How Your Church’s Leaders Should View Your Salary
- Posted by: Todd
- Posted on: Tue, June 28, 2005
- Viewed 129
- (41) comments so far
Staff potential.
Every staff member?s potential to his or her respective department and/or ministry, as well as to the church overall, should be taken into consideration when making an evaluation.
Position appreciation.
Staff members should be evaluated with regard to their attitudes toward their positions and responsibilities. Whether members are appreciative or resentful of the opportunity to serve should be taken into serious consideration.Fair day?s pay for a fair day?s work.
Although it may be difficult to determine how faithful staff members are at performing the jobs for which they were employed to do, special efforts should be made and notice given to both conscientious as well as lackadaisical work habits.Rewards are earned, not given.
All staff members must realize that the paternalistic corporate approach of ?giving? a raise or ?giving? a holiday cannot be extended beyond the accepted just because they work in a church environment. Laborers are truly worthy of their hire and their work ethic must reflect that truth.Fair and consistent treatment where there is no favoritism.
One of the quickest ways to lose the respect of staff is for the church leadership to vacillate in the observance of standards and procedure, be inconsistent in day-to-day policy, and show partiality in the treatment of one member over another.
Let's Discuss: The audience of this blog is chock-full of church staff members. Would you say that over the course of your ministry that your church leaders have treated you fairly with your compensation and evaluations? Of course there are extremes, but how is the relationship between you and your personnel committee, elder board, or other leadership entity? Do they follow (for the most part) the suggestions above? How uncomfortable are you in discussion compensation in your own church? Let's hear your experience...
How do the leaders view you when it comes to your salary and compensation package? Hmmm… that’s an important question, since they are, ultimately, the ones who approve your salary (in most cases) on an annual basis. What are some of the things that your laity leaders look at when they determine your salary? What should they be looking at?
Comments
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Red from San Jose on Tue, June 28, 2005
I am interviewing for a ministry opportunity next week, and I am a little uncertain about how to handle the issue of salary. What are some good ways to be frank about my needs without seeming greedy or ungrateful?
Drew Smith on Tue, June 28, 2005
I’ll speak to the article first.
Some of this discussion sounds like the marketplace values. Whoever does the best job gets the most money. How do we gauge a good job in the church? Let’s say that our “job” is to “make disciples”. We make disciples by leading folks to live like Jesus wants. The main commandment that Jesus gives us is to love God and love others like we love ourselves or to love like Jesus loves. How do we gauge love? Should the pastor of a megachurch with a heart for God, great speaking voice, and keen mind get more than the missionary in Kazakstan who has a heart for God, simple speaking voice, and keen mind get paid less because he only gets a couple disciples in his ministry? I know this is an exagerated case but the point is what are our values.
I’ve always appreciated Campus Crusade for Christ - they pay largerly according to need - cost of living, family size, and other personal needs. This seems to be a culture of trust and faithfulness instead of results and reward.
I just don’t see a theological/biblical case for results and reward.
Personally, I need more money now because I have 3 chidren growing up. They will all be through college in 14 years. These years I foresee needing more money than I needed 10 years ago and what I will need in 20 years. I plan on making my pay commensurate to those needs. May my motivation for work not be money but faithfulness to God’s call and God’s people.
On those notes - I simply share with the church my needs. I have brought my budget for the previous year so that folks might be able to share some ideas on our spending as a family and also to show where the needs are. I think this is Christian community. I ask the church for these needs to be met otherwise I will need to find other employment in addition to the church to meet those needs.
Peter McCarroll on Tue, June 28, 2005
Unfortunately, I don’t think that the five items mentioned above really say much at all about setting staff salaries.
I agree with Drew on the needs-basis, but also don’t see much wrong with using some elements of “marketplace values” either, as long as we understand the value of what values we are using.
We must remember two things:
(1) God is responsible for the results, not us - remuneration based on results is Biblically unsound.
