Recent Lifeway Research data on pastor compensation decries stagnant wages and how fewer and fewer churches pay their staff’s health insurance. I sympathize with my working brethren on both of these. I haven’t gotten a regular check from a church since I retired in 2011.
If I were the senior pastor of a church the size of the one from which I retired all those years ago I would have a pay package not much more than I was making when I retired. That’s stagnation indeed. My life eased considerably once I hit Medicare age a decade ago and I appreciate my kids paying my medical bills these days by working. Medicare is great for old folks but can’t be great forever. It’s the big federal budget wrecker.
To get to a compensation package of six figures in a Southern Baptist Church you need to be at a church attendance size of 150 and above in my state. If you have 25+ years of experience and a church of 150, the median church would put you at well above $100k per year.
Get to a church of 1,000+ in attendance and you’re above a quarter million dollars a year. Go for the big church, brethren, if you want to get paid. At a church that size you don’t even have to tell the congregation what you make. None of their business. They just give online and you spend it.
All these nuggets to say that the average senior pastor guy out there, the one in an average sized church, the one who has 15 or so years of experience – that guy works hard, has little staff support and makes less than an experienced nurse does in Georgia.
We can’t all be megapastors with megapaychecks, brethren. Your treasure is in heaven, not in your automatic pay deposit receipts.
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This is Lifeway Research Compensation Tool. I have always thought that the tool OVER estimates pastor compensation.
