Never surprise your board. Take the plan to the chair privately first, then keep the board meeting short: start with the mission, show the numbers, make the ask. The plan itself should be simple enough to say in one breath: fewer people, paid well, and a protected line that funds growth.
The plan you’re actually bringing
Most budget meetings are about last year’s numbers plus a little. This one is different. You’re walking in with a plan to pay fewer people well and fund growth, and that sounds radical until the board sees it on one page.
It helps to know there are really three conversations behind this meeting, and most pastors put them off for years:
- The conversation about you. Advocating for the lead pastor’s pay isn’t selfish. If he stays underpaid, every role under him stays underpaid, and his family carries the cost.
- The conversation about the budget. Build it with the lead pastor at a thriving level, staff capped at a healthy share, and a protected line for growth. Then defend it.
- The conversation with your team. Condense roles. Let go of the wrong fits generously and honestly. Raise the right people to a thriving level, and roll with a smaller team of better people.
The board meeting is the second one. But it goes better when the first has already happened, because the lead pastor’s salary is the ceiling a board prices every other role against.
Show them the growth budget
A stagnant budget is one where people and buildings eat almost everything, leaving nothing to reach new people. A growth budget funds staff well, holds facilities in check, and protects a real line for marketing, outreach and recruiting. Put the two side by side.
| Category | Stagnant budget (common pattern) | Growth budget (Pastor Center target) |
|---|---|---|
| How the budget is set | This year’s hoped-for giving | Last year’s actual giving |
| Staff salaries + benefits | 60–70% (many staff, underpaid) | 45–50% (fewer staff, paid to thrive) |
| Facilities + operations | 25–30% | 20% or less |
| Ministry programs | 5% | 10% |
| Growth: marketing, outreach, guest experience, recruiting | 0–1% | 10% |
| Missions + generosity | 3–5% | 10% |
| Reserves + debt | 0% reserves; carrying debt | 5–10% |
The growth-budget column is our recommended target, not an industry average: a direction to move toward over 12–24 months. The common benchmark, from Vanderbloemen, puts staff at 45–55% and has no line for growth at all.
Then show the board what “fewer people, paid well” means in real dollars. The “$100,000 minimum” reaction comes from picturing everyone on staff at $100,000. That’s not the plan. At a typical small church, the shift looks like this:
| Today | Tomorrow | |
|---|---|---|
| Lead pastor | Underpaid | +$30,000 raise |
| Staff | Three “full-time” roles at $30,000 each, all below basic needs, all with side jobs | One high-capacity young leader at $60,000 (the entry band), with AI and volunteer teams doing the busywork |
| Total staff cost | $90,000 | $90,000 |
Same dollars. The lead pastor is closer to thriving, and so is everyone he leads.
Lead with this: no one loses a job
The first fear in the room will be “we need these people.” You do. So say the rule out loud before anyone asks: we won’t lay anyone off to restructure. We’ll rebuild through natural turnover.
- Freeze the old model. No new hires at a wage below basic needs, starting now.
- When someone leaves, don’t backfill. Merge the role, move the busywork to AI and volunteers, and use the freed money to pay one person well.
- Raise the people you keep. Move your best people toward the entry or career band as money frees up.
- Give it three years. Over 24 to 36 months, the org chart rebuilds itself, and no one gets hurt along the way.
Go to the chair first
Most pastors make this ask badly: in a hallway, frustrated, or as a surprise in a board meeting. Ask the chair, or your most trusted elder, for an hour before the meeting, and ask for counsel, not a decision. Bring a one-page packet with numbers anyone can check, and recommend a compensation committee so the lead pastor isn’t setting his own number. Here’s the note I’d send:
[Name], I’d like an hour with you before our next board meeting to talk about compensation, mine first and then our staff’s. I’ve put together a one-page summary using public cost-of-living data for our county and inflation since [year]. I’m not asking you to decide anything. I’d value your counsel on how to bring it to the full board. I’d also like to recommend that we use a compensation committee so I’m not setting my own number. I’m grateful to serve alongside you.
