What kinds of jobs are available within Freemasonry?

Today’s reader’s question is: what kinds of jobs are available within Freemasonry in regards to serving the order? When I first read this question, my initial response or my initial reaction was “you’re not in masonry to make money, don’t even ask that question” and that was kind of going to be my response, but it didn’t take too much pondering to realize that that was the wrong answer and to think of something a little more useful to offer you. As it turns out, there are actual pain jobs in Freemasonry, and the way the question was asked, I believe that was the question if you can make a physical monetary career in Freemasonry, which you can, but it might not be as prevalent as you might think it is.

What kinds of jobs are available within Freemasonry?

So I’m going to give you some examples, but this is certainly not inclusive. I think that there are probably a lot more jobs out there than even I am aware of, because there are certainly a lot more different types of pendant bodies and things to this effect that are all a part of Freemasonry than I’m not even aware of. So let’s start with some of the most basic things here in the state of Mississippi. In either case, the position of the Tyler can be filled by either a member of the lodge or you can have a member from another lodge come and be your Tyler, and in either case, you can compensate the Tyler for his time. Tyler is supposed to stay outside of the lodge room the entire time. It’s a very monotonous duty to have. And either because of the time that he spent doing the job or to compensate him for travel reimbursement.

The Tyler can be a paid position in the lodge, so that’s one example. Another is the secretary of the lodge. And this is fairly encompassing. I do believe the secretary of the symbolic lodge or your Blue Lodge can be paid as well as the secretary of the grand lodge, who is generally a full-time employee of the grand lodge. And I’m aware that, at least locally, what we would call the Secretary of the Scottish Rite Valley is a full-time paid position as well. Or perhaps maybe it’s more part-time. I’m not that familiar with it. I just know that it is a paid position. I should stay with that. So let’s talk a little bit about that. The secretary, per our bylaws, gets compensated for any money that he spends, so if he’s spending money on stationery and postage and things like that, then obviously the lodge reimburses him for anything that involves large business.

However, the secretary is probably where the majority of the work outside of the lodge room takes place. The secretary does a lot of work for the lodge while not in the lodge. Maybe that’s another way to think about it. And so, because of that, the lodge can compensate a secretary for their time and pay the secretary. So far, in my lodge’s bylaws, we have unanimously decided that the Tyler and the secretary would receive no compensation, and so far, every Tyler and secretary have agreed to that and accepted the position, in accordance with those bylaws, but other lodges may feel that the right thing to do is to pay the secretary for that time. And in other situations, the secretary may feel that it’s a volunteer effort and doesn’t want to be paid. So the possibility of that being a paid position does exist now in our jurisdiction. I know that at the Grand Lodge office, the Grand Secretary works there full time as well as in our jurisdiction with full-time staff members.

And in our case, which you might find interesting, those two staff members are not associated with Freemasonry in any way, in the sense of being members of any of the free Masonic bodies. Okay. They’ve done the job for many, many years and do it quite diligently, and they’re the most agreeable people I’ve ever had to deal with. So it’s an interesting thing and I thought that it would be interesting to you to realize that there are people who work for Freemasonry that are not freemasons, and I thought that was a pretty interesting little tidbit. And again, I mentioned with the Scottish rite, the same thing: the secretary works in the office during business hours, but also has to take care of duties at any hour of the day, and so the secretary is paid for those times.

All right. They also reimburse in our jurisdiction, what’s called a district Deputy Grand Lecturer. Now, that position is called different things depending on what state or other jurisdiction you’re in. So let me describe it. These are members who are in small districts, so in the state of Mississippi as a whole, we have multiple small districts throughout the state, and we in the state of Mississippi have what’s called a grand lecturer. The grand lecturer is responsible for making sure that the ceremony or ritual work is being done properly and that we’re teaching it properly. And since one man could find it quite difficult to get around to over 230 lodges in a year, He has district Deputy Grand lecturers who go around to their assigned lodges and do that work for him and report back. And the grand lecturer does travel around the state again; it’s just that you can’t get to every lodge in one year, so for their travel district.

Deputy grand lectures are reimbursed for that, so it’s not a full-time position, so to speak. It’s really just paying for your guests and a little bit of your time. I mentioned at the beginning of this video that there are many other Masonic bodies. So there are probably things that people are being paid for that I’m not talking about. I would step on a limb and presume that in the Shrine, they too have a full-time secretary and are paying him for his time, and there may be other bodies as well that are equally busy enough to need one to be a full-time staff member. You also have things that are a little outside of your local jurisdiction, perhaps. So, for example, one thing that comes to my mind is the House of the Temple for the Scottish Rite in Washington, D.C. which is staffed by many Scottish Rite masons and many staff members.

So there are going to be places like that as well. Historic sites or actual working buildings that have staff members, probably down to having tour guides for those locations, all the way up to having secretaries and people running in the office. So there’s a lot there. There are also some ancillary things that you might not think about. It’s not necessarily a job, but a way that you could have your own career based on Freemasonry. So for example, if you mind yourself and realize to be careful in what you’re doing. Of course, you could write books on the subject matter and become a published author of Freemasonry, and you could do YouTube videos. I get a few dollars a month for doing these Youtube videos. You know, those little ads you see at the beginning or something, YouTube chooses what goes there. If you view them, then you will get a couple of dollars for every 1000 views that there are.

So it’s not anything, at least not at the level of our blog, that’s going to replace an income and become a full-time job, but it’s a way to learn to earn a little bit of extra money. So those were the things that I thought of that are ways that you could have a career in Freemasonry. If you have thought of others or want to point out some things that I may have overlooked, please leave them down in the comments below. I am confident that there are numerous positions and things that I did not think about, and I apologize if that insults anybody that I did not think of. Their position, it’s just a lack on my part, not any mean disgrace to your title and position. if you have any other questions related to this or any other topic in Freemasonry, please leave them in the description below and I will do my best to get them scheduled and answer them for you.

Thank you so much for reading. We’ll see you next time.

By Brother Jared, a Master Mason of Grad Lodge Mississippi