Pastoral Salary

So I took a poll on Twitter the other day and got some interesting feedback. The question was:

What is the maximum amount of money someone working in the ministry full time should make?

The three most interesting/thought provoking answers I got were as follows:

From Phillymac: Why should there be a maximum amount?

From Nobilis: Camel, eye, needle. Rich Christians are hypocrites, every one.

From WilliamPall: “working in the ministry”… You mean as a priest or what not? It shouldn’t be a paid position.

This really got kicked off when I was talking through the overall amount of money we spend as a church (both my church specifically and the church in general) on things like the building and salaries. It’s too much is what it is.

I’m not advocating that their be a salary cap per se. I mean that wouldn’t be possible to implement across the board given the variety of church governments/denominations/etc. I do think however that we as Christians need to think about how much we pay our ministers/cross cultural workers/etc.

These men and women have given their lives to the ministry and do it full time and they do need to make money for that. After all they need to eat, have a place to stay, support their families. I don’t think the model we have is really biblical though. Jesus and the apostles were itinerant preachers. They didn’t pull down a salary. Of course that was a different culture, but should that matter?

I do agree to a point with Nobilis when it comes to his definition of “rich”. “Anyone who does not have to worry about where their next meal is coming from while anyone in the world is hungry.” As Americans, even the poorer folk among us are far wealthier than our brothers and sisters in Africa and Asia. There are certainly American’s that fall in the “worrying about their next meal” category, but not many I’d wager.

Back on track for a second, I do agree with William in one sense. We often lose sight of the fact that all Christians are called to minister. The overwhelming number of us are unpaid ministers. Too often we let the paid staff at our churches do what we should be doing and when they can’t, because they are overburdened with duties that again, we should be doing, we complain and try and find another church where the staff are “doing their jobs”.

Food for though.

  • http://www.beyondtheboxpodcast.com Steve Sensenig

    Yep, same for me, KB. I check “Remember personal info”, but it doesn’t, and I check “Subscribe to this entry” and don’t get emails. :(

  • http://sidfaiwu.com/blog sidfaiwu

    “What is the maximum amount of money someone working in the ministry full time should make?”

    Why, whatever price the market is willing to bear of course. They are offering a service to a niche market. The value of that service is governed by the supply of ministers as well as the demand of the niche.

  • Kansas Bob

    Guess it really depends on what these folks do. Having been on a pastoral staff I have to say that the work environment was much more lax and work ethic simply not as rigorous as the one I had in corporate America. Generally pastors work 4.5 days a week (they count Sundays as a full day but we all know most of them go home at noon) and some of them work less and consider themselves “full time”.

    To balance that out – I have also been around pastors that really work hard and focus much of their time and energy on ministering to the emotional and spiritual (and sometimes economical) needs of people in their church.

    When you think of these folks I think it is helpful to realize that in evangelicalism all jobs carry the “pastor” title and many “pastors” have been seduced by the public speaking ministry (http://redeemed.kansasbob.com/2006/03/religious-seduction.html) to the exclusion of really caring for people in their church.

    I think that many “ministers” are simply overpaid though.. per this list:

    http://www.kansasbob.com/2007/11/ministry-compensation-comparison.html

    Okay.. got on a bit of a rant there.. trust you to sort it out :)

  • http://pinakidion.org pinakidion

    Our minister makes about 75K in salary. He has a PhD from Abilene and about 25-30 years in minister experience.

    Our small congregation wants to pay him more, but we cannot afford it. He wants to stay and isn’t planning on leaving.

    Our previous minister earned about 50K and had a Bachelor’s degree with about 8 years of minister experience.

    We don’t pay the wives. Our minister’s wife is a school counselor.

    We have a fairly detailed salary model in place that pays based on education and years experience.

    When I was in NC, our ministers did not reveal their salaries. I only found out much later. I don’t have the numbers in front of me, now, but let’s say that it was much higher, just for the husband. The wife was paid a separate check – sometimes this was just for raising her children.

    It was atrocious. What was worse was that when he resigned, we were required to pay a severance (in NC). It was 1 week’s salary per years served. This was paid despite him transferring to another preaching job without a break in service. Outrageous!

    I am not against paid ministers. There’s something about having folks who are freed up to visit members, go to the hospital during the day while other members are at work, meet with local area leaders, even hit the street and evangelize.

    The best way that I’ve seen to get folks to remember that they are ministers is to be shamed by the hard work of the paid minister. My old church in Colington had an 80 year old minister that worked harder than everyone. This encouraged a lot of participation and a lot has been done.

  • Kansas Bob

    Didn’t get pinakidion’s comment via email so I am just trying again.. maybe I forgot to check the box.. wonder why I had to re-login to TypePad?

  • http://kansasbob.com Kansas Bob

    Tried filling in email box above.. maybe that was the problem?

  • Scott

    Sid – Pragmatist. ;-)

  • Scott

    KB – I don’t have a problem with pastors getting paid according to their experience/ability. I do have a problem with pastors living a lifestyle of luxury. Of course I have the same problem with non-staff Christians living in luxury to be fair, but if pastors are supposed to be some sort of example/held to a higher standard then moreso for them.

  • Scott

    Pink – Transparency is crucial.

  • http://pinakidion.org pinakidion

    Transparency and disclosure: they are two different things.

    My old church in Colington has the budget, pastor’s salary, and other things posted on the bulletin board.

    Even in my present church, everything feels like a secret. I only know because I help create the salary model.

  • http://www.beyondtheboxpodcast.com Steve Sensenig

    You probably already know where I am on this issue. The present model is not biblical in my opinion, and I think that paying someone to “do the work of the ministry” is a copout on the part of everyone involved.

    Ministry was never meant to be done “by proxy”.

  • http://kansasbob.com Kansas Bob

    Not sure how to get the email feature working Scott.. tried a few things but am not getting new comments.
    It also makes me re-enter my info each time.

  • http://www.beyondtheboxpodcast.com Steve Sensenig

    Yep, same for me, KB. I check “Remember personal info”, but it doesn’t, and I check “Subscribe to this entry” and don’t get emails. :(

  • Scott

    It doesn’t remember me either and the email thing isn’t working, yet.

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