This was a really interesting article. I totally agree with matt about creatives needing to be payed. I know that my church pays a creative director, but i think that the church as a whole, and the diocese needs to put more emphasis on this.

I agree that the labourer is worthy of his hire and that we should be ready to pay people for their creative work.

But I greatly appreciate those who generously donate their work.

And i think there is something odd about some of the copyright restrictions that hamper Christian work.

I don’t know what the situatino is today [I bet it isn't any better, though] but in my previous church we were not allowed to take a recording of the music from our church service to an elderly shut-in, as it would be breaching copyright for Mrs McGillicuddy to have a daggy recording of our daggy singing of a copyright song.

How absolutely stupid that is!

Absolutely agree that the workman is worthy of his hire! To ask someone to do a high standard, creative design without pay means they have to do it in their spare time, hence their primary focus has to be elsewhere, namely their job.

To pay them frees them up to concentrate & let the creativity flow in a way that they may not otherwise have.
Since the mission i work with took a designer onto the payroll the designs have got better & better for the Gospels, tracts & leaflets we print – (oh and the literature is all shipped out free).

I have mixed feelings about the issue.

I am a web developer during my working day (full time paid) and also do a bit of freelance work in my spare time. I also volunteer my spare time to work on the church website.

When I have freelance work on and also have church stuff to do, the freelance stuff wins – because people are paying me to meet a deadline.

I want to do a good job in both cases, but there is only so much time to give.

I do think your average church probably struggles to pay for the staff they have already (if they have staff), and other areas of church work should surely take priority over creative output.

As a graphic design artist who has spent the last year working as a full-time volunteer to a non-profit ministry doing graphic, design, layout, and web work, I can see both sides of this issue. This particular ministry could not afford to hire even the cheapest of creative design artists for the majority of the work that needs done. I, on the other hand, cannot afford to stay for a second year because of my own college expenses. Were it possible for me to get a second job and continue volunteering my skills to this ministry, I would do so in a heart beat. For them to pay me would be nice…but unnecessary…for my work is done for the glory of God alone. I find the very fact that I must work for some compensation this next year in order to pay for living expenses inconvenient. Ah well. Such is life.

I too am torn on this and have thought about this before b/c I have friends who are on staff for this. I am torn b/c there are so many people who put a lot of work into volunteering that advance the gospel and the church as well. How do we differentiate between who is paid and who is not. Is the guy who helps lead worship every week or the girl that leads 2-3 small groups not worthy of their wages?
I’m not saying at all that volunteers should be paid or that designers shouldn’t, just asking the question. One thing I am not sure about though is having your design guys be the best paid on staff. That might be too much. Good article though. Keep it up.

David McKay – If your church has a CCLI license, I believe you can give a copy of the recording to your shut-in, so long as it’s CCLI licensed/public domain songs. You can do that for up to 10% of the people your church licenses for.

At least that’s the deal I saw on the CCLI website a couple of months ago.

What about the doctors and the crews that go on medical missions for free? They actually pay to go.
What about missionaries who work for free or have to raise their own incomes?
Nursery workers provide a huge service. They typically work for free. Without a nursery, few people would even visit a new church.
I have been in churches where they want a crew to volunteer to clean.
Despite those questions, I do think creatives should be paid. If your church has a structure that is a corporate and business model, pay as you would in any corporation or business.
At Cornerstone Simi Valley, the pastor Francis Chan works for free. His royalties for his book belong to a ministry. He can’t touch it for his family or even for a burger.
Yes, pay your workers and quit milking everyone for free labor. If they want to give it as a gift now and then, allow them, don’t expect it.

Does anyone else wonder why churches are run like businesses but are tax exempt and only do ‘business’ for one day or two days a week – and for maybe 5 – 10 hours on that day? Their budgets are like any other corporation and so is the structure of the corporation, yet they only have a one day output for the product.
Their main workforce works for free, has to bring in the income from their own jobs and has to pay to be part of the business. And none of the workers have a say in this structure even though they are the share holders.
Churches today want the advantages and benefits of being a corporation yet also want the benefits of being a ministry and tax exempt endeavor. How can the Body be the Body when it is trying to be Rome?

I think creative workers are no different from any other workers. Every member should be willing to give some of his/her expertise and time to the church for free. The church should be willing to pay anyone who gives full-time to the church. That applies to graphic artists and construction workers, preachers and writers, hospital visitors and nursery workers. The difficulty comes when someone is giving a major amount of time but less than full-time. Those decisions must be made on a case-by-case basis. Meanwhile, even those who work full-time for the church should give some of their time for free.