(2) When the church calls someone into fulltime ministry, they are implicitly making a promise to meet all the material needs of that family. For a Pastor’s spouse to have to work just to make ends meet means that the church has violated their committment to that family (especially if they were expecting “two for the price of one.”)
Most Pastors come out of seminary with a truck load of debt, and have usually given up very lucrative careers (or possibilities of such) to serve God in the local church. Boards (or Personnell committees) should take account of the seven years of education required to get through seminary, plus the usually higher cost of such education. Salary should be suffcient to allow the Pastor to live IN the community they are serving in and not have to commute because of cost of living (how does that foster community?). These things MUST be taken into account when hiring staff. How can we expect to keep pastors long term if we pay them like short term employees?
Churches want to “have their cake and eat it too” in that they want to hire as many staff as they can, but pay them as little as they can. We should reverse this - pay your staff as much as you can (what is right, not what is affordable) and hire only as many staff as you can afford!
Rick H. on Tue, June 28, 2005
I have been the youth minister at my church for 6 yrs and seen our small church youth group grow from 2 to 12 and seen them get involved in VBS, service projects, soup kitchens, nursery work, youth confrences. To this day they have not offered me a salary to do this job that takes as much time as my current FT job. I don’t know how to approach the powers that be to get the ball rolling. I much rather have all my time in the ministry God gave me to lead.
Sandy on Tue, June 28, 2005
Four major differences betweent male and female ministry leaders.
1) Males receive higher salaries even though credentials are the same.
2) Females consistantly prove to have more responsibilities than their counterparts.
3) Females are expected to earn any “rights”, “respect” and “priveledges” while these are inherently given to males.
4) Elders and other male staff continue to look down on female ministry leaders. They respond to females similarly to Sunday School teachers.
Chris Baughn on Tue, June 28, 2005
Two situations in my church have raised my awareness to the need for a fair and eqitable policy governing salary increases.
In one situation, a new full-time associate pastor was hired. He was a long-standing member of the church, having served many years as an elder and Bible teacher. There was no question among the board (which included the senior pastor and another full-time associate) as to his character qualifications or his ability to teach, counsel, and pastor.
The salary for the new pastor was established based almost solely upon his “needs”, and not upon external “market-place” criteria such as education, experience, etc. When the other associate pastor (with 6 years of theological education and nearly 10 years vocational ministry experience) discovered that the new associate pastor’s salary would be some $20k more than his, he began to question the judgement of the board. The new pastor did not have the training or vocational expereince of the other pastors yet his salary comunicated a favoritism that created a rift among the the staff pastors.
In another situation, some staff members were consistently receiving higher cost of living increases than other staff were. Some were receiving in excess of 3% increases while others only received 1%, all based on individual “needs”.
All of this points to the need for a policy that governs basic salary issues. Most businesses have such a policy and have human resource personnel to oversee staff compensation. This policy would establish guidelines that would promote fairness as well as reward individual effort, education, and experience.
Regardless of how we feel about the presence of “marketplace values” in the church, it remains true that the church is a business in every sense, albeit an not-for-profit business, but a business nonetheless. Among other things, it sets annual budgets, it buys and sells merchandise, it hires and fires employees - and all of this (hopefully) in accordance with regional and federal laws governing business practices. Thus, “marketplace values” have a role in the church and should play a role in the determination of such things as staff salaries. What must be guarded against are those “marketplace values” that would stand in opposition to biblical ethics.
In my view, staff salaries should be determined based on “marketplace values” insofar as those values reflect Scriptural principles. When the Bible does not speak specifically on an issue (such as what is a fair and equitable salary for pastors), other biblical principles can be used alongside marketplace norms to help establish those salaries.
Such “marketplace values” that can be used to determine staff salaries might include consideration of location and local standards of living, median household income data, and a local comparison of salaries of similar professional vocations (teachers, secretaries, professors, doctors, etc.) which require similar educational backgrounds and degrees.
