We got into a little chat about the Minister’s Discretionary Account in my last post, and someone asked about how to handle love offerings that come to you for special services such as weddings or memorial services.
Darlings, whatever you do, make clear decisions about fees and money and love offerings and such. Fees and gifts for services rendered vary widely from one minister to another and I must admit that in fifteen years of service, I have not found a completely consistent practice (some people need to be reminded to make a gift — some people need to be firmly and lovingly informed that AIN’T NO WAY you’re taking one dime from them) but I have settled on a fairly clear set of guidelines. I’ll share some of mine here in the grateful knowledge that other ordained pigeons will weigh in with their own best practices.
1. The Minister’s Discretionary Fund is funded by contributions from our Christmas Eve service. All of that money goes to help people in need.
2. I talk openly with people about fees and offerings because they want to give, and they want to know how much is appropriate. I used to shy from this, but I have found that that’s silly. You have some choices. My choices are,
A. If I’m providing services for people outside of the parish, such a doing a funeral or wedding, I have them make the check out to me. And I use that money however I need to. Rites of passage are time-consuming and emotionally demanding, so I don’t do them for those outside my congregation very often. My commitment is to serve my own church: I can’t be everyone’s minister. A lot of people think of Unitarians as providers of rites of passage for the vaguely religious (we’re the go-to clergy for the “spiritual but not religious crowd). I’d love to have all the time in the world to craft highly individualized weddings and memorial services but I have a busy parish to attend to, and a creative liturgical tradition that requires me to craft an original order of service and write a publishable sermon every Sunday. I know funeral directors are surprised by my asking $350-$500 or so for a funeral, but if I’m spending ten hours preparing it, that seems fair to me. It’s very intense work stepping into a family’s life in a time of loss and crisis, and then squeezing my schedule to work in the prep and the service. Sometimes I wish we had a prayerbook or a set funeral liturgy, but that’s not my tradition.
B. If I’m providing services for members or friends of the church (including extended family), I generally say that if they’d like to make a gift they can make one to me or the Minister’s Discretionary Fund. I give people the choice because I have found over the years that some people really want you to do something for yourself with their gift. They want to make sure you’re going to go get a massage or have a nice dinner with your honey or something that brings you joy and pleasure after being so much help to them. Isn’t that lovely? And then there are other people who are very happy to contribute to your discretionary fund, and that’s also lovely. Do give them that choice.
3. That said, it’s okay to be honest. Sometimes someone will say, “Well gee, I’d like to give YOU the gift” and I’ll say, “Thank you, but if you make out the check to my discretionary fund, I can use that money to take my staff out to lunch and have enough left over to help a family who’s really struggling.” I think the important and ethical detail here is that if you’re going to use a minister’s discretionary account for “fluffy” items like gifts for a student minister or taking the staff out to lunch on behalf of a grateful church or whatever, you make sure you padded the account up with free will offerings given to you for your ministerial services. If we gather in $2500 on Christmas Eve to help folks in need through the Minister’s Discretionary Account (which was formerly known in my church as The Worthy Poor Fund!), I want to make sure every penny of that will be going for .. people in need!
4. Charge fees for your wedding services to non-members, for heaven’s sake. It’s ridiculous that people pay three times more for their flowers than for their Officiant. This is business. Most of us have student debt up the wazoo — let’s help train people out of the ridiculous notion that clergy are somehow “above” needing or deserving to get paid for the work we put into rites of passage. Yes, we work for God, but God doesn’t pay for our gas, food or cover our outstanding loans.
Other colleagues may have other thoughts, but those should help give you a decent framework. Remember that while it is possible for someone to give you a gift that is too generous to accept (yes, it HAS happened to me), it is almost always the case that people have no idea how clergy are compensated, if they use money like regular people (seriously, we have bizarre financial realities!) and what the heck is an appropriate gift to make as a token of their (the person’s) sincere appreciation. So get over your awkwardness and help them by being honest and direct. Make sure that your office staff also know the general ballpark figures and help them know how to respond to those inquiries. Most people want to be generous to their minister. It took me many years to figure this out and learn to graciously accept it. What a nice thing to have to learn.
