The leadership of Retirement and Benefits Inc. (RBI) likes to think of the organization as a financial institution with a pastoral heart. It brings gospel ministry to financial crisis.
The combination of pastoral heart and financial expertise uniquely prepares RBI’s staff to handle the worst-case scenarios that ministry families sometimes experience: a husband’s untimely death, legal troubles, disintegrating marriages.
Since 2009, Bob Clarke has led RBI’s Ministerial Relief, helping develop RBI initiatives for strengthening pastors and their families for resilient, long-term ministry. Now Clarke is retiring, and Jon Medlock, president of RBI’s board and pastor of Trinity Church in San Luis Obispo, California, will continue Clarke’s work for Ministerial Relief.
Caring for the Forgotten
Ministerial Relief’s primary focus is providing aid to pastors’ widows who wobble on the brink of poverty.
Many pastors have some money saved for retirement, but not enough to last through a long post-pastorate season. Since women typically outlive men, widows of PCA pastors are most likely to suffer from dwindling retirement funds. And as widows age, the financial pressure is just one of several difficulties they face.
“There are PCA pastors’ widows who are forgotten by their churches, maybe left with just a few family members, and RBI keeps them from being totally impoverished,” Clarke said.
If RBI is uniquely situated to help pastors in crisis, Clarke was particularly experienced for leading such a ministry. A PCA teaching elder, he had served as chairman of the RBI board several times before coming on staff.
In 2005, Clarke’s wife of 34 years, Jane, died in a car accident. He had to deal with the responsibilities of the pastorate along with the grief of such a loss and the huge cut to his income.
“I was living by myself and pastoring a small church. My wife was a CPA who handled all the family finances, and my income was more than cut in half after she died,” he said. “I didn’t have a clue how to handle the finances, so I got a firsthand understanding of the experience of a widow or widower.”
Clarke wanted to help RBI by bringing his experience into the ministry. He understands that Ministerial Relief funds make a big difference in a widow’s life, and he ensures that the widows are not forgotten.
Transforming Transactions
Historically RBI’s work centered on business transactions — selling financial products and distributing funds. Over time, however, RBI President Gary Campbell realized that ministry families sometimes experienced troubles that money could not solve, but the agency was exceptionally suited for ministering to these families in crisis.
“If there’s a troubled marriage and the relationship breaks up, you need to talk to RBI about dividing assets,” Campbell said. This aspect of RBI’s work gives the agency a bird’s-eye view of trends and patterns within the denomination. From this vantage point, RBI took note.
“We realized many of the pastors and their wives weren’t thriving in ministry. They were dealing with a lot of hurt and pain and marriage issues and job stress,” Campbell said. “In seeing what was going on in the lives of people serving the church, we decided we could no longer just write checks.”
In his 10 years with RBI, Clarke has heard some heartbreaking stories.
“You realize that money doesn’t solve all the problems,” he said. “It’s certainly needed, but what is needed more is a ministry that touches the heart. That’s the direction we have gone, to make sure this ministry not only meets a financial need but touches the heart of the person who is receiving it.”
“We want to think creatively and strategically about how RBI and Ministerial Relief can support pastors so they live healthy lives.”
With Clarke’s help, Ministerial Relief rolled out ServantCare in 2013 — affordable counseling for pastors and their wives, provided through presbyteries. Clarke also helped create Cherish, low-cost counseling for pastors’ wives.
Cherish, which received the 2018 PCA Women’s Ministry Love Gift, launched in 2019.
Looking to the Future
Like Clarke, Jon Medlock has served as chairman of RBI’s board. A lawyer-turned-pastor, Medlock initially didn’t understand why Campbell and Clarke recruited him for the board of a financial agency.
A few years into his tenure, however, Medlock realized that RBI was far more than a financial institution. He caught Clarke’s and Campbell’s vision for bringing gospel ministry to financial crisis and embraced that vision wholeheartedly, helping to bring relational, pastoral wisdom to the organization without sacrificing RBI’s professional integrity.
A Pastoral Focus on Finances
When Clarke started thinking about retiring, Campbell talked with Medlock about taking over Ministerial Relief’s work. Medlock loved the idea of continuing to bring pastoral focus to financial needs.
“We want to think creatively about how RBI and Ministerial Relief can support pastors so that the pastors have the ability over time to live emotionally healthy, sustainable, resilient lives in a calling that is difficult, taxing on families, and doesn’t pay well,” Medlock said.
Medlock also wants RBI to move beyond crisis management and continue developing programs like ServantCare and Cherish that can prevent ministry burnout and disaster. By building on the work Clarke already has established, Medlock and Ministerial Relief can further assist pastors to thrive in ministry.
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