told us we needed to. Patrick was actually the one who did the majority of the talking, I can't really tell you what he said, because I was so uncomfortable with what we were talking about. My insecurities were determined to push their way through, but I kept fighting and pushed them back to the pit where they came from!

The salary part, well that's a whole different story. Over the last year and half we have chosen not to take over $14,000 of salary due to us simply because it's not in the best interest of the finances of the church. Over the past eight years we have used our salary money to re-invest in the church buying equipment, decorations, or any other needed item for ministry. We also personally paid for retreats and gifts for leadership in the church. None of this was done to promote ourselves, it was just what we chose to do. Martha and Don helped us realize that the enemy of our souls is using our silence against us.

So, this morning we exposed ourselves and we stand on the scripture John 8:32 (KJV), "You will know the truth and the truth will make you free." We believe that exposing the choices we have made concerning our salary will bring closure to the enemy's attempts to destroy us and the church.