Featured Seeking Personal advice

May I suggest that if your situation is dire, you take on any part time job that you can while looking for something better? After all, if needed then needs must.

I am not sure that I understand your Wesleyan reference, but I hope that it is not aimed at me.:laugh:

 

I spent 13 years pastoring in the UMC and one more as an interim in the Church of the Nazarene. I'm tainted. :thumbs:

 

For what it is worth, I would focus on increasing income first rather than increasing your education. If money is the problem now, that is what you need now. Look for extra work now.

The schools will still be eager to take your money later.

 

Ah...

I am not familiar with many of the common terms used for differing beliefs and opinions.

 

Call him Bishop Durant...lol:laugh:

 

If you owe "more than I can pay off in this lifetime," seventy hours a week is the best balance you can hope for. You're making excuses, John, for not doing the next right thing. As long as you do that, and manage to justify it to yourself in your own mind, nothing you do is going to be blessed in any eternal fashion. Perhaps you should ask yourself and God if this aspect of your life has anything to do with the fact you're frustrated in ministry also.

Please do not post this problem again. The same answers come every time, and you ignore them. That's my last word to you on this subject.

 

I was hurt last August. Before one of my surgeries, I received a sedative of some type. Mrs. R said that I performed better comedy than prime time TV. Apparently (I remember it only slightly), a Catholic priest stopped in to offer spiritual comfort. I'm told that I kept jokingly calling him "Padre", like Col. Potter, until I drove the poor guy away.:laugh:

Hope that he wasn't offended.

 

I'm only offended if I don't get called for supper but we digress....

Back to working two jobs. Once you've exhausted all the reasons you can't start working on a list of why you can. You're in debt up to your eyeballs You are not the first and won't be the last. Eventually this debt will stifle your testimony and render your street ministry impotent.

"And if you have not been faithful in the use of that which is another's, who will give you that which is your own?
Luke 16:12 NASB

 

I work in inside sales/customer service/tech support. Do I love it? NO. Has it allowed me to house, feed and clothe a family? YES. I'm lucky in that I'm in a specialized field...but coming in early and staying late has paid off. I'm fairly compensated and I'm usually in "the inner circle" no matter who buys us out. Our new CEO came up to my department's office and said "After evrrything I've heard about u guys, I wanted to see if u actually EXISTED."

MY DEPARTMENT WORKS HARD and we work smart and we watch out for the company. Do I work a lot of hours and get yammered at by my wife? YES. But we have a house, insurance, food and savings.

I said all that to say this.... to get ahead, you have to not only work long hard hours, but you gotta show initiative, responsibility and leadership! There is a DEARTH of people who care and who take pride in their work and companies are looking for people who can take responsibilities. THAT is how you get ahead at work...or be the boss's son-in-law.

 

What TND said was sound. And that's the name of that tune.

 

Then you have put yourself in a very difficult spot and there is no answer for except to keep trying even though you will likely default on your debts. Your extreme situation requires an extreme response. There is just no way around it.

 

Degrees nowadays more or less only prove that you can learn. You can get good jobs with no degree, and crappy jobs with a great degree. It's all in how you use it and market yourself. Approaching a college degree as if it is job training will always produce poor results.