About 14,000 SBC staff did so in the 2016 LifeWay/GuideStone Compensation Study. Take a look at the summary chart. If you as a full time senior pastor had an annual pay package less than $76,492 you were below the SBC average. But don’t get depressed about that. You’re not in it for the money right?
My opinion after following this biennial study (it’s done in even-numbered years) is that it yields numbers that are probably a bit higher than the actual SBC-wide averages and this because most responding churches are larger. Every time I write a piece on the Compensation Study commenters complain that the numbers look a lot higher than their compensation.
Take the 2018 survey. You could win an iPad. If there is just one iPad to be given away (and that’s kinda cheap and shabby, GuideStone and LifeWay, who should give us all an iPad) your odds of winning it are about 1 in 14,000. Beats the lottery odds but SBC clergy aren’t supposed to play that.
Seriously, this is one of the best things LifeWay and GuideStone do. The more responses the better the data. Do it.
Here are a few random nuggets from the 2016 Compensation Study:
- Somewhere in the SBC there is a church of 25-49 people (Sunday attendance) whose pastor is paid $123,525. Give ’em my resume, please.
- There’s a church with over 1,000 membership that pays it’s pastor $26,000. Let me guess, serious membership roll-cleaning needed here.
- There’s a church with a budget between $75,001-$100,000 whose pastor’s total pay package is $134,735. What? Got a huge trust fund? Oil well on church lawn?
- The lowest paid position for non-senior pastor staff is a music/youth combination. Go figure. You ask someone to do both, practically impossible, and pay ’em less.
Not to worry. All answers are confidential.
Take the survey.
