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I suspect the primary compensation they hoped to get for that particular speech was _not_ financial.

People who write songs and materials for Churches do it to make a living. It's actually a big problem for folks who write songs and arrangements for Church Choirs--many of their customers don't feel they should be paid! I've been to conferences at Music and Musician trade shows where this very issue is discussed.

Right, and work for hire means a writer gets paid one time to do the job, and the residuals are owned by whomever hired the person do write the speech / book / song / lyrics / tambourine solo.

Doesn't matter if it's churches or playing in jazz clubs, writing and making music for a living is a tough business. I've worked some churches that paid quite well - at least industry standard - and I could go online now on CraigsList and find 5+ requests per day asking for music volunteers because religion. In my experience, churches are simply another ill-informed group that frequently want all the benefits of live music without compensating for it. Same goes for well-meaning volunteer organizations.

> many of their customers don't feel they should be paid

This happens to physical products too, I don't see how specific individuals not wanting to pay for something has any bearing on the existence / effectiveness of copyright.

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