Happy New Year! Let’s talk about money.
22 states increased their minimum wage effective January 1, 2024. Sadly my own state of North Carolina continues to require only the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.
In the Presbytery I serve, we now require a minimum for churches to pay their contracted pastors after learning that some of our pastors were being paid the same hourly wage as a starting employee at Subway. For the record, our required minimum salary per hour is now $23.00 for urban and suburban congregations and $20.00 for rural congregations. Still it’s less than the U.S. average hourly pay of $34.10 for office work. The average retail hourly wage is $23.85. Both of these stats are based on The Bureau of Labor Statistics.
And here’s the thing: if a church cannot pay their part-time pastor $23.00/hour for 20 hours/week of work, they will contract for their pastor to work only “10 hours/week” knowing full well that more than 10 hours of work will be required. Often it’s the pastor who agrees to this, knowing that the church cannot afford to cover more hours or pay more per hour. But the pastor is willing.
The problem is that this choice – to pay for only 10 hours of professional ministry per week while getting many more hours of service – is a decision to close that church eventually. It will be impossible after the underpaid pastor leaves/retires/dies to find another pastor willing to serve those same hours with that same hourly wage. (Another post is coming this week on choices we make that unwittingly close our churches.)
Catherine Neelly Burton has written an important article – The Future of the PC(USA) is Pastor-Less, and That’s OK for The Presbyterian Outlook – and she makes excellent points. In my own experience I’ve found that equipped church leaders who haven’t gone to seminary can be especially adept at pastoral care and mission responsibilities in their congregations.
(Note: we don’t have “lay leaders” in the PCUSA since all baptized believers are considered part of the priesthood even though many Presbyterians continue to use that term. It’s not found anywhere in our Constitution.)
I’ve personally found that church leaders without strong Biblical and Theological training can perpetuate erroneous interpretation of Scripture (which can also be true for seminary trained leaders.) I’ve heard untrained leaders preach that the Curse of Ham is true, that Sodom and Gomorrah is about sex, and that the lesson in the Mary and Martha story is that some of us are supposed to be busy bees and some of us aren’t. Preachers without theological and exegetical training can mess with vulnerable people in that they are assumed to be authoritative when they are sharing long-disproven myths – like calling Mary Magdalene a prostitute. There’s nothing in Scripture that identifies Mary Magdalene as a prostitute.
Again, I know many seminary-trained leaders who have also perpetuated those myths. I’m a big fan of preachers being able to study the Bible in Hebrew and Greek in preparing a sermon. This is still a requirement in my denomination.
The truth is that Catherine Neelly Burton is right. The truth is that churches which cannot afford a pastor still deserve strong leadership. The truth is that congregational giving trends continue to fluctuate depending on many factors. The truth is that Jesus Christ will always have a Church. How we will pay for it financially will continue to vary in the future.
Check out Mark Elsden’s new book Gone for Good for more ideas.
A Church for Starving Artists 