Working in a Church.

There is a tipping point in the busyness of church life, where congregations feel they need to start employing a paid staff. When the volume of mail gets too much, or when the extra enterprises associated with the congregation require more than can be handled by a volunteer a few hours a week, then you will seee anadvert for someone to help around the office.

I know a few people who work in congregations.  One has been working in a church for a good few years now.  It's a busy church that has a number of rooms available for hire through the week, plus a catering service, so there's a lot on top of the standard congregational life.  Their paid hours are Monday to Friday, yet they worship with that congregation on a Sunday.  This means that, when something goes wrong, or if there's something that needs stuck in next weeks order of service, they are given a scrap of paper on Sunday morning to deal with through the week.  Yet there's someone else I know that is strict about the mon-Fri 9-5 contracted hours and goes to another congregation to worship. 

My concern for the first person is that they don't have a separation between their church and working lives.  Where do they go to for spiritual direction, when the Minister is also their boss?  Would it be more appropriate if we recruited our staff from outwith our congregations so as to be a bit more fair to our employees?  Should we be advising our employees that worshiping with us on a Sunday isn't a part of their contract, and they may wish to worship elsewhere? 

I'm not sure.  It depends on the person and the congregation.  And it's easy for me to say  here in the Central belt where there's churches all over the place.  What about the Highlands or Lowlands where you can have miles between parishes?  I've no answers, but it's something to be thinking about.