In the board meeting itself, keep it short. Start with the mission, show the numbers, make the ask. When it comes to the lead pastor’s own pay, step out of the room for the discussion and the vote.
Be ready for the pushback
| If they say | You can say |
|---|---|
| “We can’t afford it.” | “Then let’s find it together. Can we agree on the target now, and look at our staffing model and leaks to fund it over two years?” |
| “Pastors shouldn’t be in it for the money.” | “I’m not asking to get rich. I’m asking for what this job paid when you hired me, plus enough margin to save and give. Paul calls that double honor (1 Timothy 5:17–18).” |
| “What will the congregation think?” | “That’s why I’d like a committee to set it using public data. We can report total staff costs in the annual report, alongside the vision.” |
| “Your wife works.” | “Price the role, not the household. The church shouldn’t depend on my wife’s paycheck to fund its pastor.” |
| “Let’s revisit it next year.” | “Could we agree on the target and the first step tonight, and put the rest on a calendar?” |
If the double honor line comes up, have the text ready. Paul wrote, “Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially they who labour in the word and doctrine. For the scripture saith, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn. And, The labourer is worthy of his reward” (1 Timothy 5:17–18). The Greek word for honor, timē, means both honor and price, and Paul backs it with two quotations about pay. Whatever “double” means, it doesn’t mean minimal.
Ask for trust, and promise reporting
Here’s the part that’s easy to skip. Ask the board to make the approved budget the permission. A healthy church runs on high executive trust: the board approves the budget and the big decisions, then gives its leaders the freedom to spend within that budget, take smart risks and move fast. Keep strong financial controls on how money is handled, but don’t confuse controls with permission for every purchase.
Trust runs both ways, so offer the board something back:
- An outside check. Once your annual budget passes about $1 million, an independent, third-party audit every year. Below that, at least an outside review or compilation, with two counters, separated duties and dual signatures on large payments.
- An annual report built like a pitch deck. The mission and this year’s goals, the results (people saved and baptized, people added, the five growth numbers), where the money went compared with the budget, the audit result, and exactly what new giving will make possible next year.
At its best, a church board works like the board of a well-run startup: one team with annual goals, clear reporting, and a board that’s a tailwind, not a headwind.
Hand them the next 12 months
End the presentation with a plan, not just a budget. You don’t have to do all ten of these at once. Pick the first three, put a date on each, and start.
| # | The move | Who leads it | When |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Get the lead pastor to a thriving wage, with a written plan to close any gap | Lead pastor and board | Month 1–3 |
| 2 | Put a retirement plan in writing for every pastor | Board | Month 1–3 |
| 3 | Run every stipend and part-time role through the four-question decision tree | Lead pastor | Month 1–2 |
| 4 | Merge two underpaid roles into one thriving multiplier role as people move on | Lead pastor | Month 3–12 |
| 5 | Train every staff member in AI and hand the busywork to tools like Pastor Center | Ops pastor | Month 1–3 |
| 6 | Set 90-day targets for the five growth numbers and track them in Engage | Lead pastor and staff | Month 1, then every 90 days |
| 7 | Carve out a protected growth line for inbound and retention, even 3% to start | Lead pastor and board | Next budget |
| 8 | Rebuild next year’s budget from zero, including missions | Lead pastor, finance team | Next budget |
| 9 | Get an outside audit or review, and publish an annual report that pairs results with vision | Board and finance team | Month 6–12 |
| 10 | Build relationships with pastoral professors and create a career path for young leaders | Lead pastor | Month 3–12 |
From Pay to Thrive, chapter 32.
If the answer is no
Ask what would make it a yes, and ask for the target in writing even if funding takes longer. Keep serving with excellence, and set a date to revisit in six months. If it’s no again and again, that’s information. Take it to the Lord and a trusted mentor before you decide what it means.
These conversations are uncomfortable. Putting them off is worse. Every year you wait, inflation takes a little more from your staff, and the best young leaders choose another career. The one-page packet, the full board script and every chart behind this plan are in my free book Pay to Thrive. Bring it into the room. It makes the case so you don’t have to.
