Shawn Parker, Mississippi Baptist Convention Board executive director-treasurer, joined “Mission:Dignity” podcast host Chad Vandiver, manager for recipient relations at Mission:Dignity with GuideStone Financial Resources, to discuss the importance of supporting retired pastors and their widows in advance of Mission: Dignity Sunday to be observed on June 22.
Retired pastors and their widows should never be forgotten.
That is the core belief of Mission:Dignity, a ministry of GuideStone Financial Services launched in 1918. Still going strong more than 100 years later, the ministry seeks to honor retirement-aged Southern Baptist ministers, workers, and widows struggling to meet basic needs through advocacy and financial assistance.
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Shawn Parker, Mississippi Baptist Convention Board executive director-treasurer, believes in this mission wholeheartedly. As a former pastor for 30 years and a GuideStone trustee, he knows firsthand the commitment and sacrifice pastors pour into their calling and the financial hardships they oftentimes face.
“God calls people to vocational ministry, and that has been the heart of who we are as Southern Baptists for generations,” said Parker. “Sometimes when He calls people to vocational ministry, that means that He’s going to send them to difficult and challenging places.
“Some of the finest pastors I know are in some of the hardest places to serve, and they’re not being paid high salaries. And they are wonderful preachers of the word and outstanding leaders, and they have great organizational skills, and yet they continue to serve right where they are because they are called by God to do what they do and to serve where they serve.”
That service can prove difficult in a predominantly rural state like Mississippi, where one in five people live below the poverty line and a majority of churches run 100 or fewer in attendance.
Many churches in these demographics historically have been able to supplement their pastor’s income by providing them with a place to live. However, when these pastors retire, they are often left with little financial stability.
“What that means is that some of these pastors that had pastorium or parsonages during the course of their ministry, and when they retired, had no home,” said Parker. “They had lived off of meager means and perhaps had not been able to prepare as adequately as perhaps they would’ve preferred for retirement, and they find themselves in financial straits.”
Mission:Dignity steps in to fill the gap in these circumstances, supplying more than 2,800 individuals every year with a monthly check that provides extra money needed for housing, food, and vital medications.
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Megan Young and originally published by Mississippi’s The Baptist Record.
