If you believe, then He will. The Lord works in mysterious ways.
It would seem the Church doesn't believe then, or they wouldn't need to provide a pension, however meagre.
Didn't you ever watch the Chuck Norris series? (Ranger??) He makes if VERY clear that god helps but doesn't provide. You have to help yourself and then God will back you!!
So, I think The Priest is doing ok
Life is for living. Buy the shoes. Eat the cake. Ride the bikes. Just, ride the bikes!!
Yambo wrote: ↑Tue Sep 19, 2023 6:49 am
Won't your god provide?
Well He doesn’t seem to want to provide clean drinking water for the 300k kids who die each year through lack of it, so pensions aren’t probably at the top of the CofE’s list of things to raid the piggy bank for.
I’m sure Jesus would be pleased that they’re keeping their 10 billion safe and sound though.
(And I told myself I wouldn’t comment - I’m blaming you!)
My God provides what I need, salvation! the Pension stuff, that I work for! And again, it is not my only pension. So the wife and I will have jam occasionally, perhaps even that clotted cream (no cholesterol problems in my family) and most importantly, single malt!! To be honest, I just want to be content with what I have and grateful that I have a home, food and running water. The rest are bonus items.
Proverbs 17:9
One who forgives an affront fosters friendship, but one who dwells on disputes will alienate a friend.
Potter wrote: ↑Wed Sep 20, 2023 3:43 am
Is this banter? I feel uncomfortable seeing a group of people join in together to be unnecessarily mean to just one person.
Perhaps there is a word for it.
He raised a religious subject and is prepared to discuss it.
It is rather ironic, that a Christian church should treat its employees so badly. That one-off lump sum is equivalent to a middle manager’s annual income from some workplace pensions.
I dont think you can draw parallels with a regular job. Being part of a church is deffo a calling rather than a career. When i used to sell cars for a living they always said Vicars and Squaddies weren't credit worthy as the house came with the job and finance companies wouldn't lend to either. Might have changed now though? I did sell a couple of cars to Vicars though, cash on the hip types and many a collection plate joke was cracked from both sides!
I worked in charity sector for 25 years before becoming a priest. I think it is interesting to see the differences in pensions, used to be a lot better for priests, but they started cutting back. My wife and I have a house paid off. That is the bonus thing for us. Some priests have to rely on Charm housing (Church of England houses that they rent on) after retiring, and others live with family. It is a mixed batch now. More of us are coming later on it life after making some money and so on.
Proverbs 17:9
One who forgives an affront fosters friendship, but one who dwells on disputes will alienate a friend.
the_priest wrote: ↑Wed Sep 20, 2023 3:27 pm
I worked in charity sector for 25 years before becoming a priest. I think it is interesting to see the differences in pensions, used to be a lot better for priests, but they started cutting back. My wife and I have a house paid off. That is the bonus thing for us. Some priests have to rely on Charm housing (Church of England houses that they rent on) after retiring, and others live with family. It is a mixed batch now. More of us are coming later on it life after making some money and so on.
Aha. So the priest pension looks a bit poor, but you've not been in it too long?
Potter wrote: ↑Wed Sep 20, 2023 11:47 am
Yeah as a soldier I sometimes couldn’t even get insured, let alone a car loan.
Bizarre really because you’ve got more job security than most and it used to be that your OC will come down heavily on you if they get complaints that you defaulted on debt.
I think it's more to do with the chances of being killed rather than defaulting on a debt.
Potter wrote: ↑Wed Sep 20, 2023 11:47 am
Yeah as a soldier I sometimes couldn’t even get insured, let alone a car loan.
Bizarre really because you’ve got more job security than most and it used to be that your OC will come down heavily on you if they get complaints that you defaulted on debt.
I think it's more to do with the chances of being killed rather than defaulting on a debt.
I never had any issues getting insured or a bank loan when I was in.
From 1946 to the late 80s/early 90s more soldiers had died in road traffic accidents than in combat.
The reasons given for no HP for squaddies was because they were hard to find if they defaulted and a lot weren't on the electoral role for credit checks etc. Plus the possibility of redeployment, including overseas, within the credit term. I guess within that could have included death in a warzone, but I never heard that mentioned? This was in the 80s though and things are probably different now due to things like personal credit scores? Back then houses could and did get blacklisted for credit if one resident defaulted!
From 1987 - 1991 I had access to all the numbers. I don't now.
Suicide was rare when I was serving (that's purely anecdotal - I knew of only one in 23 years) but in the 1st Armd Div in Germany, in one 10 month period 1988/9 we had 39 fatalities from RTAs and other accidents involving vehicles. I brought it to the attention of the GOC so we could get some money for campaigns.
We were making progress however, we had access to a Cedegrins 'Skid Car' for training soldiers who would be driving on Exercise Snow Queen in Bavaria and numerous BAOR campaigns. The basic problem though was that the army wanted aggressive soldiers but defensive drivers.
It's a smaller army now of course but I think RTA fatalities are still a significant issue.
