The Great Secret

In every congregation there is a great secret. Some are in on the secret. Most do not know the secret, especially the minister. If the minister is bold enough to ask about the secret, or to stealthily go looking for the secret information, they might find the drawer slammed shut on their fingers by the guardians of the great secret. Even if the congregation uses a data program like Servant Keeper, Church Windows, the minister usually does not have access to some of the data so the great secret can be maintained. Keeping the great secret away from the minister implies a distrust of the minister and casts doubts upon the pastoral integrity of the minister.

Ministers new in their service usually want a clear empirical answer to the great secret. Ministers with some tenure in service are usually about to intuit the answer to the great secret. The great secret is not about sex, politics or theology. The great secret is about………money. In most situations it is a strongly held belief and practice that the minister should not know how much any individual or family gives to the church. Some ministers declare, “I don’t want to know.” My question is, “Why not?”

After some years serving a congregation a minister will know some of the most intimate and embarrassing details of the lives of members of the congregation. Marital problems, problems with children, addictions, failures in business, faith crises, foreclosures, sexual dysfunctions are all things a minister eventually comes to know. Yet, the one big secret of who gives how much is stringently guard, lest “the preacher should know.”

As a pastor, we are to help people grow in faith and to live more faithfully. There is no part of our being and doing which is separated from our faith. It is said when Constantine had his soldiers baptized they were to hold their right arm and their sword up out of the water so they would be free to kill in battle. It seems today that we hold our wallet out of the water so we are free from applying our faith to it. If helping people grow in faith and to live more faithfully is our task doesn’t that include their giving?

Which of us would go to the doctor for our annual physical and tell the doctor, “You can prod and probe even the most intimate parts of my body, but you can’t know my blood pressure?” For a physician, knowing a patient’s blood pressure is not the only data they need, but it is critical data in determining our physical health. Knowing a congregants level of financial support of the church is not the only data a pastor needs, but it is critical data in assessing spiritual health.

What was it Jesus said, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also?” (Mt 6.21 NRSV) Ministers, will not break the seal of the great secret, but why is it so important to keep the secret?