How much should you pay your church’s pastor? Youth minister? Worship leader?
Every other year, GuideStone Financial Resources, in cooperation with Baptist state conventions and LifeWay Research, conduct the SBC Church Compensation Survey. The 10-minute online survey examines the pay, benefits, tenure and education of different church staff positions. It also considers the annual budget, resident membership, Bible study/worship attendance and location of the church.
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Once those figures are tabulated, LifeWay Research makes available the results. Through a reporting tool churches can create custom reports of average pay and benefits for various positions at churches of similar size or in similar geographic areas. (To see the reports from the 2008 survey, visit LifeWay’s website).
Survey results benefit each participating church by providing an accurate baseline of compensation among similar-sized churches in their state convention. Customized reports allow administrators, personnel/finance committees and minister search teams to better determine adequate compensation for ministers and staff. Accordingly, a higher number of survey participants leads to a more accurate baseline of compensation.
Among findings in the 2008 study:
- Compensation for full-time office personnel and custodial staff increased by 9.55% and 9.22% respectively.
- Southern Baptist churches partially or fully pay for their senior pastor’s medical insurance 65% of the time. Research also showed 38% of pastors have life or accident insurance partially or fully paid by the church, 32% have disability coverage, 27% have dental insurance and 12% have vision insurance.
Southern Baptist church ministers and staff can complete the survey through May 15 by visiting the survey website. The survey’s results, along with the ability to create customizable reports, will be available later this summer.