Featured Salary for Pastor

That's good stuff there. You drive your point well.


I'm convinced that as soon as the pastor is putting in more time than other people who don't get paid, then he's worthy of a salary.

How many teach Sunday School, lead ministry, discipleship, and plenty of other stuff that takes up just as much time as a pastor spends, and aren't compensated ?

I know the part about muzzling the ox, but it seems to be expected that non-pastors are, in many churches, expected to put in double time for free, while the pastor surfs the web all day on discussion forums and browsing "ministry notes"


And even if the pastor puts in a 40 hour week, he shouldn't be compensated beyond the average amount of hours some of those others are involved.

I went to Lifeway Sunday School training two years in a row, and I believe their recommended time planning, studying, praying, etc for each lesson should be about 15 hours a week.

Fair enough. So if the pastor puts in 40, he should do the first 15 for nothing, just like all the SS teachers. Then the pastor should be paid on the remaining 25 hours per week

That's about 1200 hours a year. So what's it worth by the hour?
$15 ?
$40 ?
$85 ?

There was (maybe is) a pastor here in the KC metro area getting about $450,000 per year.
Good grief, that's about $375 per hour, or probably 10 times the average income in that church

 

Maybe he's worth it?

Maybe he needs it.

If he did something amazing years ago and this is his reward.

Maybe they just really like him?

Maybe the last one was so bad that they find one that isn't is worth the money to keep.

Maybe he chose cash instead of other benefits that normally would be offered, because he didn't need those benefits or preferred cash.

Maybe he has a sick parent and the church is helping him afford the care via his salary.


Do you know the reasoning?

 

It is customary and normal within our Capitalistic society that if you offer a product or service and someone is willing to pay your asking price then all parties are satisfied.

If a church is willing to pay a certain price for a service and someone accepts their offer..., what's the problem?

 

padre mio ! you're kidding, right ? :love2:

 

Being now Primitive Baptist I don't hold to Sunday Schools anymore, nor missions geared towards "saving souls for Christ" in the eternal sense. However, as a Baptist I still hold to the autonomy of the local church, that is, each NT church has the right to determine how they will run themselves, doctrinally, financially, and spiritually, that is also because I do not hold to what other PB's hold on to that only the PB church is of true NT substance (the Brethren over at England say that, too, and so do most other churches), the point being that Christ knows those who are His, we don't, and those He do know He will discipline and straighten out as He sees fit.

Having grunted out all these, I have heard rather bizarre teachings on "giving", along the line of what was said by one poster: give till it hurts. One teaching I heard, while I was with the Bible Baptist Fellowship churches was "take out the biggest bill you got in your wallet right now, put it in the offering plate, and before our next meeting I guarantee you God will give it back double portion to you in cash or kind. and if he doesn't I will".

Whew.

When I pastored a church in a depressed area back of Metro Manila in the Philippines back in '92-95 I'd oftentimes hear pastors during fellowship meetings brag about how their congregation raised this or that amount to (1) erect a new baptistery, (2) extend the sunday school building, (3) buy them a car or pay for their kids' schooling, et., etc., along with how many souls were saved last Sunday, how many were baptized, etc., etc.

I remember thinking to myself "how would Paul react if he were here hearing all these crap" (apologies for the word).

Bottom line is I think there are a lot of practices out there as well as 'strange fire' concerning giving that emanated from a need to sustain a full-time pastorate as well as prove one's calling to the ministry.

I'm now a Primitive Baptist and sometimes when invited to preach in churches what I am given is barely able to cover what we (my wife and I) spent for gas, and when I pastored a church there was a time when the church gave me a love gift of less than a hundred dollars, but, the Lord sustained our personal needs, and the needs of that church. Boasting in the Lord while in poverty is, to me, more spiritually uplifting than boasting in luxury or sufficiency.

 

As a Baptist I believe in the autonomy of the local church. If they want to pay or not pay, that is up to them. Personally, I believe that a pastor should have a lifestyle similar to his congregation, so his compensation should be in the same range. Personally, I also believe that the church budget and income statement should be clear and available to anyone who wants to see it. Printing copies and leaving them at the church entrance are a great idea.

My ministry has always been bivocational. I never expect not to work a secular job. But then my calling is to churches who can’t afford a full time preacher. I got to preach last Sunday, you know what I got paid? Nothing. Did not expect anything, was still glad for the opportunity to preach.

