Respecter of Persons: The Lack of Socio-Economic Diversity on Reformed (White) Evangelical Elder Boards

by John Ellis

Diversity has become a buzzword among reformed churches over the last couple of decades. While buzziness can bring more heat than light, the desire for churches to reflect the beautiful diversity of God’s Kingdom is good and right. Most often, this desire and the accompanying strategies focus on ethnic diversity. The segregation of churches along ethnic lines is definitely something that all of God’s people should long to see reversed, but there is another type of diversity that doesn’t appear to have made it onto our collective radar: socioeconomic diversity. While I don’t have data about the socioeconomic breakdown of church membership across the country, I do have data on church leadership, and the lack of diversity is staggering. 98% of lay elders in reformed (white) evangelical churches are counted among the professional class.

To act as a cartographer for this article, I’m going to present the raw numbers followed by an explanation of my methodology. I will then explain what I believe are the two main takeaways. The article will conclude with the numbers for each state.

Here are the raw numbers: I found career/job information on 2,262 lay elders at 830 churches from all 50 states and Washington, DC. 2,217, or 98%, of those lay elders are in the professional class. 45 of them, or 2%, are in the working class. That disparity far exceeds the career/job breakdown in American society in general in which 46% of all American workers fall under my working-class definition.

Before explaining my methodology, I believe it is important to acknowledge that I am neither a data scientist nor statistician (nor a sociologist). I am aware that there are flaws in my methodology, and I will even point out some of them. With that stated, I do believe the raw numbers speak loudly in support of my thesis and takeaways/conclusion. I also think that this is something that an actual data scientist or sociologist could delve into much deeper, providing better clarity (it seems like there is a potential book here). Until (if) that happens, I pray that my research and this article will prompt soul-searching, questions, and dialogue about how we in reformed evangelicalism can better represent within our churches’ leadership God’s diverse Kingdom. Now, on to my methodology.

Relying mainly on Nine Marks Church Finder, I looked at the websites of thousands of churches. At first, I used a couple of other church search tools but found almost complete overlap with Nine Marks. For a couple of states, since I was having trouble finding info on lay elders in them, I used resources like Masters or TGC.

Firstly, just in case it isn’t already clear, I looked at lay elders and not staff elders. Along with that, I should point out that my data is for reformed and reformed-ish churches.[1] I didn’t dive deep enough to include a breakdown, for example, of how many churches’ hermeneutic is either dispensationalist or covenant theology, or how many are Calvinistic in their soteriology versus more Arminian. This means that I’m relying on my own anecdotal experience instead of hard data to make the claim that my study applies mostly to churches within the reformed orbit. Having lay elders is an indicator that a church leans at least reformed and/or Calvinistic. I don’t believe this will be a controversial claim. I do assume that a data scientist/sociologist would want to better delineate the types of churches in his or her breakdown. It should also be noted that my data is exclusively from complementarian churches.

Secondly, if a church listed only the names of their lay elders without bios or pictures, I didn’t even try to find data. In those scenarios, it would have been incredibly difficult, at times impossible, to verify that the info I found on so-and-so was actually elder so-and-so. There are a lot of Bob Johnsons in the country, for example. Just because the internet says that a Bob Johnson in Middle-of-Nowhere, Iowa is a doctor that doesn’t mean he’s the same individual as the Bob Johnson listed as a lay elder on First Baptist of Middle-of-Nowhere, Iowa’s website. Without a picture to verify that Dr. Bob Johnson is also lay elder Bob Johnson, I couldn’t include him in the data.[2]

Many churches with pictures of their lay elders also include bios for them. Many do not, though. In those cases – bios not included – I used sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter to determine jobs/careers. If a picture wasn’t available on LinkedIn to compare with the picture on the church website, I would search the company’s website or the man’s Facebook profile. If I wasn’t sure I had the right man, I didn’t include the info.

Possibly the most contentious aspect of my methodology is the breakdown of careers/jobs into the binary of professional or working class. I’ve looked at several websites for statistics on careers/jobs in American society at large, and none of the data reduces to my binary. In fact, in coming up with the statement above that 46% of all American workers fall under my working-class definition, I had to combine statistics from 298 job titles out of the 565 total listed on the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics webpage “Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey.” This means that 267 of the jobs listed on the page fall under my professional class category. Even then, some of the jobs, like animal trainer, are likely to include both professional class and working-class employees. There is a vast difference between the college student working for minimum wage as an “animal trainer” at the local doggy daycare and an animal trainer in Vegas working with Siberian tigers. While animal trainers are only 0.04% of the entire workforce, distinctions like this mean that my 46% would probably move a percentage point or two in either direction if someone had the resources to go through the data with a fine-tooth comb.

