Is it ever permissible for Christians to go into debt?

Twenty-first century Americans with little exposure to the rest of the world and not much knowledge of church history are often surprised to learn that many past and present believers answer that question with a resounding, “No!” But is it even possible to live in our modern society without debt?

Even more, if you are a student preparing to enter the ministry, how do you evaluate how much debt you can realistically accumulate while in school? Thankfully, the Bible offers principles about debt, and can help you discern what’s best for your particular situation.

Debt or no debt: what the Scriptures say
In the Old Testament, Israelites were not to charge interest on loans offered to their own people, but what we would call debt for the principal of a loan was permitted (Exodus 22:25). Interest could be charged, though, when loaning to a foreigner (Deuteronomy 15:3), probably because the Israelites contracted commercial loans with foreign businesses. Among themselves, loans were likely exclusively for helping the poor, and exacting interest would have been counterproductive (Leviticus 25:35-58).

In the New Testament, some Christians read Romans 13:8 to say owe no one any debt except the debt of love and that settles the matter. But the preceding verse commands payment of the kinds of debts that annually accrued to those who lived in the Roman Empire (taxes, tolls, tributes), so it would have been impossible for anyone to obey verse eight literally.

Translations like the NLT capture the probable meaning: “Pay all your debts, except the debt of love for others. You can never finish paying that!” In other words, with literal or material debts, always be working toward paying them off.

When is debt okay?
If debts are therefore at least permitted to believers, when are they wise and when are they foolish? There are no proof texts in Scripture to give black-and-white answers. We must fall back on broader, central themes of biblical teaching.

All material possessions are ultimately on loan to us from God, who will one day call us to account for how we have used all of them, not just those we have formally given to a church or Christian organization. So, when considering taking out a loan, we need to ask if this will help us be better stewards of “worldly wealth,” of our time and talents for God’s kingdom purposes (Luke 16:8), or if the debt will make stewardship harder.

Most Americans living at least at a lower-middle-class level (or higher) typically overestimate how often and how much debt they need to accrue. This is different from older generations’ view of debt.

My 98-year-old grandmother prides herself on never having owned a credit card. Even after credit cards were invented, she still wrote checks or paid cash for all that she purchased, so she was never even tempted to buy more than she could afford and be stuck with the outrageous interest rates credit card companies charge. My 74-year old mother did get a credit card, but prides herself on paying off every bill in its entirety at the end of every month.

I once attended a Christian seminar on money matters and was challenged to consider never borrowing money for anything that didn’t stand a good chance of appreciating in value. Thus, while it is virtually impossible in American culture not to borrow money to buy property, at least property can be worth more in the future than it is today. In contrast, cars only depreciate (unless they become antiques), so one should try to buy only what one can afford to buy with cash.

But what about loans for schooling and, more specifically, loans for theological education? A good education always appreciates in value over time, but not always with monetary returns. Students in medical or law schools can accumulate six-figure debts and generally expect to pay them off relatively quickly given the amount they will earn in their professions.

Ministry professionals can seldom, realistically, hold comparable expectations. Even debts as “small” as $25,000-$50,000 can prove burdensome. Little wonder that more and more seminarians are going part-time, even while working part- or full-time to avoid such debt. The idea that one must finish education as quickly as possible because one can’t do ministry before that greatly underestimates what God sees as ministry.

Plus with more schools requiring field education, internships, and mentoring programs, it is increasingly difficult to complete a high-quality seminary degree without doing some professional ministry at the same time. This may be the best route for many others who are simply trying to do too much too fast. So, consider carefully your debt load—evaluate what your education will cost you, and how much of it can realistically be paid for while you are still in school.

Debt is not a no-not-never, but a weigh-and-see proposition. Make incurring debt a rare and strategic event, and you will find yourself in a better financial position by the time you are ready to leave school and enter the ministry.

