Author’s name withheld by request

I am embarrassed to be a Canadian Christian. And you probably should be, too.

A friend of mine has both pastoral and professorial experience on both sides of the Canadian-American border. He is a well-known author and you’ve likely read one of his books. A few months ago we were discussing some of our recent speaking engagements. I was impressed at how my friend accepts all sorts of speaking engagements without any regard for remuneration. I began to think he was especially spiritual, and even other-worldly, when he startled me with the following observation:

“Americans look after you,” he said. “With Canadians, I just assume I’ll get shafted.”

We Canadians love to define ourselves in contrast to our American neighbours. They are extravagant; we are modest. They are aggressive; we are sedate. They throw money around; we—well, we what?

Another friend of mine is a gifted staff worker with a well-known Christian organization on a Canadian university campus. He is married, with three young children, and works hard and long at his job. Frequently he is asked to speak at churches’ youth retreats or special events sponsored by other groups. Rarely is he paid well for what is in fact overtime work.

One weekend, he had left his family to speak at a retreat for more than 100 young people, each of whom had paid to go away to a well-furnished camp for three days. My friend gave four talks and participated in a question-and-answer session — a typical, and demanding, schedule.

But his work didn’t end there, of course. Retreat speakers are “on call” all weekend: for impromptu counseling, offering advice over mealtimes, and modeling what they preach on the volleyball court or around the campfire. There is very little relaxing in that role, however restful the retreat might be for everyone else.

So at the end of this tiring weekend, at the close of the Sunday luncheon, the leader of the group thanked him profusely at the front of the dining hall (he had gone over very well). Then he tossed the speaker a T-shirt emblazoned with the group’s logo while everyone clapped. It took my friend several minutes to realize that this shirt was his total payment for the weekend’s work. He got in his car, without even a cheque for gasoline, and headed back to his waiting family.

An isolated and extreme example? Not at all. Every professional Christian speaker has stories like these.

A widely-respected author was asked to headline a fundraising banquet for a women’s organization. She prepared a talk on the subject requested, left her husband and children at home, drove herself in the family car across the city to the site of the meal, chatted with her table-mates, and then delivered her speech. Again, it was apparent from the applause and the warm remarks that greeted her when she took her seat that she had done her job well.

The evening ended, and the speaker was saying her goodbyes. The convenor then appeared in a gush of appreciation. “Your talk was just excellent,” she said. “Exactly what we wanted. Thank you so much for coming!” Then, by way of payment, she grandly swept her arm over the room and said, “Just help yourself to one of the table centre-pieces.”

What’s really involved

We Canadian Christians have two problems in this regard. One might be remedied by an article such as this one. The other can be fixed only by the Holy Spirit.

The first problem is that most people who invite speakers are not themselves professional speakers and so honestly don’t know how much is involved in doing this work well. Let’s price it out straightforwardly.

A speaker first has to receive the invitation, work with the inviter to clarify and agree upon terms (usually this takes correspondence back and forth), and confirm the date. Then the speaker has to prepare the talk. Sometimes a speaker can pull a prepared text out of a file, but usually at least some fresh preparation is necessary to fit the talk to this particular group and its context. (And let’s remember that the speaker at some time did indeed have to prepare this talk from scratch, so the inviting group does have a share in the responsibility for that preparation since they will be benefiting from it.) The speaker concludes her preparation by printing out her notes, perhaps along with a photocopied outline, or overhead slides, or PowerPoint presentation for the benefit of the group.

Next, the speaker must make her travel arrangements and then actually travel. Most of this time is not productive: airports and airplanes are not designed to aid serious work (unless the inviting group springs for first-class seats and airport lounges — an uncommon practice), and driving one’s car is almost entirely useless as preparation time.

The speaker arrives, and then has to wait for her particular slot. This time might be spent more or less pleasantly, depending on the situation, but it’s hardly what the speaker would be doing if she had her first choice of options at home. All of this time she is spending is work time. She finally gives her presentation, waits for everything to conclude, and returns home. If she is out of town, normally she will have to spend at least one night in a hotel room, probably sleeping badly in a strange bed and, again, spending time to-ing and fro-ing that is almost always unproductive.

Count up all those hours. Not just the 40 minutes she actually spoke at the banquet, or the four hours she was actually in front of the microphone during a weekend conference, but the many, many hours spent in the service of the inviting group from start to finish. Divide those hours into the honorarium, assuming her costs are covered (!), and you have the true wage the group paid her.

One speaker I know was asked to speak at a weekend conference involving three plenary talks plus a couple of panel sessions. She would have to travel to another province and leave her family behind. The honorarium she was offered? Expenses plus $300. Her husband heard of it and replied with a rueful smile, “I’ll pay you three hundred bucks to stay home with us.”

