Pastor

I would love to come and serve you as a pastor. There are some rules and regulations I need to follow, so please read the information below.

I am often asked to perform pastoral services and of course the second question is always what do I charge. The answer is: I am not allowed to charge anything. But let me explain a bit more.

If you are a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland you pay taxes to the church (corporation tax), or more precisely your local congregation. The taxes are used by the congregation to maintain churches and graveyards, employ pastors and others and a lot more. This means that when you need the services of a congregation you don't pay any fees, because you've already paid your taxes - you've already paid your congregation to perform the service. Therefore, pastors aren't allowed to ask for any additional fees, even if they're performing a service in another congregation than they're employed by. Even I, who aren't in the employ of any congregation, can't charge anything. I can only ask you to cover the travel expenses.

However, you can ask the congregation you are a member of to pay me. When a pastor comes to perform a service in another "area", the congregation can pay for that service. Before you ask me to perform a pastoral service I would therefore appriciate if you first checked with your local congregation if they pay pastors "from outside".

There is a lot more I could explain about this and if you wish me to take care of the music as well, while "pastoring", there are some more to think about. But please contact me and I'll explain better how I can serve you and your situation.