This can be a difficult subject. As a church grows, it tends to pay more and more of its workers. In a small church, the person who coordinates children’s ministry is typically a volunteer. In a large church, there are too many workers and children and too much curriculum to manage to ask a volunteer. Instead, they pay a person part or even full time to manage the ministry. The same is true for things creative. Small churches often rely less on the creative element and can either ask for free help or purchase prepackaged graphics, etc. As the church grows, there is clearly justification to pay a staff member to handle these items.

I think this is a great question, and worth discussing.

Here are my two cents:

I do website design and some amateur photography. These have mostly just been hobbies so far, but for a good year I have been looking for ways to make some extra money through them — especially because I can crank out a website way cheaper than the average ‘pro’ will do it.

As I started looking around, I found myself with a handful of folks (mostly ministry folks) asking me to do stuff for them for free, but nobody really interested in paying me. So I chose to do a lot of the free work, and I believe that God has honored those choices by using those jobs to lead to other, paid jobs.

So, I guess my point is, if you obey the Holy Spirit, you can’t wrong!

I am a web developer that specializes in websites for churches. I have managed the creative dept. of a megachurch and am now leading my home church volunteers toward some very challenging creative goals. I have managed some extremely creative people, both for-free volunteers and paid staff. I do not throw in my $0.02 lightly.

To all churches with creative goals, I give this advice.

1. You get what you pay for.
2. If you can’t afford to hire a professional to do excellent work in a short amount of time / trouble…. don’t do it.
3. Keep your pastoral staff far away from doing the creative work themselves. The amount of time designing is stolen from Bible study, meeting real-world people needs and basic ministry.
4. Enforce #3 to the death.

Sadly, churches have rightfully gained the reputation for doing bad design, having bad websites, ripping off artwork, ignoring copyright law, and all in the name of Jesus.

We can do better.

Here are a few ideas to raise the quality of your churches creative media.

Call 4 or 5 local churches and band together to pay a local graphic design artist to put out quality work for everyone at competitive rates.

Go burn your copy of publisher immediately. Uninstall / delete any illegal or pirated software, media, mp3 songs, images, etc. If you think this is a presumptuous statement – you haven’t served in the local church as an I.T. guy.

Keep it SIMPLE. Get a Mac, buy iWork and use the included templates.

Pay for quality stock photography and use a single high resolution image with a simple text overlaid for 90% of your graphical work.

Stop trying to keep up with the churches and pastors you read about in Relevant magazine or online.

Trying to be someone you are not will smell like liar to non-christians. You don’t want visitors walking into your church for the first time after seeing your website and being shocked at the contrast between what you have online and who you are in person.

Sincerely,
Brook Drumm

I believe in volunteers, they are the backbone in many ministries. They have a vital role to play in the church.

But only for volunteer positions.

The bible is clear, pay a worker for his work. If a person works as a XYZ and you need XYZ for the church, hire that person. If you need someone to do 123 then maybe XYZ can volunteer for that.

I don’t think we should be handing out design work for free right now. The power of design, the value of creativity is not appreciated like it should be within the church. Pastors don’t value what we bring. When they get something for nothing it is only human nature to not value it.

The “but they don’t have the budget” doesn’t really, for the most part, carry much weight to me. The truth is they have a budget, they just don’t want to allocate it to to design because they don’t give it value. I’ve seen the church that wants it for free because of “budget reasons” and then plants $2000 worth of flowers to make the church beautiful.

There are exceptions, we do pro bono work for some churches and ministries, and our rates do flex based on size, and budgets, but as a rule until churches and pastors begin to value design I think giving it all away only hurts creativity’s position and cements the devaluing of all of our work.

I am a marketer and product manager -not the same as a graphic designer, but creative to some degree with respect to managing communications and just organising the promotional activities at church, so I think my experience is relevant to this discussion.
I have set up my working life to offer my services to my own church as a volunteer 1 day a week, have 1 day for home management, and 3 days to earn an income which in part funds my volunteering. As a principle I never charge my own church – my time and expertise are part of my offering to God’s work where I am spiritually fed each week. The money isn’t the primary thing – but you need to be able to pay your bills. I want to charge outside my church, but agree with other contributors that in some cases there is an expectation that I will work for free just because I am a Christian and the job is part of God’s work. However I have noticed a new trend emerging as I speak to ministers and managers in Christian media organisations – I believe the value of communications professionals is now being more valued and offers of payment are now more frequent. May I say that the offer of even small payment is a great encouragement to me as it is also an acknowledgement that my gifts are possibly how God will provide for a project need. I do agree that budgets always reflect the priorities of the team approving them. Perhaps by volunteering for a limited time outside our own church we can demonstrate the value of our skills in the church context, and negotiate future payments. We should also not assume God only provides cheap or low cost options in his answers to our prayers to meet creative needs at church.

