Paid Preachers

[Son of a Preacher Man]

I'm the...

Pulpit/Youth/Education/Outreach/Associate/Involvement/Singles/College/Divorced/Young Professional/Young Adult/Seniors

Minister.

If I left anything out, you can just add that to my resume, too.  However, we have one other preacher but he is a public school teacher as well and is not paid.

And it's a good thing I can write because preaching don't pay the bills.  Let's just say it's small "fee".

Thanks to God, we are a rapidly growing congregation.  In June of last year we only had 35 members.  Since then, we have almost that many attending between the ages of 25-35.  We had a youth group of 3, now we have 9.  Overall we've grown almost 100%.   None of our growth has drifted over from "other" congregations in our community.  Some has come through evangelism, but we've seen the greatest growth among those who wandered away years ago, but have now decided to renew their faith.  

Our prayer is that God will continue to make us grow.

My wife's prayer is that I finish more of the stuff I'm working on post-haste.  :D

SoaPMan

[janine]

I'm still wrestling with a James R. / Buff Scott urge to sell all the buildings and retire all the PPPs.

But, while we have these tools and these dedicated servant/ministers...

I cannot recall much detail about the last budget info I was privy to... seems like the preacher before last had 70ish thou a year, along with various insurances.  He had as much help as he wanted preaching (not that he asked for much), and went off for lecturships and gospel meetings.

I think there was $8000 set aside for the youth interns those 10-12 weeks over the summer.

I dunno what the secretary makes.  Considering all she does, I'm sure not nearly enough.

[Arkstfan]

The deal with the new hires may be like a conversation the president at Arkansas State related when he was searching for a new athletic director. He called another president for advice and to get a feel for the market. The other prez says you'll need to pay at least this amount. Our guy answers back, "Really? We're only paying this amount."

"Did you like what you got for that amount?"

[s1n4m1n]

Hi,

With all the discussion about preachers, I was wondering, what is the diversity of pay that preachers receive for their services in your church? That is, if everyone is bold enough to pony up the information. You could add congregation size and duties to kind of get a full understanding.

Since I'm asking the question, I'll provide an answer.

The preacher at our congregation make about $68,000 a year.
Our congregation is about 160 members (including children). The preacher preaches on Sunday mornings and evening and is a class teacher on Wednesdays and Sunday mornings. He is responsible for preparing the church bulletin (though I'm not sure if that duty has been assigned to him). He is also responsible for making in-class material when none is available (mostly outline type stuff). We don't have a secretary so he does most of the secretarial duties himself.

As part of his contract he has up to 4 Sundays off (for gospel meetings) and I think an additional 2 Sundays for vacation. Also I think he gets a week off to attend the lectures at Florida College. By the way, our preacher has been preaching for about 25 years.

That's about it. I was just being curious about other churches.

I know that sometimes I hear mention of low pay so I was thinking about if this was normal.

apage,

Ken

[spurly]

The staff at our church includes the following:

Senior Minister
Music Minister
Youth Minister
Full Time Secretary
Full Time Bookkeeper (For church, Academy, and preschool)
Full Time Janitor

The salary for these six people combined is around $200,000 a year.

I don't really know how it breaks out.

Kevin

[Booty]

Our congregation is now 50+ from two in one year.

I am paid 50+ smiles,kisses, handshakes and hugs each week.

I am on duty 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year.

Personally, I feel I am overpaid, but I am just selfish enough to beg that you do not inform the congregation.

Clarines now has their own preacher for their 10+/- members, and I believe his pay is similar.

[Daniel]

This is pure speculation, but I think the senior minister at our congregation probably makes 6 figures (100-200?). I knew of one 300 member congregation that was paying their senior minister 65k, yet there was another church of 600 members that paid their minister 45k. So what gives? You would think a 600 member church would be paying more right? They did have 3 other full-time ministers, and the 300 member church only had one other full-time minister. There doesn't seem to be a hard fast rule in Churches of Christ about minister salary. I conclude by saying that a church should consider the congregation's medium income level and pay their ministers accordingly. I think it is important that ministers be able to identify with their church somewhat on equal financial grounds.

[winky]

Here's a salary survey of C of C preachers, and you can view the results by age, attendance, years in the ministry, etc.

http://bible.acu.edu/ministry/ministersalary/default.htm

[janine]

Preachers with the longest years of experience average lower pay than the ones with 5 yrs & under.

I wonder, does that mean the eldest are retired and dabbling in preaching?  Needing less income because of that?

Or that we don't want the crusty old styles of crusty old preachers (shame on us)?

Or that crusty old preachers are too old to adapt to modern needs (shame on them)?

[seekr]

Again, me and my anti-numbers...I believe the point that Paul was making is that he should be taken care of and housed and fed and have his needs met, just like all of us. It should not be about our degrees or anything else...God's love commandment is to take care of one another. Paul's wisdom was such that, if he thought asking for others to take care of him, in any way damaged his testimony, of the gospel, then he would not ask for anything, but did tell them later that they should know to do it. Our love for those who bring us the good news should be the deciding factor with how we treat others.

seekr

[nerdneh]

Maurine, what a wonderful answer, yes, that is it in a nutshell. The Golden Rule should prevail not the rule of Gold.
Doesn't Paul say something like; "If I have served you in spiritual matters, why should you not serve me in material matters?"

On older preachers; Since I qualify by age, and also teach speech at the University of North Alabama (Adjunct Faculty), I can attest that age has little to do with style when the preacher is concerned to communicate the Word in a loving manner. Some of the crustiest sermons I have heard have come from relatively younger speakers, and some of the most enlightened have come from older speakers. It's just the whole stereotype about being older means being seen as some sort of antiquated relic, but that is a peculiar American curse. In other cultures age and experience are valued.

[Son of a Preacher Man]

[!--QuoteBegin--][/span][table border=\"0\" align=\"center\" width=\"95%\" cellpadding=\"3\" cellspacing=\"1\"][tr][td]Quote (Booty @ Jan. 21 2003,04:10)[/td][/tr][tr][td id=\"QUOTE\"][!--QuoteEBegin--]Personally, I feel I am overpaid, but I am just selfish enough to beg that you do not inform the congregation.[/quote]
That's so true

[winky]

[!--QuoteBegin--][/span][table border=\"0\" align=\"center\" width=\"95%\" cellpadding=\"3\" cellspacing=\"1\"][tr][td]Quote [/td][/tr][tr][td id=\"QUOTE\"][!--QuoteEBegin--]Preachers with the longest years of experience average lower pay than the ones with 5 yrs & under.

I wonder, does that mean the eldest are retired and dabbling in preaching?  Needing less income because of that?

Or that we don't want the crusty old styles of crusty old preachers (shame on us)?

Or that crusty old preachers are too old to adapt to modern needs (shame on them)?[/quote]

Or that the eldest started preaching during a time when pay wasn't quite as, shall we say, competitive as it is now and have just not expected/demanded that their pay go up as the years go by? Younger folks, with their spanking-new degrees expecting higher compensation than the young preachers did years ago?

Who knows.

Wendy

[janine]

Yeah.  Of the two crustiest, apparently unloving (and definitely mistaken about some doctrines) guys I know... "preachers", I guess, 'cause they found themselves in a position to preach for a while...  One of 'em is past Socia Security age, & the other was 20 when I knew him.  He can't be more than 25 now.

Both able to quote a lot of Scripture, & neither able to explain much of it.  Both eager to make converts to 'the Church of Christ' as each saw it; neither holding up the Christ first, but rather each his issues.

We got our licks in & studied with both when we were given opportunity, over several months' time.  I pray God it had some effect.  There was no noticeable change at the time.