Editor’s note: Author Mark Dance served as a pastor for 27 years and is now Director of Pastoral Wellness for Guidestone Financial Resources, an organization dedicated to enhance financial security and resilience for pastors and others who serve the Lord.
When a church or ministry asks you to consider serving vocationally, they assume responsibility for your nuclear family just as you accept responsibility for their faith family. Negotiating toward this agreement means you may need to cast a clear vision for a fair but generous salary that provides for and protects your family.
Whether during an interview process with a pastor search team or later with a committee, team, or board, advocating for your salary and benefits will always be a little awkward. Although it may feel self-serving, we fulfill our call by accepting the responsibility to manage our lives, family, and ministry.
“If anyone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of God’s church? (1 Timothy 3:5 CSB)
Here are five practical tips for negotiating your salary with search teams and personnel committees:
1. Do your homework
When you’re talking with a search committee, don’t hesitate to negotiate your compensation.
Benchmark your community. Consider other pastors of similar-sized churches or other professionals in the community with similar educations, credentials, and responsibilities as you determine an appropriate salary and benefits package.
GuideStone can help you with your homework by using these two free resources:
- 2022 SBC Church Compensation Survey results. Determine what similarly situated churches provide in salary and benefits for their staff.
- The Compensation Planning Guide workbook will help you develop a solid budgeting plan for the benefit of your church and staff.
2. Do their homework for them
You and your spouse should take the time to prepare a family budget before your candidate interviews get too serious. My wife Janet and I did this at 26 and came prepared for the pastor search team interview. When they presented their budget with my salary, I told them they were a few thousand dollars short of what my family needed to move forward. They didn’t hesitate to level it up, making me wonder if I was too timid!
If you are afraid of scaring them off, how can you be honest in your interviews? As you do your homework, they are likely doing their homework as well. Be careful not to talk down to them or be offended if they do not come to the same conclusions you do.
An important consideration: Churches are often notorious for offering prospective pastors a “Package Plan,” which you need to reject. This is a lump sum for all the pastor’s personal and ministry needs. This short-sighted plan leaves the pastor to determine how much to apply for housing, retirement, insurance, expenses, and take-home pay. This is a shortcut that hurts the pastor without helping the church. When a church sets aside an amount of money to pay the pastor and then tasks the pastor with delegating money for housing, insurance, retirement contributions, SECA taxes, and more, they are inadvertently distorting what the pastor earns to provide for his family and forcing him to pay taxes for something that is not his salary.
The better approach is a Salary & Benefits Plan. The church contributes directly to a pastor’s retirement and insurance (medical, life, or disability). It also sets money aside for a minister’s housing allowance for tax purposes. This type of plan makes a SECA offset available to help pastors who must pay the employee and employer part of Social Security. The cash salary is calculated but separately from the benefits. This is normal, legal, and fiscally responsible.
The church could pay the same total amount in both the Package Approach and the Salary & Benefits Approach, but the full package amount is taxable for the minister. In contrast, only the cash salary is taxable in the compensation plan.
Learn why Guidestone recommends the Salary & Benefits Approach versus a Package Approach for ministers.
3. Be grateful
Never forget that you are not only called by God but also by His people. The church is seriously considering asking you to love and lead them, plus it will pay you voluntarily out of its own pockets. I am not suggesting that they own you or that you owe them, but you don’t want to come across as an entitled brat.
“I gave thanks for Christ Jesus our Lord who has strengthened me, because he considered me faithful, appointing me to the ministry.” (1 Timothy 1:12 CSB)
4. Be teachable
As a pastor, you will likely be the most RESPONSIBLE person in the room. However, you will probably not be the most COMPETENT person in the room. This is typical, biblical, and affirms the interdependent nature of the body of Christ.
Nobody expects you to be competent in everyone’s profession. God has called you to be a pastor, not a treasurer, auditor, or CPA. Leading responsibly means listening to gifted people inside and outside your church, then taking responsibility for the outcome.
5. Cast a compelling vision
Financial independence is something laypeople will respect and support. You are not asking for an opulent lifestyle, nor should you, because a pastor will never live above his congregation.
“Shepherd God’s flock among you, not overseeing out of compulsion but willingly, as God would have you; not out of greed for money but eagerly.” (1 Peter 5:2 CSB)