With that acknowledged, I do believe that my binary holds true in relation to my thesis that reformed (white) evangelical churches in America are lacking in socio-economic diversity at the leadership level. Explaining my methodology for the binary of professional and working classes will help to elucidate this. Looking at the hard numbers for professional versus working class illuminates priorities and prejudices across reformed (white) evangelical churches that should be addressed.

Some of the jobs/careers I label as professional class are obvious: doctors, lawyers, CPAs, and engineers (this group comprises 24% of all lay elders) are not controversial inclusions. It’s also hard to imagine that the inclusion of college/university professors, members of the C-Suit/executives, finance, and school administrators (17% of all lay elders) will receive any pushback. There are 121 teachers among the 2,262 lay elders (5%), and most of them teach middle and/or high school, for what that’s worth. I think most people will agree that teachers count among the professional class. One category that I don’t believe is controversial but might need some explanation is the ministry category. I included retired pastors and missionaries, counselors, those who work full-time for organizations like CRU, TGC, Samaritan’s Purse, etc. and military chaplains.[3] However, if the retired pastor had transitioned from staff elder to lay elder in the same church, I didn’t count him. The ministry category compromises 12% of lay elders, making it the single largest category (not comprised of multiple jobs/careers).[4] The last big category under professional class is business owners (7% of lay elders). This category has a wide range from large businesses to small businesses. And, this is important, if a lay elder is an electrician, he’s in the working-class category. However, if he owns the business, he landed in professional class.[5] The rest of the professional class is comprised of project managers, scientists/researchers, IT professionals, politicians, architects, marketing managers, consultants, one professional soccer player, and one astronaut.

My reasoning for which jobs/careers are tagged as professional class will be mostly intuitive for readers, I believe. There are several factors at play, but not all apply for every job/career: required education, salary packages and benefits, type of labor, possible career trajectory, and, most importantly, the elevated level of esteem from general society afforded those in the job/career.[6] For example, while a high school math teacher isn’t near the top end of earnings, society has a level of respect for the job that is not extended to a cement truck driver (at this point, I’m speaking about how things are and not necessarily how they should be). Likewise, if you ask parents if they want their son to be a laborer who hangs drywall or the business owner who signs the laborer’s check, the answer is, all things being equal, obvious. And, getting ahead of myself, this perspective has spilled into how and whom reformed (white) evangelical churches select as elders. First, though, a brief look at my category of working class.

The overall percentage of working class lay elders is so small – 2% – that I’m not going to break it down like I did for the professional class. The working class category of lay elders includes jobs/careers like mail carriers, pipe fitters, facility managers (this was one of the job titles I was unsure about)[7], truck drivers, a shipping clerk, a medical coder, mechanics, an auto salesman, steel workers, construction, electricians, store clerks, a painter, a lineman, and a cement truck driver. Jobs that are completely unrepresented include taxi drivers, waiters/bartenders, plumbers, tree service employees, fast food workers, and delivery drivers, among others not mentioned. I do believe the lack of those, like fast food workers and other low-skill positions, is instructive. Most of the working-class lay elders hold high-skilled jobs like pipe fitters and electricians or stable careers jobs such as postal carriers.[8] This speaks to prejudices that prioritize obvious levels of cognitive ability and socially constructed career stability.

If I was unsure about the job, I erred on the side of working class. For example, one lay elder’s job title, which I found on his LinkedIn page, was unclear to me. The company he works for uses the same job title for two different roles: one falls under the professional category and the other to describe a counter clerk in their stores.[9] Scouring the internet, including the company’s website and this man’s Facebook page, I was unable to determine which position he held. So, I listed him as working class.