I’ve done ministry work for a well known Christian ministry. The pay, which I never asked for, was really rather nominal for the incredible number of hours involved. I’m glad I could help, but it was only because other people were willing to supply me while I supplied my services. They need to think this through.

I always try and do over and above what I am asked. I find it rather sad that God’s servants are usually treated under and below what anyone else would receive for the same labor.

I think if they volunteer they should not be paid (expenses being a different story). However if it they are employs of the church they already get paid and should have a monitored expense account.

A businessman I knew many years ago tried to avoid employing Christians, because knowing he was a Christian, they though they should get special treatment, and should not have to a day’s work for a day’s pay.

Sad, isn’t it?

And i would add, if someone is willing to work for free don’t waste their time. It is so frustrating when you have a busy life but are setting aside time to work for free to have people make you spend even more time because they give unclear instructions, don’t answer emails you send them asking for clarification and don’t tell you about things they wanted included until the project is almost done. I really am happy to help, but sometimes the unnecessary inconvenience drives me up the wall.

If a church has an interest in developing their website and progessing the ministry through the arts, they should be willing to hire the qualified professionals who can accomplish what needs to be done. Any professional who chooses to turn this paycheck back to the ministry should feel free to do so. I think we cheapen the value of artists and creative people in our society by implying that their efforts should be unpaid. If God is behind the ministry, and the church agrees with the mission; how could anyone believe the supply would not be there as well?

[...] 19, 2009 in Church, General | Tags: Church, life, work CommunicateJesus.com ran a brief interviewed Matt Busby Andrews about whether or not creative talent should be paid for [...]

When you work for free, you tell the client that you are worth nothing…. $0… nada. And they tend to treat you that way. There is nothing nothing to risk and no penalty for missing a deadline, not returning a call, changing their mind , etc.

Pastor’s don’t work for free. Many don’t have bosses or people to reports to. Almost none have to account for how they spend their day and many lack time management skills. How many pastors are still preparing their sermon on Saturday night? It is a completely different culture. How do I know? I was a pastor for 12 years, my dad was a pastor, all my friends are pastors.

I think many creative professionals have no idea what they are getting into when they first offer to help for free. Sometimes is works out great – other times it blows up.

I say your price is your price. Find out the Scope of the work, get a hard deadline, bid the job and they can decide if they value the work enough. If they don’t – DON’T do the work.

Another approach I have used is donate a small block of time each week…. say 1-2 hours. Let one pastor manage the priorities and push all other work to the next week once you spend the time. I do this in addition to being paid for bigger jobs the church needs.

I too have donated many hours, and yes – have gotten other jobs because of it. SO I do think God can bless you for it. Bt guard your heart. You know if you are letting a seed of bitterness in — be quick to change the configuration to both protect you and them if it goes south and you are being taken advantage of.

I do think we creatives can offer great deals to our churches, even occasionally work for free… but the idea that we SHOULD work for free is ridiculous. I think the responsibility is on US to educate churches about what this costs in the real world, best practices, and that a worker is worthy of his pay.

Interested in pastor-turned-web-developer’s post, whosays that pastors don’t work for free and that working for free tells people your work is worth nothing.

Two prominent leaders in the Christian church, Jesus Christ and the Apostle Paul, worked for free and many of their followers have also done so.

Throughout the world there are many pastors who work voluntarily, and all churches have members who work voluntarily. Is their work worth nothing?

I wokr in various capacities voluntarily for my church and also as a U3A presenter. I put in every bit as much hard labour into these jobs as I do into my paid job.

Both of my voluntary jobs cost me a considerable amount of money, not only in foregone wages, but also in money I put in in the course of my voluntary work.

Having said all of this, I hasten to add that I am not against churches paying those who work for them, but am pointing out that a lot of valuable work is done for nothing in every church I can think of.

It is demeaning to say that only the paid work has value.

David makes the point: Jesus and Paul worked for free…. many people volunteer and that is invaluable.

The difference is this. They were NOT ASKED to work for free. They were led to GIFT the work.

So I say:

To those led to give away services… May God bless and keep you.

To those seeking to help churches creatively at a reduced rate… God bless you too.

To churches needing creative work – Enter the conversation EXPECTING to pay… the artist may surprise you.

To churches EXPECTING to get free work – SHAME ON YOU. That is a horrible witness.