When a church adopts the position of staff salaries based on “need”, no matter how much care is exercised, it does not protect against greed, envy, and favoritism among the staff members. After all, church staff are human too. This is where biblical ethics come into play. Moreover, without some kind of human resource policy governing wage levels and increases, vacation time, and benefits, staff are left guessing as to their value to the organization. This undermines their self-worth and may even cause them to question God’s love and care for his shepherds.
ellen on Tue, June 28, 2005
We have come into a peculiar situation in my mainline denomination: we have a clergy shortage. The result is that in my region more recently “called” clergy are being paid about $20k more than existing clergy – regardless of credentials or track record. Pay scales are set as “minimum required pay” based on church size and years of service. We are trying to raise these minimums 10% for 2006 – so that we can approach some degree of equity. Lots of resistance to the 10% increase, though. However, if the existing pastors left these churches, the newly called pastor would be paid a good 30% more.
This is truly a “market place”, with demand and supply at work. Churches now need to pay clergy enough so they don’t leave (unless that’s what the congregation wants).
Barring a situation such as this, I believe church staff should be paid a reasonable salary, which reflects what similar work pays in non-profit organizations. Increases should reflect cost of living and merit. Merit should have to do with how well the individual’s performance reflects the core values of the church. And absolutely: people should be paid enough to be able to live in the community they serve.
Peter D on Tue, June 28, 2005
My personal opinion is that churches should pay just as business pays. The salary should be comparable to the community. It should never never ever ever be based on whether they are married, children, etc… ANY church that does this is out of touch with reality. A bare minimum raise should be given each year that equals to the inflation rate. More should be given based on performance. As a former full time minister, now volunteer, I was always overburdened with ministry responsibilities.
Added duties as time went along because there was no-one else to do them. This is just simply wrong. Just because a church wants to start a ministry, doesn’t mean they are prepared to undertake that ministry. But, the role of devloping that ministry falls to full time staff who have no idea how to do it, and they lack the volunteers/laity with the experience needed to make it happen. Then some in the church have the gall (yes, gall) to complain when a ministry fails, and the blame goes to the staff member and the senior pastor. Churches need to focus on what they have the resources and volunteers/laity for before they start focusing on new ministry. Quite frankly, some churches need to give up many of the ministries that are not working in their church until the resources and vision for that ministry are realized. I’m not opposed to new programming, unless we don’t have the staff, resources and volunteers to make it happen. While I’m on my soapbox, some may disagree with me, but one thing that was pointed out to me in Bible College, as ministers, we should AVOID combo positions. One combo position, Youth/Music ministry has been branded by many as “the combination that always fails”. While that may not be true everywhere, I have seen ministries suffer because of such combo positions. Combo positions, unless they heavily interconnect, are divisive to a church, frustrating to ministers, and lead many churches into mediocrity and worse, including high staff turnover. In short, we need to remember that the pastoral staff at your church has one purpose: Equip the saints for the ministry of the church. It ‘s the rest of the churches job to do visitation, evangelize, outreach, etc… I know many pastors enjoy doing such things, but really, it’s not their job. So with that said, if your pastor or other staff pastor is EQUIPPING the church for the ministry, that is the standard by which we should base their compensation. I know there’s a lot of holes for debate in these off the cuff statements, but I pray that they not be taken offensively. However, I do realize, there are people who will be offended, because that is just the way they are. No offense. In his grip, Peter D
Cliff on Tue, June 28, 2005
I am not complaining about my salary. But I would complain about the way I have been treated, (not my current appointment). One church treasurer looked at my total package, pension, health insurance, and acted as if this was the total I was receiving. Forgetting I get no help on social security.
I find they often have no idea how many hours I put in, often not getting a complete day off. That is the nature of what I do, I know this. But when some members act as if I do not work except half a day on Sunday it makes feel unapprecated and resented.
I struggle (like many americans)to pay my bills. Yes some of my members in the past act as if I were Bill gates, even though my son got free meals at school based on our family size and income. Give me a break!!!