There are three types of jobs I want to highlight that will likely be the most controversial: police officers, firefighters/paramedics, and nurses. I included police officers and nurses in professional class, and firefighters/paramedics in working class. Fire chiefs/captains are counted as professional class. Likewise, police chiefs/captains are not included in the numbers of police I provide below because I don’t believe their inclusion in professional class can legitimately be called into question. The reason I counted police officers in general as professional class is owing to the level of authority in society they wield. Nurse was a tricky category, although I was aided by the fact that all the nurses included in the data have bachelor’s degrees in nursing.[10] If you disagree with any of that, feel free to change my numbers accordingly. There are 8 police officers (not counting police chiefs/captains as explained above), 6 nurses, and 7 firefighters/paramedics in my data. If you believe either/both police officers and nurses should be in the working-class numbers, subtract, add, and divide as needed. And if you think firefighters/paramedics should be in the professional class category change the numbers accordingly. As a reminder, to aid in the math if needed, there are 2,262 total lay elders, 2,217 professional class, and 45 working class in my original data set.

Reiterating, at only 2% the number of lay elders who are working class falls far below the 46% of American workers who are working class. It’s obvious that almost half of Americans are underrepresented on elder boards. I would like to add that I don’t have the statistics about the percentage of men in America who are working class. According to the table, women are 47.1% of the workforce. However, in the table’s larger category titled “Manager, professional, and related occupations,” a category that is almost completely comprised of jobs I’ve labeled as professional class, women are 52.3% of that workforce. Interestingly, and speaking to my point, the vast majority of the 298 job titles from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics webpage “Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey” that I included in my tally that makes up my 46% number are stereotypically male dominated jobs – women are only 6% of the table’s large category “Natural resources, construction, and maintenance operations” and only 24.5% of “Production, transportation, and material moving occupations” – with the exception of things like teaching assistants, admin and clerk jobs, and low-level tech jobs in the medical field. I understand this is a flaw in my methodology that data scientists and/or sociologists with better resources and a research team would rectify in their studies/reports. I suspect, though, that a look at the gender breakdown would expose that the working class are a little more underrepresented among lay elders than my raw numbers show. I believe that a deep dive would show that women, who, remember, are 47.1% of the total workforce, are overrepresented in the professional class and underrepresented in the working class.

Another flaw, I think, involves potential questions about churches that don’t include bios and/or pictures of their lay elders. There may not be any questions, but I can’t help but wonder if there aren’t factors/variables that I’m missing that would explain that data set. Again, I don’t know but want to be transparent about possible flaws in my methodology.

The two main, related takeaways of all this are: 1. By and large, reformed (white) evangelical churches in America are created, shaped by, and made for the professional class. 2. The natural, dominant rhythm of our churches reflects how reformed (white) evangelicalism is a product of the socio-economic hierarchies of larger American culture. These two things, then, result in church leadership that is not reflective of the socio-economic diversity in our communities. Instead, leadership in reformed (white) evangelical churches reflects the social hierarchies of America.

Some may want to argue that I lack data on church membership across reformed (white) evangelicalism. If they mean that the lack of representation of the working class among lay elders is owing to a low percentage of working-class individuals and families in our churches, that serves to highlight my takeaways. If the membership in reformed, (white) evangelical churches is mostly the professional class, the question must be asked why church membership doesn’t reflect the socio-economic makeup of society? Shouldn’t churches reflect the socio-economic diversity of the community in which the Holy Spirit has called them to serve? And if they don’t, why is that? Some of the answers are obvious. Some, likely, require digging and reflection. An obvious reason in many reformed evangelical churches is the high academic “quality,” for lack of a better word, found in the preaching and teaching.

One of the things I appreciate about my pastor is how intentional he is to write and deliver his sermons in ways that are accessible to a broad spectrum of academic backgrounds. That’s not only a skill but requires intentionality. Sadly, and I’ve been guilty of this, the preaching and teaching in reformed evangelical churches can tend unnecessarily towards the overly academic.

Even if that’s not characteristic of a church’s preaching and teaching, the natural rhythms of – and here’s another reformed evangelical buzzword – how congregations “live life together” can reflect a certain lifestyle that is either foreign to or financially problematic to many working-class families in our communities. For example, at our previous church I realized that our collective weekly after-service lunch at a restaurant was only collective to a point. Not everyone can afford to go out to eat every week. Those who couldn’t were, unintentionally to be sure, boxed out of at least some of the rhythms of our church life. I proposed that we bring food from home to eat in the church fellowship hall. That lasted for a couple of months before we gravitated back towards the ease offered by the luxury of going out to eat. That may seem like a small thing, and probably doesn’t apply to many churches, but it helps illustrate what I mean when I claim that our churches are created, shaped by, and made for the professional class.

