November 14, 2005

WINDHOEK, Namibia/GENEVA – "All our life we were used to the church paying for our rent, our electricity and our water bills. Our car was church property and the church paid for the petrol. But when retirement came, we faced many changes. We had to leave the church house in which we had lived for many years. And we had to look for our own accommodation and also pay all the bills."

Lissie Diergaardt does not complain, she is just describing a situation experienced by the majority of pastors and their spouses upon retirement. Their small pensions, if they are lucky enough to receive one, usually do not even cover the basic cost of living.

Lissie and her retired husband Petrus Diergaardt, bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Republic of Namibia (ELCRN) from 1995 to 2001, have to make ends meet with NAD 500 (about EUR 63) per month. There are, of course, pastors in Namibia who manage with their small pension, Lissie points out. But if one has the additional responsibility of children, grandchildren or great grandchildren, then the situation is quite difficult.

The couple takes care of five grandchildren, whose parents are either divorced or have passed away. "You sometimes feel lonely and forgotten," Lissie told participants in the Africa Lutheran Church Leadership Conference, taking place November 9-14 in Windhoek, Namibia.

More than 80 representatives of African Lutheran member churches of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), as well as from partner churches and organizations worldwide, are attending the conference under the theme "From Isolation to Communion: For the Healing of Africa."

Church Workers Often Live Under Difficult Conditions

Rev. Dr Ambrose Moyo, executive director of the Lutheran Communion in Southern Africa (LUCSA), described how he, the son of an evangelist in Zimbabwe, (formerly Rhodesia), was sent home from school because his father was unable to pay the school fees. Sometimes, his father's bishop would help out by paying the fees from his own pocket, he said.

He spoke of how he tried to fix his shoes himself, even when already at high school, because of a continuous lack of money. But the state of his shoes had just become worse, Moyo remembered. His shoes and their gaping soles resembled, more than anything else, a fish. This led to prolonged teasing and, eventually, his nickname "Fish." Today, he and his siblings take care of their widowed mother, who receives no financial support from the church.

As a pastor in Zimbabwe, he was often confronted with similar problems, and many times did not know how to support himself and his family. Later, as a bishop, one of his most painful experiences was to witness the difficult living conditions of the church employees. He had even seen some families sleeping on the floor.

One of his first projects as bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Zimbabwe (ELCZ) therefore, with assistance from the Church of Sweden, was to create an endowment fund to sustainably secure the ELCZ's financial situation. The fund is currently being built up.

LWF General Secretary Rev. Dr Ishmael Noko called on the African church leaders to do everything in their power to secure the financial situation of Lutheran churches. To improve the living and working conditions of church workers in Africa in a sustainable way, required studying the level of sustainability in relation to the national economy, he said.

Churches Should Practice What They Preach

It takes a long time to improve the quality of working life in the church, said the General Secretary of the Union of Church Employees in Finland, Ms Ritva Rasila. But churches should do everything to practice what they preach: justice, social security, and adherence to human rights. The union, founded in 1957, is rooted in an early 1930s initiative dealing with the political and social instability, lack of social legislation, inadequate health service and living conditions of employees in Finland.

Rasila, who represents about 8,500 Finnish trade union members, stressed the advantage of collective agreements. If every employee had to negotiate conditions individually, the situation was much more difficult. Unions were specialists in the field of labor laws, and could negotiate as united and competent partners at the same level with employers.

Rev. Dr Esko Jossas, general secretary of the Union of Finnish Clergy, reported that in 1973 the council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland had accepted the current system just short of a consensus. There had only been a very low profile discussion about pastors' right to strike, he said. The church was never an island in society, he continued. Today, churches and all local parishes negotiated collective agreements with the unions representing the employees, with the understanding that unions would not make unreasonable demands. The Union of Finnish Clergy has 3,500 members, representing 90 percent of all Finnish pastors.

The Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Mission (FELM) does not see itself as a harmonious Christian communion in which everyone feels "deep togetherness with everybody else," said Lauri Haavisto, FELM Director for Finance and Administration. The FELM strives merely to be an ordinary and acceptable employer, with employer and employees respecting each other without any patronizing. "People, basically, should be responsible for themselves and for their lives, not the FELM. But it is our responsibility to keep conditions reasonable so that they can take care of themselves," Haavisto noted.

Churches have an obligation to look after the working conditions of those who, together with us, serve the Lord in the church, FELM Executive Director Rev. Dr Seppo Rissanen stressed. Decent work, he noted, was an integral part of good governance and should come naturally to the church.

Referring to 1 Corinthians 1:9, Rissanen pointed out that neither did St Paul claim that the right to preach the gospel was enough salary for the one who was preaching. Work for the church should be recognized as ordinary work. The underlying issue, before salaries can be paid, is organization of the church's economic life, so it is able to support evangelism in a sustainable way, he added.

Lutheran World Information