Over the years I have helped many congregations as an interim pastor and helped them find a new permanent pastor. Sometimes we were faced with unrealistic expectations. You do get what you pay for. You want someone with a doctorate who is fluent in Biblical Greek and Hebrew? You want someone available on call 24-7? You want someone able to manage a church that is essentially a non profit with several million dollars in revenue and a large staff? Well then you are going to have to pay for that. Those are skills and work that is transferable to the secular workplace and deserve compensation. Likewise, if you want to pay less than full time wages, you should expect less than full time effort from your pastor. That means you share the workload, you have deacons on call, you don’t expect 24-7 response to deaths or sickness.

Again, all of this is an issue to be settled between the church and the potential pastor.

 

ROFL .... and you don't know the answer to that....Ohhhhhhh too funny.

...and what's so funny about that, may I ask?

Should you want to pay a hundred bucks for an oil change while I pay thirty..., what's the problem? Obviously, you would have more money than I do.

 

You must have missed the last line....

22 years in ministry and been bi-vocational for all but the first seven. I do have a weakness for Cadillacs, though. Mine's 21 years old and I drove it 100 miles in a snowstorm today getting to the paying job. I have no unmet needs, a wife that loves me (34 years and counting) and a grandson that thinks PopPop is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Not much money but I'm the richest man I know.

 

You don't pay a man for the hours he puts in anyway. You pay him for the job he does.

If a plumber can plumb the new house in 10 hours whereas it might take most plumbers 40 hours to do the same work, he doesn't get a pay cut for his efficiency.

A pastor, if he is a good one, can do what no member of the church can do. He has a vision for the church (once again- if he is a good one) that far exceeds any other member. He has a passion for it. He spends day and night, night and day strategizing, planning, praying and pushing that vision.

If he is moving the church forward he is worth more than his weight in gold.

Then he has to live in a glass house unlike any other profession on earth. he is held to a stupidly ridiculous standard and so are his wife and children.

Most churches have their fair share of absolute morons he has to deal with who criticize him constantly because they are too stupid to understand his value.

He deals with Pharisees who are pompous, loud mouthed crucifiers of men who challenge stupid traditions.

He is paid, not just for what he does but for what he and his family have to put up with.

He is usually (or ought to be) the best or one of the best educated people in the church.

If other people could do what he does they'd do it. The reason HE is doing it is because they can't.

So he is paid not just for what he does and for what he puts up with but for what he IS.

Spurgeon was asked by a young reporter, "Mr. Spurgeon, you are the Prince of Preachers- how long do you spend preparing sermons?"

Spurgeon responded, "I spend a great deal more time preparing Spurgeon."

That is worth more than you may ever know.

It takes a super, extraordinary man to build an organization of volunteers and take those volunteers and lead them to do hard work for no pay and little recognition for which they are certain to get criticism and be seen as weird and keep the different personalities together in spite of the fact that they don't HAVE to stay together through all of the conflicts since their livelihoods don't depend on this work. To save marriages, break cycles of destruction in people's lives... To get people to sacrifice time, treasures, talents and reputations for an invisible Kingdom and promise them that it is an investment that they will receive recompense on after they die in an invisible place which no living person has ever seen.

To do all of this while being the constant target of criticism and also having one's family live under such ridiculous amounts of stress.

You can't PAY a man enough to do what a good pastor does. A million dollars an hour is not enough.

 

That depends if you want to take a worldly or scriptural approach to your outcome

If you want to go that route, it would be an abuse of labor laws to expect 20 people to each work 15 hours a week to help that plumber get everything done, then not pay them too. One plumber gets all the money, while everybody who helped him is eating dirt?

The analogy fails

He's simply a member of One Body, with different gifts, and a different calling from anyone else in the church. He's not "special", he's called by God to be a different body part and do his part.

If you didn't put the guy on a pedestal, and think of how great and valuable he is, maybe people wouldn't hold him to such an unreasonable standard

Also, if that attitude carries on for too long, maybe he needs to work more on the unity of the flock, and less on planning a "vision" for the "organization"

See above, and think of how the apostle Paul handled criticism. By asking for a ton of money for his hassle? ok

Maybe. maybe not. I don't think I've seen anywhere that "education" is equivalent to a men being equipped by God for a purpose. You're thinking worldly again, not scriptural

Worldly again. God is the one who calls, and many times the guy who CAN'T is the one that God calls. You think God wants a bunch of little chiefs running around down here?

See above

That should be EVERY believer's goal, not just the pastor's.

Worldly again. I see no scriptural basis for treating the church as an organization.
And, you just confirmed my rebuttal to your second piece on the plumber. In your estimation, the pastor is assembling a team of volunteers, and browbeating them into free labor, all the while promising heavenly blessings, as he enjoys the benefits of a six figure compensation package. Nice way to portray him

Good stuff. I'm sure everybody's proud of you now

 

He has. Indeed. :godisgood:

 

Just get this phrase rolling through my head as I read this thread "Jealous much?"