Thank you so much for this, Peebs. Coulda used it when I was a young’un. My comments: Give. An. Amount. Set a fee and get comfortable saying what it is. Say it early, or they will guess. And they will guess $50. They will. We had a wonderful admin at one church who could just warmly and graciously tell people, and we blessed her. Next best is a website (yours or the church’s) that has a clear fee structure. It’s a whole lot easier to say for a wedding than a memorial service, but find a way. If your music director is playing for it, do this for him or her. Ask for both fee and license by the wedding rehearsal. ‘Cause chasing down the euphoric couple for a check when they’re being congratulated by guests just makes you feel tacky all over. Don’t be suckered into “It’s a small wedding.” You are doing essentially the same work. Your fee is your fee, though you may wish to waive or reduce it, yourself. I did one “small” wedding that had 90 people. Well, I think my blood sugar is dropping, because I am getting cranky. We are supposed to be nice people. So get good at asking nicely.
Love your comment, Gidge.
She’s right, folks.
I am discriminatory about fees in one case: for same-sex couples. Many of them came to me for very small weddings when MARRIAGE EQUALITY became a reality in the Commonwealth of Masachusetts and I didn’t set fees for any of those weddings. I was just so happy to do them. Still am. If they did give me a gift I sent it to some justice organization working on behalf of g/l/b/t people and their families.
Many thanks for this. As a new Minister in a church where there has been no focus on this for a few years it is hard setting up a new approach. Weddings are hard – they always look so hard done by (only to spend, as you say, 000’s on flowers and a car!). Each time I almost decide to say nothing, I shall call your clear points to mind!
I’m grateful that the UUMA (our denomination’s clergy association) and its district chapters have set minimum honorarium fees for these rites of passage. If my “My fee to officiate a wedding is $500” is met with a too-long silence, sometimes I add, “which is what every UU minister in this chapter charges.” One crusty parishioner, irritated that I wouldn’t do her granddaughter’s wedding for free, accused us ministers of price-fixing. Beyond that, it’s a nice 2nd layer of authority.
YES to Rev. Gidget on getting your check at the rehearsal! I also learned — the hard way, via a runaway bride — to ask for half of the fee as a deposit at our first meeting. (As we know, the real work is the preparation, not just showing up at the ceremoy.)
Finally, thanks to my colleagues’ examples, I no longer “audition” for weddings & memorial services. You can visit my congregation while I’m preaching or chat with me on the phone, but no more hour-long coffee shop auditions where my inner kid gets thrown into a tizzy (“pick me!”) and my time gets wasted.
As I write, I’m preparing an intimate backyard double memorial service on very short notice — and I lowered my fee due to circumstances. But I’m struck by how much love, energy, and intention I’m putting into it… and (hooray) how that’s very evident to the family I’m working with.
In my church, the fees are set nationally, and we don’t see any of them, except indirectly. They are paid to the diocese for the general payment of clergy stipends…we are all paid more or less the same (a bit of variation according to responsibility, but no as much as you might think…)
And no-one has ever offered me a cash gift to be spent on anything that looks remotely like self care… excuse me while I get my head round such a lovely idea!
I’ve been a lay congregation leader, and this is an interesting topic. First I’m going to put on my lawyer’s bonnet: honoraria you receive for performing weddings, funerals and other “sacerdotal functions” (IRS speak) are income and usually subject to self-employment tax. There are some exceptions, so you may want to check out IRS Pub. 517. No matter what the payor’s expressed intention, it’s generally not a gift. But aside from the tax issue, some congregation’s boards have guidelines for how clergy can spend the discretionary fund that are not always fully discretionary. And even where there are no written rules, there are expectations about how clergy will deposit honoraria and how they will spend them, so that when “breached” create unhappy surprises. E.g., the priest who used the discretionary fund to help pay for a counseling session; the pastor who used the discretionary fund to buy shoes for his kids. (Two instances where perhaps the clergy person needed to be honest with the lay leaders about spiritual and financial need.)
Yes, please just tell people. I got married 13 years ago and have since divorced. I didn’t realize until many years later that we had not given anything to the officiant and should have. Granted we were poor college students and only spent $17 on the wedding and we didn’t even leave the state for the honeymoon, but we could have done something. Many people assume that this sort of work is covered by the minister’s salary and its not totally crazy to think that if no one has told you otherwise. I only realized after my sister-in-law complained that my father-in-law had done a wedding without being compensated. Yeah, I was marrying a PK and apparently he didn’t know either.