Actually I don’t know if saying that Paul “worked for free” is the most accurate description. He was taken care of very well by the churches he served. The scripture referring to how well the church should take care of Paul is often quoted in the church whenever there is a guest speaker, etc. The same scripture that should, but often isn’t, applied to the creative.

So maybe we should add

To those seeking to help churches creatively, may God bless you by raising generous churches willing to pay your full, normal, rate.

This thought piece has been published by Steve here at his own site, and at sydneyanglicans.net and it is interesting how different the responses are.

The difference is in the readership. On communicatejesus there are a lot of readers who actually do communicate Jesus, and sydneyanglicans has a few more, well, commentators. The result is, the people who are actually in the business of communicating Jesus expect to be taken seriously. Often that includes money, though sometimes not.

Commentators, who aren’t in the business of using media to communicate Christ quite so much, well, they just can’t see why we can’t do it for free like the flower arrangers and the the pamphlet hand-er-out-ers do.

A great discussion. I’ve learnt a lot.

I find it interesting that nobody has offered any reason why creative workers should be treated differently from other workers. What if instead of “Christian creatives” the question were asked about “Christian janitors” or “Christian cooks” or “Christian teachers” or “Christian nurses” or “Christian IT people” or “Christian drivers” or “Christian musicians” or “Christian roofers”? Would that change the response at all? SHOULD it change the response at all? I’d say that it should not…with the exception that we are specifically told to support teachers (Galatians 6:6). Good creative people may be harder to find than good janitors, but good janitors are probably even more essential to the function of the church. (I say that as one who’s better at being creative than at being a janitor, though I’ve done both.)

I see only one possible difference in creative work: The average church board member may have a better idea of how much work it is to produce a clean floor than he does of how much work it is to produce a good piece of creative work. If the creative person thinks the job is too large to do for free, or too large to do for free quickly, he or she could say, “Well, let me think about that, since it may take me dozens (or hundreds) of hours.” He or she could then think, pray, and say yes or no or later…just as if he or she were asked to teach a class or to join a janitorial rotation. Meanwhile, in everything, we creative people need to guard against pride. Do I deserve more honor or more money just because I’m creative? Absolutely not. Any ability I have is by the grace of God, for his glory.

[...] Communicate Jesus: Should Christian Creatives Work for Free? [...]

The Bible says we are to use our gifts (creative, administrative, teaching, etal) to edify His Body, the Church. I give my teaching gift to lead a small group study, my creative gift as a member of the choir/praise ensemble and soloist, my administrative gifts as a member of committees, my gift of ‘being able to lift heavy things’ as a member of the set construction and stage crew for special presentations, etc. I’m paid nothing here today, but have been promised a great reward one day (that’s in the book, too) and am sometimes thanked – every now and then, God gives me a glimpse of what my work is doing for His Kingdom…

What a great and worthy discussion I’ve stumbled onto here. My $0.02 is to say that payment = respect. Paying someone – be they a creative or whatever skill – as part of a one-off project or business-as-usual church running, changes the relationship between recipient and service-provider to one of shared respect.

Even paying a nominal amount formalises the relationship:

* It makes the recipient really think more about what they’re asking the service provider to do.
* It sharpens both sides’ focus on what’s required, rather than just floating along on goodwill (but not negating that goodwill).
* It makes it easier to articulate scope, boundaries, expectations and so on.
* And when (not if!) the relationship is tested, there’s a shared agreed set of expectations as reference.

Setting up mutual respect – even if a bit of cash is the catalyst – will strengthen the relationship for continued collaboration for the gospel, I think.

[...] a bunch of great posts about copyright for churches, and a post for Christian creatives to consider how they can generously give of their abilities. Steve from Communicate Jesus also points out that it’s illegal to screen YouTube videos in [...]

Ok guys…. here is my thought.

I do agree with what you said about the abourer is worthy of his hire.
BUT…… i also think that if you can do it for free… why not?!
If you think about it…. you are going to get a BETTER pay if you do it for free.
How? well….. easy answer; GOD.

He will give you so much more; he will take care of all of your needs; because you are working for His kingdom, not for the world.

I do disagree with some people that said that you can’t get professional work if you ask someone to do it for free; YOU CAN!! and you know what…. YOU WILL GET A BETTER ONE!!!

I can tell you that because i’m living it!!!
I recently started volunteer at a local church doing videos (motion graphics, editing, etc…) and you have no idea how much blessings they have been for me.

Guys…. all i can say now is that if you do something without asking for any remuneration, and if you are doing it for His kingdom and because you love using the gifts that He gave you for Him…; God will give you whatever you need.