Another important way in which this problem is born out in our churches is the ways in which women’s ministries, especially in regard to events involving young children, are often almost exclusively geared towards stay-at-home moms. Working-class families most often depend on two incomes. Are our churches – is your church – being intentional in accommodating that reality? Not just in the programs but in the ways in which the ideal family is invoked. How are working moms made to feel, even unintentionally, about being working moms? Sadly, whether intentional or not, a hierarchy of family life based largely on socio-economic factors is firmly established in many reformed (white) evangelical churches.

There are many possible examples of how church rhythms are reflective of a professional class lifestyle. Some examples, like my anecdote about after-church dining, apply only to specific churches. My goal isn’t necessarily to create a checklist of what to do and not to do (I don’t think that’s possible); my goal is to encourage us to reflect on how our churches operate, be willing to ask questions, and then be willing to consider implementing hard answers to those questions. If you are resistant to my thesis and conclusions in this article, ask yourself why. Do the rhythms of your life fit naturally into the rhythms of your church life? If so, are you willing to ask and listen to those whose socio-economic realities are different than yours about their experience in churches? And if your church falls outside my thesis/conclusions, praise God. But your church, and your experience, doesn’t answer the question of why 98% of lay elders are in the professional class.

There are some exceptions to the lack of diversity in church membership which would serve to prove the rule. For example, the Orlando area includes a suburb called Windermere. It is a massively wealthy community. By “massively wealthy,” I mean a community made up of movie stars, sports stars, CEOs, and other incredibly wealthy people living in $10 million mansions.[11] If a reformed (white) evangelical church exists in the middle of Windermere, it’s to be expected that the entirety of the church membership is going to be in the top 1% of American earners (probably a smaller percentage). But that speaks to my overall point. A church like that would feel foreign to an individual who drives a garbage truck. It would feel foreign to most of us reading this, to be clear. Studies have been done on the linguistic and epistemological divides across socio-economic borders. Deliberate efforts must be made to erase those divides (at the least, build bridges) before true inclusion can happen. And I’m arguing that the lack of diversity in reformed (white) evangelical churches’ elder boards is evidence that those socio-economic borders exist in our churches and are largely impregnable. And most of our churches are not in Windermere, or whatever Windermere is called in your city.

For those skeptical of my conclusions, I’m curious how you would explain the disparity among lay elders. Time? That’s one obvious element which has been mentioned more than once to me when discussing this article. When my pastor and I talked, he almost immediately recognized the time element as an issue. Many of the expectations for lay elders, including elder meetings, are obstacles for many who have working class jobs.[12] For one example, a lot of working-class jobs don’t come with the luxury of meeting with someone over lunch in order to disciple them. For the time problem(s) to be resolved, paradigm shifts in when, how, and where pastoring happens will have to occur.

To his credit, my pastor doesn’t see the time element as an excuse but a problem to be solved.[13] I suspect though, that some of my skeptics will see it as a legitimate excuse and not as reflective of my claim that our churches are created, shaped by, and made for the professional class. And seeing it as an excuse reflects my second takeaway: The natural, dominant rhythm of our churches reflects how reformed (white) evangelicalism is a product of the socio-economic hierarchies of larger American culture. For many of those in the upper reaches of the socio-economic classes, society, including church life, works well for them, making it difficult to see problems. When you benefit from hierarchies, it’s unnatural, from a fallen human standpoint, to see the need for changes. The Apostle Paul, though, spoke directly to this issue when he rebuked the wealthier Corinthians for failing to wait for the poorer church members before starting the communion meal.

