Tens of thousands of current and former employees at scores of religiously affiliated institutions across the country face the same fear, as nonprofits increasingly seek refuge in "church" pension plans to escape onerous financial obligations, according to Eric Loi, an attorney at the Washington D.C.-based Pension Rights Center.

One of the most widely dispensed, and universally accepted, pieces of financial advice is that you should contribute at least enough to your 401(k) to get the full match from your company. If you don’t, so the wisdom goes, you will be giving up free money. Well, it turns out that money isn’t exactly “free.” In a sense, it’s actually coming right out of your paycheck.

With his 65th birthday approaching, Richard Zimmerer started making phone calls about a pension from a job he held until his mid-40s.