God Bless You Guys and any comment you wish to tell me:

Write to: motion2him@gmail.com

See you!!!

I agree with the notion that the next level comes when you PAY a Christian Creative for his work.

The Mars Hill info cited above is the nail in the coffin. You show me a killer church website, I will show you a creative talent behind it that was paid for the work.

I think the difference is VISION. Someone on the staff (not always the pastor) has to have a vision for what the site, or project, can be. Often that vision cannot be fulfilled on the cheap.

What I love about Mars Hill Church is that they set the bar quite high. That vision REQUIRES professionals at the top of their game. I am not saying that a work for free is sub-par, but I am saying that a church with a consistently high bar on all their media REQUIRE paid professionals.

I think the discussion here is too broadly framed. If we narrow the context to “Can a church maintain creative excellence that is worthy of the Gospel Message using only volunteers?”

I say: Absolutely not.

The problem I see is scope. Creative excellence across audio, web, print, and, at times, motion graphics and beyond is extremely time consuming. These disciplines cover a fair amount of ground and almost no one excels at all of them. These are fields dominated by specialists. How do you do well at all of them? A team. And I submit a team needs to be led by one vision. This sounds like a paid staff to me.

In my church, I am paid part time. We also pay a designer to do most of the printed media. That frees us to volunteer for even more work. Our volunteers are precious and talented, but sustaining a high level of excellence across all areas is not realistic.

While I do believe you get what you pay for… In the church, if you pay for some key pieces, you often get more than you pay for.

Brook Drumm wrote, “If we narrow the context to “Can a church maintain creative excellence that is worthy of the Gospel Message using only volunteers?” I say: Absolutely not.”

Brock doesn’t understand the church. The church is not just huge megachurches, nor is it just sophisticated people. The church is also a group of 10 or 15 people meeting under a tree in Africa. It’s a group of 100 people meeting in a tiny town in west Texas. It’s a group of elderly people meeting in a nursing home dining room. Does each of those need a paid creative staff? Of course not. The untrained amateur who plans a song or a banner for such a group can certainly maintain creative excellence that is worthy of the Gospel, because what the Lord wants is what we can give from the heart.

If a church is huge, it makes sense to have some paid creative-communication staff, just as it makes sense to have paid accounting staff and paid janitorial staff. Through too many of the comments here is pride, the idea that “I’m offended if people don’t recognize my worth by paying me.” I’m totally against churches using manipulative guilt techniques to get people to work for free, but there are special blessings that come to those Christians who serve freely from the heart out of love.

I actually love what Jim said and I agree with him completely. Its a great perspective. If I had my wish, we would all turn down the amount of time and money spent creating beautiful graphics and what not…. and spend more time accurately teaching the Bible.

What would happen if all churches in America stripped out all media… all graphics… all projectors, websites, bulletins, posters, images, even the full bands and sound systems?? What if it was all reduced to teaching the Word and relating the good news to people? I would think some churches would die quickly. Others may grow. I do think its an interesting question.

As a guy who makes his living doing creative media – in part – for churches, I recognize that we creative types are here to SUPPORT the real work — the Great Commission.

Showing my portfolio or the body of my work to a lost soul will not save them. The Good News of Jesus found in God’s Word will.

Thanks again Jim for the good word.

Thanks, Brook, for the encouragement. As a poet and photographer and musician, I certainly believe the arts can contribute to the church. The heart of the matter is trusting Jesus and loving God and loving people. We can use our creativity toward God’s glory…whether or not we’re paid. The labor is worthy of his hire, but giving freely is a special privilege.

This post has been especially encouraging to me today. I’ve helped an organization with their website for three years as a volunteer.

Sorry… accidently submitted the previously unfinished comment….

This post has been especially encouraging to me today. I’ve helped an organization with their website for three years as a volunteer only to find out recently they’re looking at hiring an outside company to do it, now. Obviously, that stings, not because of money, but because the person that does it for a living AND has helped with it at no cost isn’t even considered.

I’ve seen it happen with various members in churches where they are expected to do it for free or they’ll just hire outsiders to do it. It certainly doesn’t encourage people to get involved on other levels or in other areas.

I agree that if a person wants to donate, they should, but churches also shouldn’t expect members to do everything for free. Essentially, what their actions say are, “We don’t care about your talents, gifts and expertise unless you are willing to donate it.”

I believe that your gifts are for God’s glory and to put food on your table. There is nothing wrong with paying creative Christians. Those who labor in the gospel shall eat of its fruit as well. However if they volunteer and they don’t want or need that assistance, that is fine.