Earlier I wrote that the disparity among lay elders speaks to prejudices that prioritize obvious levels of cognitive ability and socially constructed career stability. While discussing this article with a friend, I confessed that when I think about the working-class men who’ve been my fellow church members, I have a hard time seeing them as elders. And my reticence has little-to-nothing to do with their godliness/sanctification. Shamefully, in my heart, I prioritize certain academic and cognitive markers too much. I am also sinfully influenced by the socio-economic hierarchies of American culture. In a vacuum, it’s much easier for me to envision a lay elder who is a successful businessman than one who works the drive-thru at a Taco Bell. If that’s not reflective of your perspective, praise God. I do believe, though, that you are in the minority. While I can’t prove this – unless readers are willing to confess to it in the comment section – I suspect that the majority of reformed (white) evangelicals reading this immediately resisted the thought of being pastored by a man who works the drive-thru at a Taco Bell.[14] And why is that? Whether we want to admit it or not, we all know at least some of the answers. The reality is that American society prioritizes and respects certain jobs/careers over others. Without any biblical warrant, reformed (white) evangelical churches have succumbed to a syncretism with American culture in ways that reflect that hierarchy. If you disagree, please explain the vast disparity in the job/career makeup of lay elders in our churches.

Look, I don’t have (good) answers, yet. And I imagine that with this article I’ve only begun to scratch the surface of the issue and its problems. The fact remains, though, that 98% of lay elders in reformed (white) evangelical churches are of the professional class. Why are almost half of Americans so vastly underrepresented within our churches’ leadership?

I’m going to conclude by quoting James 2:1-6. The passage is well-known and comes to bear on this problem of lack of socio-economic diversity among reformed (white) evangelical lay elders.

“My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, ‘You sit here in a good place,’ while you say to the poor man, You stand over there,’ or, ‘Sit down at my feet, have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor man.”

Numbers for Each State

KEY: CH = churches, LE = lay elders, PC = professional class, WC = working class

AL: 13 CH, 55 LE, 55 PC, 0 WC; AK: 3 CH, 8 LE, 8 PC, 0 WC; AZ: 9 CH, 22 LE, 22 PC, 0 WC; AR: 9 CH, 25 LE, 25 PC, 0 WC; CA: 42 CH, 149 LE, 144 PC, 5 WC; CO: 16 CH, 46 LE, 45 PC, 1 WC; CT: 5 CH, 17 LE, 17 PC, 0 WC; DE: 3 CH, 5 LE, 5 PC, 0 WC; FL: 41 CH, 117 LE, 115 PC, 2 WC; GA: 22 CH, 73, LE, 72 PC, 1 WC; HI: 6 CH, 9 LE, 8 PC, 1 WC; ID: 9 CH, 30 LE, 28 PC, 2 WC; IL: 22 CH, 66 LE, 64 PC, 2 WC; IN: 14 CH, 39 LE, 38 PC, 1 WC; IA: 2 CH, 3 LE, 3 PC, 0 WC; KS: 15 CH, 47 LE, 47 PC, 0 WC; KY: 17 CH, 54 LE, 53 PC, 1 WC; LA: 10 CH, 28 LE, 28 PC, 0 WC; ME: 7 CH, 11 LE, 11 PC, 0 WC; MD: 20 CH, 51 LE, 49 PC, 1 WC; MA: 16 CH, 30 LE, 30 PC, 0 WC; MI: 20 CH, 43 LE, 42 PC, 1 WC; MN: 19 CH, 71 LE, 69 PC, 2 WC; MS: 4 CH, 16 LE, 15 PC, 1 WC; MO: 28 CH, 84 LE, 79 PC, 5 WC; MT: 8 CH, 17 LE, 17 PC, 0 WC; NE: 12 CH, 32 LE, 32 PC, 0 WC; NV: 6 CH, 12 LE, 11 PC, 1 WC; NH: 5 CH, 13 LE, 13 PC, 0 WC; NJ: 10 CH, 20 LE, 20 PC, 0 WC; NM: 8 CH, 22 LE, 22 PC, 0 WC; NY: 24 CH, 44 LE, 40 PC, 4 WC; NC: 49 CH, 120 LE, 118 PC, 2 WC; ND: 2 CH, 4 LE, 3 PC, 1 WC; OH: 34 CH, 99 LE, 98 PC, 1 WC; OK: 12 CH, 34 LE, 34 PC, 0 WC; OR: 18 CH, 43 LE, 42 PC, 1 WC; PA: 30 CH, 72 LE, 72 PC, 0 WC; RI: 3 CH, 7 LE, 6 PC, 1 WC; SC: 32 CH, 92 LE, 92 PC, 0 WC; SD: 9 CH, 29 LE, 29 PC, 0 WC; TN: 25 CH, 46 LE, 45 PC, 1 WC; TX: 76 CH, 186 LE, 184 PC, 2 WC; UT: 6 CH, 9 LE, 9 PC, 0 WC; VT: 5 CH, 19 LE, 18 PC, 1 WC; VA: 38 CH, 118 LE, 115 PC, 3 WC; WA: 23 CH, 50 LE, 50 PC, 0 WC; WV: 3 CH, 13 LE, 13 PC, 0 WC; WI: 14 CH, 39 LE, 38 PC, 1 WC; WY: 2 CH, 7 LE, 7 PC, 0 WC; D.C.: 4 CH, 16 LE, 19 PC, 0 WC  