Passion and calling often go hand in hand. After all, passion is what moves us forward when the routines of ministry make us feel sluggish about our calling. But what happens when your passion wanes and you wonder if you were really designed for the work ahead of you?

Nancy Beach, programming director at Willow Creek in Barrington, Illinois, knows what it feels like to want to quit, especially when life changes occur, like becoming a mother. But, she reminds all who are called to ministry why they need to continually refuel and stay tuned in to the Holy Spirit.

How do you define calling?
Calling is a deep impression God gives you of how he wants you to make a contribution to the kingdom. It’s a combination of the gifts He’s entrusted to you and usually some kind of passion used to meet a certain need. I love how Frederick Buechner describes calling; it’s a moment when you think, “This is what I was born for.”

Did you have such an epiphany?
Yes. As a young person I had a passion for the arts; I actually thought God was going to use me in television and film, an arena generally void of Christians. When I was twenty-five, I spent my summer using my creative gifts in a local church. Initially, I thought that was “Plan B”—what people with no skill did.

I wrestled with God, prayed, and fasted through that summer, and finally understood God was calling me into full-time ministry and to trust him with it. When I was presented with the opportunity to lead the Arts Ministry at Willow Creek, I immediately jumped in.

Has your call changed or remained the same since you began ministry?
My passion and sense of calling to make Sunday morning church experiences as powerful as possible has stayed the same. I want to touch people, create moments of transformation and wonder, and make church the opposite of its reputation—boring and irrelevant. That’s my driving passion.

How that call is channeled changes. For instance, I knew I might have a bit of a teaching gift, but I really didn’t know how that would play out. As I tried it out, I recognized people were affirming me in that capacity. So teaching came alongside my passion for the arts. And when I have an opportunity to teach, I merge it with the arts.

When ministry gets difficult and you want to quit, what do you do?
When you get to the point at which you ask, “How can this possibly be what I am supposed to do?” you go away in solitude and reflect. In those moments, the Spirit reminds you, “I have called you to this, and I haven’t released you yet.”

Sometimes God does release us from our call or gives us a new call. But for me, my call has been fortified over time because when it gets hard, the Holy Spirit reminds me of what I’m really about and helps me go the distance. My call helps me not say, “It’s too hard. This must not be the right call.”

When have you asked God, “Is this truly where you want me?”
One era that was particularly challenging was when I had my first child and decided I still was going to minister part-time. As I adjusted my hours, I felt like I was failing everywhere. I didn’t think I was doing all I should at home; I didn’t think I was getting it right at church; and, I was continually saying no to opportunities.

It was very tempting at that point to be an all-or-nothing sort of person and say, “Forget it. I’ll just stay home.” While some people do and should make that choice, I sensed God wanted me to remain in ministry.

So what did you do?
I did what I could do. Peter Drucker says, “Figure out your unique contribution, and that’s what you most need to contribute to any organization.” I gathered with people close to me and said, “All of us have to figure out what we uniquely contribute.”

I discovered a few things I was uniquely equipped to do: casting vision, generating creative ideas, and teaching. There were many other things that I love to do and now miss, but I knew I could equip and train other people to do those things—even better than I did in the first place

How would you encourage mothers and fathers who are torn between their studies and home and ministry?
Connect with people who are farther down the road in ministry. They often help you have a long-term perspective on both ministry and the family. For instance, Bill Hybels and others cautioned me when my kids were born that your family is your ministry, too. Ultimately, you don’t want your kids to resent the church because Mom or Dad is never around.

Besides that, remember ministry never ends, so you are going to have to make some advance decisions, such as when you are going to go home—what time, no matter what. Also recognize that a fast-pace ministry is not only bad for your family, but, in the long run, it’s also bad for the people whom you are leading. When you aren’t refueled, you don’t have anything to give back.

Those were some of the early mistakes we made at Willow Creek. We were all young and starting families, and the church was exploding. Because we didn’t have enough of an infrastructure, we were working like crazy to meet all the church’s needs. But we weren’t disciplined about refueling ourselves.

