{"id":6163,"date":"2014-05-27T21:42:37","date_gmt":"2014-05-28T02:42:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thepropheticyears.com\/wordpress\/?p=6163"},"modified":"2014-06-05T13:38:44","modified_gmt":"2014-06-05T18:38:44","slug":"internet-ministries-dont-get-no-respect-from-local-churches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thepropheticyears.com\/wordpress\/internet-ministries-dont-get-no-respect-from-local-churches.html","title":{"rendered":"Internet ministries don’t get no respect from local churches"},"content":{"rendered":"

The late great comedian Rodney Dangerfield used to set up his brilliant self-<\/span>deprecation<\/span><\/span><\/span> comedy routine with the line I tell ya, “I don’t get no respect”.<\/strong> Dangerfield actually did get a lot of respect from those that appreciated his humor. I suppose independent Christian ministries that write articles on the Internet are respected by some of their readers but generally few get any respect from their local church congregations.<\/p>\n

Think about it, people like me often sit in front of computers 250 to 350 hours a month keeping our websites and Blogs going but we don’t get no respect. In fact, we often get just the opposite from Christian pastors or other Christian leaders that think that what we do is not filling some slot in their local pegboard.<\/p>\n

Some church leaders suggest that instead of reaching thousands on the Internet each day we should be focusing on the needs of the local congregation by taking part in all of their programs. You get their subtle message when they continually ask you what you do all day with your time? Even though you have told them endless times that you have a full time Internet ministry, and even described the ministry, they are not hearing anything said because what we are doing is not part of their “God-given” local agenda.<\/p>\n

The full-time job of keeping informed each day and doing the website administration, writing the articles, the daily emails, the comments, etc., is just a hobby in their eyes. It does not qualify as a real ministry like God called them to.<\/p>\n

If you write over twelve hundred original articles that average 1800 words each, that is about equivalent to writing 20 books but I tell ya, we still don’t get no respect. In 15 years I probably have answered over 10,000 emails and comments but what credit do I get from anyone for doing that? I have to spend four hours a day keeping up with current issues by reading news articles or listening to Christian speakers but they seem to think I am doing nothing useful by staying informed.<\/p>\n

Then if we dare tell Christian leaders that our websites get a lot of downloads, these people see dollar signs as if we are doing this to make money rather than as a Christian ministry. What a laugh. Perhaps a few do actually make money with Christian Internet ministries but few are getting paid anywhere near what a local full-time pastor makes, not to mention they get no benefits.<\/p>\n

Even if you are going to sell stuff through advertisement you need to hire staff to take care of that end, so the money goes out about as fast as it comes in. And of course people actually think that a lot of people send in donations. Sure they do, just like you get them to give money on top of a real tithe! Maybe some actually do send donations to some sites but I am sure most Christian web ministers do not have to stay up nights counting all of their cash.<\/p>\n

Then there are sites like mine that don’t advertise or take donations at all but I tell ya, they still don’t get no respect. Good web hosting and all the things you need to keep a website going is far from free. Maybe the local churches should be supporting Internet ministries as a missionary effort but we do not even burden them with that. Not that they would even think that our Internet ministry actually qualifies as a missionary effort.<\/p>\n

I have been a member or a regular long term attendee of about 8 churches in the last fifteen years. Only one pastor even mentioned from the pulpit that I had an Internet ministry that people in the congregation might want to visit. And it’s not that most of the other pastors were not aware of it.<\/p>\n

Few have any idea what it takes to keep fairly popular websites goings. For example, about 20 percent of my time is just routine administration work to keep the data safe and the website up 24\/7. One screw-up or hack attack and all the visitors would only be reading error messages or blank screens.<\/p>\n

I have 40 plug-in software’s to keep the WordPress part of the website running and secure. I also do daily backups and cloud backups for the whole site. I also have to back up the data on my computer quite often because computer crashes in the past have caused me scores of hours of work that is much like recreating the wheel.<\/p>\n

Websites are hit by hackers all the time, and the spam is horrendous. Every minute of the day there are bots hitting this website. You have to monitor who or what is hitting your site or you may pay the price. Some of these bad guys can take down your site or put malicious code on your site if you do nothing to block them. However, if you put up too much security some people might not be able to even access the website or make comments on your Blog.<\/p>\n

Us webmasters don’t get no respect. Ever wonder why some promising Christian sites just soon disappear? They probably did not spend enough time learning the webmaster administrative end. Show me a site that is not attacked and I will show you a site that nobody visits.<\/p>\n

I tell ya, I don’t get no respect from local Christian leaders or most friends even though I spent 25 years acquiring the knowledge to even have an Internet ministry. I have been doing this full-time free Internet ministry for 15 years now instead of getting paid to work elsewhere. At my pay-grade that is about a million bucks that I could have earned or about $500 after taxes.<\/p>\n

Talk about getting no respect. Most of my own friends and relatives do not even read the articles that I write even though a couple of them pretend that they do (I know the difference). The local church leaders that I talked to generally have the attitude that I am having a great time wasting my<\/span> time, instead of doing something useful in the church like waxing the pews. They tell me that they will visit the website but those that actually have over the last 15 years probably can be counted on two hands and one toe.<\/p>\n