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[1] I also use the qualifier “white” because the churches included in my data are overwhelming white except for a few churches in places like California and Texas. I didn’t record data about the ethnic/racial makeup of elder boards because that’s outside my thesis for this article. However, and surprising no one, the overwhelming majority of lay elders in my data set are white. If I were a betting man, and I’m not, I’d bet my savings account that the same would hold true if I pulled the info on the churches’ membership at large.

[2] I guess I could’ve tried to compare other websites, like Facebook or blogs, to see if a Bob Johnson who lives in Middle-of-Nowhere, Iowa ever states that he is a lay elder in one post and a doctor in another. That would’ve made an already lengthy research process even longer. I mean, without a photo I would’ve had to scour multiple Facebook profiles of dudes named Bob Johnson in Iowa in hopes of finding the one who talked about being an elder at the right church as well as talking about being a doctor. Just thinking about doing that gives me a headache. By the way, there were no Bob Johnsons listed as a lay elder in churches in Iowa … that I recall. I didn’t write lay elders’ names down, just their job/career.

[3] Lay elders who work as a psychologist or psychiatrist are not included in the ministry category.

[4] I did my best to determine if a counselor was on staff at the church. If he was, I didn’t count him. Although I tried my hardest, I’m sure a few staff counselors slipped into my data. Not enough to make a difference, but I wanted to acknowledge it.

[5] Several doctors own their own practice, but I counted them as a doctor and not a business owner. And I have no doubt that quite a few of the lay elders in other categories also own the business. If I saw that a man is a chemical engineer, for example, I didn’t do any more digging. I’m also sure that one or two of the men in the working-class category actually belong in the business owner category of the larger category of professional class. If I didn’t know for sure, I put them down as working class.

[6] If I were turning this into a book, I would want to include survey numbers about peoples’ perceptions of different jobs/careers in relation to things like esteem, value, and desirability. Even without those polls in hand, I’m confident in my assertion.

[7] For one thing, a facility manager is not necessarily the same thing as a custodian. Many of them have several direct reports and are responsible for a wide-range of high-level, high-skill areas – not all of them, but some of them. Without reaching out to them, I was unable to discern the level of their role. It should also be noted that a couple of the facility managers work for their church.

[8] I’m fairly confident the couple of construction workers in my data own the company but I was unable to verify it. One lay elder included in the working-class is a retired master carpenter.

[9] I’m leaving it vague on purpose.

[10] A longer treatment of this topic – like a book – would include more robust definitions and explanations. I think, though, that my distinction among nurses, leaning on the obvious distinction of bachelor’s degree or not, points to some of the nuance. I also consulted my wife and a friend in the medical profession about the nurse category. They both drew distinctions between different types of nurses. Most of the nurse jobs they would put in their professional class require a bachelor’s degree. None of the nurse jobs in their working-class category have that education requirement.

[11] I once gave a ride – as an Uber driver – to a lady going to her housecleaning job in Windermere. The house I dropped her off at had 3 Rolls Royce vehicles in the driveway and garage. And there were several garage doors closed. Who knows what kind of cars lay behind those garage doors.

[12] Admittedly, this applies to doctors, too. This makes me want to delve back into the data and see how many lay elder doctors I found own their own practice. I suspect the percentage is pretty high. I don’t remember many surgeons on my list.

[13] I want to be clear: the inclusion of a brief moment in our conversation is not meant to imply that my pastor agrees with or endorses everything I’ve written in this article.

[14] With the caveat that if the man is working at Taco Bell to put himself through seminary, he’s an exception. Or if he’s a missionary who was forced by geopolitical reasons to return home unexpectedly. But those types of exceptions prove my rule.