Sunday, May 06, 2007

May Day and Living Wages

On Tuesday evening I attended a march and rally for International Worker's Day. A lot of people from unions, political parties, labour organizations, and workers themsevles were there. Some of the issues concern fair pay, health benefits, and a safe workplace. These are the reasons why unions were started in the first place.

Just because we are Believers doesn't mean we have to let others take advantage of our nature. We are as entitled to a decent living wage, benefits, and reasonable hours, as anyone else. Unfortunately, a place where workers are often taken advantage of is within Christian businesses and organizations. The message is that one's work is also a ministry, and therefore it has to be sacrificial.

As Believers, our entire lives should be ministries. We also have to make a living. We don't need a guilt trip that because we're working for the L-rd, that we should not be comfortable financially.

I worked for five years for a prominent ministry. During that time I accepted pay that was much lower than what I would expect for the same kind of work elsewhere, and on top of that I found the atmosphere to be of much higher pressure due to extremely tight deadlines and micromanagement. The experience helped me realize that our time is worth something and that we can be more effective in our ministries when our basic needs are being met.

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