What can we afford?

Here’s yet another way to look at it. What can groups actually pay?

I know a speaker who was asked to give the four major speeches at the annual meeting of a national Christian organization. He was also asked to come two days earlier than the staff meeting in order to address the national board twice. In return, he was offered travel expenses and accommodation for himself and his wife at the group’s posh conference centre — of which they were extremely proud.

So the speaker asked for an honorarium of $2,000, for the five days he would be away plus all the time he would spend in preparation for this large responsibility. The group’s president immediately withdrew the invitation, saying he was charging too much.

Now, let’s think about this. Two thousand bucks sounds like a lot of cash.

Transportation to this facility entailed the speaker and his wife driving their car partway, then taking a ferry, and then perhaps a float plane. This group clearly had no trouble covering considerable traveling expenses. The group also was covering expenses for two dozen board members and well over a hundred staff. The conference centre was advertised in its glossy brochures as deluxe, and it looked that way in the photos.

So what would be the total budget for a weekend like this? Figure on, conservatively, 150 people with travelling expenses of an average of $600 each (allowing for airfare across the country for most) plus accommodation expenses of at least $200 each for the long weekend. This comes out to a total budget of at least $120,000. Let’s assume that the group would offer the speaker some sort of honorarium — surely at least $500. This means that on a total budget of $120,500, this group would disinvite its speaker because of a difference of $1,500 — slightly more than one percent of its conference budget. Is this good stewardship by a Christian nonprofit corporation? Or is it something else?

Pulpit supply

One wonders about the “something else” when one looks closer to home and examines the typical honoraria given to preachers who fill pulpits across Canada when pastors are on vacation. Most churches now pay at least $100, although I know of many, including both mainline and smaller evangelical congregations, who still pay less.

Let us ask ourselves, before God, how we can justify paying a guest preacher a mere hundred bucks. He has to get clear on his various duties from the person who invites him. He has to prepare the sermon. He has to travel to our church and take his place with the other worship leaders. He has to preach the sermon, and greet people afterwards. Then he has to drive home.

Time it out, and it’s likely 10 hours or more that he has invested in our church. We offer him $100, and that works out to 10 bucks an hour at best. He has to pay the taxes on that, of course, so now he’s taking home perhaps $60 or $70. Is that what we think our preachers are worth?

Let’s look at it yet another way. The average Canadian congregation is small, so let’s suppose that 150 people are to hear that sermon. By offering the preacher even $150 (which is more than most churches pay), we’re saying that his sermon is worth just one loonie for each person who hears it.

It would be well worthwhile for those who would invite speakers to their events to do this simple bit of division: Take the proposed honorarium and divide it by the number of talks, then divide it again by the number of people in the audience. The result is the price per talk per person. So is the talk you want your speaker to give worth more than, say, a scoop of ice cream or a chocolate bar? That’s the maximum most Christian groups in Canada are currently willing to pay.

Secular work vs. spiritual work?

One more angle. Many Christian speakers have expertise that is in demand from secular agencies as well. Invariably those agencies pay better, usually a lot better. A Christian psychologist I know has told me that he is paid at least $1,000 per full day of consulting with government agencies. He counts himself blessed if he is offered even half that much by a Christian group.

Flip it around, and we observe that even we cheap Canadian Christians routinely pay high wages to our physicians, lawyers, plumbers, airline pilots, and other skilled people whose work we want done for us in an excellent fashion. Why don’t we pay Christian speakers accordingly?

Some of us even self-righteously think that we shouldn’t pay such people at all because they’re doing “Christian” work or “spiritual” work and therefore shouldn’t charge for it.

The notion, however, that spiritual, or theological, or other “Christian” expertise should not be paid for is utterly foreign to the Bible. From the Old Testament requirements that generous provision be made for the priests to Paul’s commands in the New Testament that pastoral workers are worthy of their wages and should be paid such (I Corinthians 9), the Bible believes that people in such occupations are worthy of both esteem and financial support.

Indeed, we show our esteem precisely in the financial support we give them. We think our physical health matters, so we pay good money for good physicians. How much does our spiritual health matter?

Thus we encounter the second problem, the one only the Holy Spirit of God can address. It might be that we pay Christian speakers badly because we were unaware of all that is involved in preparing and delivering an excellent speech. Now that we know better, we should pay better.

But the second problem of simply undervaluing such Christian service — that’s something in our hearts, not our heads. And the Bible is plain: We undervalue our spiritual teachers at the peril of undervaluing the divine truth they bring us. God frowns on such parsimony.

Indeed, God has threatened one day to mete out to each of us our appropriate wages for such behaviour. And those wages will make even a T-shirt or a table centre-piece look pretty good.