John on Tue, June 28, 2005
I have rarely ever seen a church give “merit” increases. Normally they opt for the “everyone gets the same percentage, regardless of how they perform” method, so that they won’t have to face staff issues. Funny how that works…
Jennifer on Tue, June 28, 2005
We are going to a new ministry position next week, so praise the Lord all of this will be behind us, but here is how our current church salary experience has gone.
My husband was a single man when he took this full time job 6 years ago. Now he is married with a toddler, and his weekly salary has only increased $40 in 6 years. Yes, they pay our insurance, but we are definitely getting the short end of the stick on the salary end. Many times we have had to put groceries on our credit card, or we wouldn’t have had them. We also had to take out a loan for a large amount of money earlier this year to get our car back from the mechanic. Not to mention having to rent vans for trips and pay for gas with our credit card, and usually having to pay the bill before we were reimbursed, meaning more debt for us. We have suffered in silence for the most part, because we knew it wouldn’t change even if we asked. Our church recently hired a retired pastor as a part-time interim SP, and he came in making over $100 more a week than my husband who is full time paid staff! We drive used cars, one of which isn’t even running now, because it needs work. I choose not to work b/c we feel my job is to be at home raising children, not passing that buck to a daycare so that I can work to pay for daycare.
Several members have made the comment since my husband’s resignation, “we know you need more money, you have a family now, you need a bigger salary, etc…” and I just want to scream… He didn’t just wake up one morning with a wife and child on his doorstep - Our daughter is almost 18 months old, and in all that time, no one, except our SP said that we needed a pay increase. When he made the suggestion, it was voted down by the finance committee. He hasn’t gotten a raise in 2 years.
As I said, we are moving on next week, and our new church looks to be much better about compensating the staff. Churches should keep in mind that financial strain at home makes strain everywhere else. Your pastors and their families shouldn’t have to worry about being able to afford groceries.
sandy on Tue, June 28, 2005
In response to Jennifer:
It’s amazing. I have been a Pastor for 5 years now with no pay increase. I don’t have the opportunity NOT to work. I don’t have much sympathy for those who suffer financially when one spose refuses to work because “it is their resposibility to stay home with the kids”. I never had that priveledge.
It is your responsibility to adequately provide for your own family. It is not the responsibility of the church or employer to do that. It doesn’t matter if your spouse was hired as a single person and now has a wife and kid. You aren’t working.
The church is not responsible to provide for your every need. Your husband chose to get married and chose to have a child. Therefore, he should choose to find a job or jobs, as well as to ask you to work- basically do whatever, to provide for his family.
My children are now grown and I’ve worked all my life. God provided for our family because I was faithful to do my part. My children love God and are actively serving Him. They have felt no ill effects from my working and have always known they are loved and cared for.
It has only been since the 1950’s that women began to be stay-at-home mothers. Read your Bible in Proverbs 31 and see what Biblical women did!
pjlr on Tue, June 28, 2005
Clergy pay. What an interesting topic. I “employ” a significant staff (35 including a christian school). Our salaries are set quite simply. We don’t look at the budget first. We determine what the proper level of staffing is and then challenge our congregation to provide the necessary income to pay a decent living wage.
1. We research the market to get an idea of what the position pays. There are plenty of internet resources and books that have been written to show what the market is for ministry personnel. This assures that we are paying a living wage with the appropriate benefits for this field of work.
2. We make a basic adjustment for the area we live in (It takes about 30% more to live in the Chicago area than Jacksonville, FL)
3. We give raises on merit only. Cost of living is only a reality in government jobs and in those few business who choose to do so. The size of ones family has nothing to do with how we pay our staff. I don’t get a raise from my boss when I have a child if I’m a plumber, or manufacture widgets.
4. Evaluations are made yearly which will readily explain why a person is getting a raise or not.
5. All of our staff are lovingly told that if they can get a better offer, they have a right to seek it out. If we weren’t paying market rate, then we know that we can expect some turnover.
