Padre Complex

If you are a clergy person then you struggle with this question often.

No one got in to ministry to get rich. But all of us need to pay bills, provide for our families and pay off our student loans.

In 2003 ‘Pulpit and Pew’ research group out of Duke University released a study discussing the various issues related to clergy salary issues. The study had some good words for churches and for pastors.

Such approaches leave clergy financially vulnerable, change ministry from a “calling” to a “career,” encourage congregations to grow for purely economic reasons and make it more difficult for pastors to offer leadership that challenges and transforms congregations, concluded the study’s authors. The study is part of the ongoing Pulpit & Pew research project on pastoral leadership based at Duke Divinity School.

“We’re not saying that churches necessarily need to run out tomorrow and pay their clergy more, although that may be the case,” said Becky McMillan, a labor economist, co-author of the study and associate director of Pulpit & Pew. “But it is time for them to step back and think purposefully about how they’re paying their pastors and why.”

Low clergy salaries make it difficult for pastors to be true to their calling, the study contends. And this lack of income is causing many talented seminary graduates to enter other professions or other forms of ministry.

The issue of clergy salaries is, at its core, as much about how congregations view their pastors as it is about money, McMillan said.

I was impressed to find that since 2001 the Denominational Average Compensation (DAC) for the United Methodist church has grown just over 24% from 42,230 to 54,081 (2007 DAC).

Of course the study reminds us that denominations that are connectional have better pay than congregational denominations. But I was surprised in a gathering of clergy to hear one minister say that he has yet to receive a cost of living adjustment in the six years he has served one church. In the same gathering another minister said that every year he receives an adjustment and has never argued for it yet.

One of the common arguments that churches are making about compensation is that use of averages are deceptive. The same has been said about corporate executive pay. Since no organization wants to pay their executive below average compensation for their industry - everyone adjusts their pay to be in the top half of a distribution. But if everyone sets compensation based upon everyone else and no one thinks through a rational argument for compensation then at some point the drive to ‘keep up with the Joneses’ outstrips what the market or environment can bear. Corporate executive pay is not as sensitive - but churches are very sensitive to compensation demands.

I serve an average size church outside of Houston, TX. I have an average attendance of 65, a budget of 120K, and a membership of 220. But among my peers I am in the 60th percentile (down from 39th last year) meaning that more than half of my colleagues (those ordained within one year of me) make more than I do. One comparison would be correlating membership with pay. Among my colleagues the ten top paid have an average of 305 members and are compensated on average 72K. As a side note - that is roughly 240 dollars per member. (But can you really trust UMC membership rolls?)

So how much should you pay the preacher?

I am an iPod addict. I especially enjoy using it to listen to good theology. Here are a few of the voices I’ll be listening to this month.

Stanley Hauerwas: Lecture at 2003 Emergent Conference in Atlanta.

N.T. Wright: Interview with Jerry Bowyer.

L. Gregory Jones - “Is Grace Sufficient?” - A sermon at Duke Chapel.

Bono - The Rolling Stone Interview .

Enjoy.

For Monty Python fans:

Consider including this dialogue (or projecting the clip) from the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail, from the “constitutional peasant” scene:

ARTHUR: I am your king!

WOMAN: Well, I didn’t vote for you.

ARTHUR: You don’t vote for kings.

WOMAN: Well, ’ow did you become king then?

ARTHUR: The Lady of the Lake, [angels sing] her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water signifying by Divine Providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. [singing stops] That is why I am your king!

DENNIS: Listen — strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.

And for those of the Wesleyan (Methodist) persuasion:

“The Gospel of Christ knows no religion but social, no holiness but social holiness.
You cannot be holy except as you are engaged in making the world a better place. You do not become holy by keeping yourself pure and clean from the world but by plunging into ministry on behalf of the world’s hurting ones.” - John Wesley

Wouldn’t we agree that by voting we are choosing to make the world a better place? And in the terms of Monty Python - that is something to base a system of government on — our desire to love God by making the world better for our neighbors.