The Cost of Developing a Minister

This house is the equivalent of the money spent on
my ordination process.

I just mailed my first batch of Commissioning Documents to the Registrar. “That will be $32.06,” the clerk behind the registrar said. I didn’t blink an eye; it was after all an overnight delivery. Yet as I clicked through the DEBT card purchase, it reminded me yet again that there is a very high monetary cost for creating a minister.

I believe that it is a conservative estimate that at the end of my ordination approximately $325,000 will have been spent to turn me into a minister. Between tuition for schools, interest paid on student loans, airfare to and from seminary, and many other $30.00 dollar incidental costs all add up quickly.

I have been lucky to have a great deal of financial assistance. Scholarships have accounted for most of that aid, but others came from my community, from airline mileage donated from cousins, books that have wandered their way into my library, and Starbucks cards that show up with letters of encouragement. In the end my parents and I will have underwritten only a quarter of that cost.

As I wrestle my way through this process, I try to remember that I am able to enter the ring because of my privileged place. I am someone who has been able to carve three years out of her life to attend a prestigious seminary. I am someone who has the ability to take the extra two days for her commissioning paperwork instead of saving herself the $15.00 for groceries for that week. I am someone who knows how to find scholarship money if and when I need it.

I could not imagine what this process would be like if I did not have this financial cushion.

White Privilege Knapsack

Peggy McIntosh, in 1989 developed a list that she called the "White Privilege Knapsack." She explains:

I had been taught about racism as something which puts others at a disadvantage, but had been taught not to see one of its corollary aspects, white privilege... I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets which I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was 'meant' to remain oblivious. White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, assurances, tools, maps, guides, code books, passports, visas, clothes, compass, emergency gear and blank checks.

This list is 50 items long. And it is a brief list of the many more options that could be available for understanding the for changing. I am sure that there would easily be more. I do not list them all out of respect for copyright, (I hope that the educational nature of this blog will keep me out of trouble).

One that specifically caught my eye for the leadership was this:

37. I can be pretty sure of finding people who would be willing to talk with me and advise me about my next steps, professionally.

In my denomination finding someone who is willing to help you through the system of ordination is incredibly valuable. I realize that I was easily able to find someone of my own race to help me through this process. I furthermore realize that finding someone of my own race did not appear that they were trying to help me to get more of their race in ordained ministry.

Some others pieces of white privilege that have intersections with religious leadership include:

38. I can think over many options, social, political, imaginative or professional, without asking whether a person of my race would be accepted or allowed to do what I want to do.
39. I can be late to a meeting without having the lateness reflect on my race.
40. I can choose public accommodation without fearing that people of my race cannot get in or will be mistreated in the places I have chosen.

Peggy McIntosh explains that the most insidious part of white privilege is the pervasive ignorance white people have of the benefits that their skin tone gives them. As Juana Bordas in Salsa, Soul, and Spirit explains “If you are unaware of something, or do not recognize that it exists, you cannot address it.”

I have been aware of this list for quite a while. I have used it to teach students gathered for social justice groups. I have even made sure to reread it at least once a year, just to remind myself of what being a white American earns me without realizing it. It’s to live in the awareness of my privilege.

Yet, I didn’t personally apply it to my ordination path. To me, this has made me less immune to the very privileged idea that “Yeah, I know all of this already” and reminded me of some of the unearned benefits that I carry with me. It's good to make sure that I remain aware of the work that I need to do in order to recognize the privilege that I have.