6. Good stewardship is absolutely essential to live on ministry wages. Church budgets can only accommodate so much salary. Pastors get many perks that they wouldn’t get if they were in a secular environment. There are often special offerings taken for birthdays, anniversaries, Pastor Appreciation month etc. Extra income often comes in from weddings, and funerals. And it is not uncommon for people to pick up the tab when you are invited to lunch or dinner.
This is the reality of ministry. Churches should pay a living wage and then the minister can trust God for the rest.
Nora on Tue, June 28, 2005
In response to Sandy’s comments to Jennifer, as a full-time working mother I know what it’s like to have to work and raise the kids as well. But to imply that staying home with the children is somehow “unBiblical” is, I think, a bit much. I’m not sure that there’s any of us who can compare to the standard of the Proverbs 31 woman.
HTM on Tue, June 28, 2005
It is interresting reading all the comments on church staff compensation.
I think we need to re-think this whole subject and look at what the basis for needing that person is in the first place.
We can argue all day on the “on the market place salary” compared to the “needs based salary” but bottom line is no matter what we pay someone who is “called” to ministry they must fulfill thier calling.
We need to reconize the difference between a hirerling and a truly called minister (man or woman).One works for a position and the other works for the God they serve. Yes we are all human but our humanity can not be a reason to forsake our calling.
I have work as an unpaid staff member and a paid staff member. The thing I had to keep in mind is it is not the people writing the check that called me it is Almighty God and He wrote through inspiration “do not muzzle the ox that treds the grain” He also said “a worker is worth his wage”.
If you go over to the priestly pay of the old Testement you will find a way of paying that the priests would never have lack.
When the temple suffered the whole community of believers suffers.
WE need to get off our oppions of how much is enough or not enough and do as the scriptures say to do and thats take care of the men/women of God that are sent to us. It is not for a commity to judge what is good enough it is for God to provide the man/women that is sent. At one time in the new testement Jesus said to the diciples not to take purse or cloat and in another area he told them now is the time to take purse and coat.
The issue really boils down to this: is the church going to rise up and be the church and take care of the men/women God is sending to them and stop scobbling over $40 dollars a week or what ever the figure.
In my life when i was not a paid staff i owned my own business and out of that business i made sure that the man who was sent to us was taken of (He did not have to worry about money) I did it through the church and never made mention of it or made it an issue butduring that time great thinngs happened I believe because God honored our giving as a church to Him(God) first and secondly to taking care of the one God sent to us to Equip us to do the works of service.(for pay or not for pay)
We need to look at a whole range of variables to determine the worth of a wage but buttom line is what are we saying to first God, second our leaders and thirdly the world if we don’t take care of the ones we are suppose to recieve and asking others to recieve.
WE dont mind spending a 100.00 to take our family out for a ball game and it does not bother us to see a sport star spend Gods money on drugs, cars, and other unnessary things.
WE go out to a nice dinner and expect a wonderful meal with great service and then we pay a large amount to recieve that with a tip.
As long a our house is full of furniture and our car is at least almost new and shiny we have food in our freezer and the things at work are going fine we will tip the pastor
Hog Wash
God is not pleased with that and it show in the lack of zeal, spiritual revival, and lack of life in most stingy churches across this globe.
When are we going to get off our plush pues and get on our face and repent for our pride, selfishness, and greed in the church.
If we will do so His word says he will heal our land and with healing comes blessings.
I’m not talking about money I’m talking about the blessings of our families and our lives being put back into order.
Yes every staff member needs to be properly compesated but that is based upon Gods principles not our opionion or a market annalsis
If every man and woman will do thier part it will be easier for the ones sent to us to do thier part.
Go read Ephs. 4: 11 and 12 /
and then search the scriptures for What God says about taking care of those people and you will find a standard that can not be based upon a need or a market place but strickly on obedience to God,
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