Of course, I write things that most pastors would rather not read because I deal with reality and issues in the world and the church that they might not want to know. I believe the Bible has the answers when taken in correct context. I am not into traditions of men, the latest fads, or what the gurus of the denomination or the TV preachers are pushing this month. I also am not much into pastors that take one verse of the Bible and then build some elaborate story or fabrication that has nothing to do with the verse that was first quoted.<\/p>\n

Frankly, I know more about the Bible and world and church issues than any pastor within fifty miles. That is not an egotistical statement even if it is, because it is also a matter of fact. And it’s not because I am so intelligent. It is because I study more than they do and I continually deal with the issues in a full-time ministry. Most local pastors around here are part-time and work a secular job. There is no way that they can keep up with the issues that I deal with.<\/p>\n

And full-time pastors have too many side issues that they have to handle to actually have the time to get deep into the issues that I deal with frequently. So you might even think that some local pastors would confide in me about certain issues that I write about. However, that won’t happen because they do not even take the time to read what I write.<\/p>\n

If someone in the congregational reads something that I wrote that they disagree with, it might end up on the pastor’s desk (that has happened) but they will never talk to me about it because getting into these issues might rock their go-along-to-get-along boat.<\/p>\n

Even part-time pastors continually put on the airs as if they were the most knowledgeable person in any room because they were given the title “pastor”. I have seen this pastor syndrome in huge churches but I also see the same syndrome in very tiny fellowships. Put a pastor sign around their neck and they think that they are Peter, Paul and Mary – and man can they sing a song.<\/strong><\/p>\n

People wonder why their pastors do not have a clue about the evils in our country and in our church institutions? I can tell you why. You have pastors that have confused worldviews themselves, teaching Christians on the same passages they already heard dozens of times over, rather than equipping Christians with a Christian worldview so they can live and deal with this post Christendom secular nation.<\/p>\n

Yeah, I already know, no respect goes with the job. We who do Internet ministries will not get many pats on the back by local pastors. Even so, you better give me a little respect when you’re talking to me about biblical issues or I will start showing up on your game nights with Bible Trivia<\/span>.<\/span><\/span> I might not get respect for doing what I do on the Internet but you soon will not be able to deny that I know more about what is in the Bible than your local brain-trust.<\/p>\n

After all, I earned an Honorary PhD in Theology and another one in Website Administration from my University of Self-Importance, not to mention I have earned a master of arts degree by slicing through all the baloney that has come my way for decades. And they can keep the Pulitzer prize that I should have received for distinguished commentary.<\/p>\n

I tell ya, I don’t even get no respect from certain other teachers on the Internet. Some will not link to this website and a few even took down their “reciprocal” link to this website because I said I did not agree with everything that they teach. I have no control over what you people teach, so why take it out on me? Stick with what the Bible teaches and I won’t have to warn others about eating the baloney. There is nothing worse than baloney sealed with thin-skinned Internet rappers.<\/p>\n

I do not write to gain respect and that is why I don’t get none. I just call it the way I see it. If you’re going to buy into special revelation, twisted scriptures, and date setting you’re going down the wrong road. You really ought to thank those that help you out with a logical dose of biblical reality rather than taking it personal and getting all emotional about it.<\/p>\n

I think leaders in local churches need to realize that there is more going on in Christian ministry than what takes place in their local congregations. What they say and do might reach scores or even hundreds and their preaching might even get past the choir once in a while, but there are some ministries on the internet that are reaching hundreds of thousands of people (or robots) each month (including this one). I tell ya, you don’t give those ministries no respect. The great commission is for believers to go out into the whole world and preach the gospel to every creature. Internet ministries are uniquely reaching the whole world. They are reaching the lost, they are equipping the saints, and they are preaching to robots and NSA analysts to boot. So you might give them some due respect.<\/p>\n

Maybe we who do this Internet ministry full-time, do not have the time to attend all your local church functions because maybe God called us to do something more productive than attend local social gatherings. At least you might entertain that possibility, because I know that some in the Internet ministry like me are getting a Rodney Dangerfield complex.<\/p>\n

I almost did not post this because I brought up the subject of what I was writing about to my wife but she told me not to finish writing it because I would sound like I was whining and being egotistical. She is correct of course, it might sound that way, but she knows what I do, but she does not read my articles either (unless I ask her to). I think what I am saying has merit that has nothing to do with my ego for those that actually read what I write. If readers take it the way she thinks and I don’t get no respect, I will have to live with that.<\/p>\n

More importantly, I also know that if I did not finish and post this, I would have to come up with something else to write about and that thought did not make my day. So, in the end, I very conveniently came to the conclusion that my wife is wrong. I think readers should know that I don’t get no respect from the local church leadership because if I get totally fed up and quit this Internet ministry, it is you readers that will no longer be entertained by my “egotistical whining”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The late great comedian Rodney Dangerfield used to set up his brilliant self-deprecation comedy routine with the line I tell ya, “I don’t get no respect”. Dangerfield actually did get a lot of respect from those that appreciated his humor. I suppose independent Christian ministries that write articles on the Internet are respected by some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,45],"tags":[53,167,317,150],"class_list":["post-6163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible-prophecy-teachers","category-the-church","tag-bible-prophecy","tag-food-for-thought","tag-perspectives","tag-teaching"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pawsE-1Bp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepropheticyears.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepropheticyears.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepropheticyears.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepropheticyears.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepropheticyears.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepropheticyears.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6163\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepropheticyears.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepropheticyears.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepropheticyears.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}