How do you recommend refueling?
That’s unique to each person. You need to determine what is it that keeps you feeling very alive, apart from ministry. And you need to find a rhythm that works for you, not only for each week but also in a year. People counseled my husband and me to carve out vacation-weeks months in advance and protect that time. If you say, “Wait until it’s convenient,” it will never happen.

In a crowded room, how can you tell if a seminary student is among you? For one, they’ll complain about their busyness before night’s end.

Why is that? Where did we learn that being too busy was acceptable? Why do we wear our overcrowded ministry schedules and our seminary “To Do” lists as badges of honor? Why do ministers look back at seminary as the “dark years” that almost drove them over the edge and out of their calling?

Too many student-ministers live busy, imbalanced, and unfulfilling lives. Schedules are too full, task lists too long, and free time for self and family too absent.

Now, is this condition a requisite of our calling, or the result of unhealthy priorities? Standing at the close of my seminary career, I can look back with the wisdom gained through hard experiences and suggest it is the latter. So as a fellow sojourner, I offer these three tools to help you attempt to simultaneously travel the roads of education and ministry.

Call busyness by its right name
In his book Making Room for Life, Randy Frazee recounts an old Chinese proverb: “The beginning of wisdom is to call something by its right name.” Overstrained, busy lives are not a necessary cross to bear in our calling. It is not a trial to reveal with complaining, as if it were pious, God-honoring, and sacrificial.

We need to call busyness by its right name—poor priorities, lifestyle imbalance, a possible Messiah complex, and not what Jesus intended when calling disciples to a “full life” in John 10:10. Don’t honor this lifestyle; rather let’s call it what it is and work to change it.

Distribute the Workload
How often do you examine and reflect upon what you are taught, instead of memorizing it to regurgitate for exams? How many books do you skim instead of integrate? When God led you to seminary, was it to get through or to get equipped?

So why not spread two and three year degrees over four and five years? Absorption and integration of knowledge fuels ministry . . . not diplomas as résumé check marks. Consider slowing down your school workload so you might be more thoroughly (and happily) equipped.

While seminary develops our calling, we as leaders tend to develop over-inflated expectations of our ministry necessity. When Moses ministers tirelessly to the people that surround him all day, Jethro informs him in Exodus 18, “What you are doing is not good . . . you and these people who come to you will only wear yourselves out.” He tells Moses to delegate the workload, sharing it with God’s people. Ephesians 4:12 reminds ministers to “equip God’s people to do his work.” How ironic that as leaders, we often maintain such huge ministry workloads that we prevent the church from being the people God intended. We miss the equipping role that God desires of us. What might our churches look like if we focused more on developing workers than on working?

Care for yourself intentionally
When Elijah was exhausted, hungry, and ready to die in 1 Kings 19, God doesn’t rebuke him—he lets him take naps and brings him food. When crowds continue to follow Jesus in Luke 15, he doesn’t prioritize their needs, rather he withdraws by himself to pray.

Is it possible that God is more comfortable with our focusing on self-care than we are? When school and ministry wear you down, what recharges and replenishes you?

Learn to say, “I can’t make that meeting this week,” “I’m unable to right now,” or, heaven forbid, simply “No.” Grab coffee with friends for fun, not ministry. Read fiction, not textbooks. Take a run in the park. Wrestle with your kids and read them stories. Take your significant other out for a slow dinner. Take naps. Get away for a half day of solitude and silence. Spend way too long writing in your journal and talking with God some morning.

As holistic people, we cannot expect our physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual exhaustions to be independent of each other. So figure out what is necessary to recharge your batteries, replenish your spirit, and care for yourself intentionally—then prioritize it!

We want our ministry to be a calling and a career, not just a passing trend that we couldn’t maintain. In proactively addressing our too-busy lives, we will be healthier, more enjoyable, and more productive members of our families, classrooms, and ministry contexts.