● Free book · 107 pages
Pay to Thrive.
By Jon-Michael Sherman
Church staffing, pay and budgets so every ministry family can thrive. For lead pastors, executive pastors and the boards who set their pay.
- Find your church’s thriving number from MIT’s living wage for your county
- Pay fewer, better people: stop stipending doers and hire a multiplier first
- A growth budget with a real line for retirement, and a 12-month plan
The crisis
Church pay is breaking the leadership pipeline at both ends.
Prices have outrun both church giving and pastors’ pay. Gifted young leaders do the math and choose another career. Older pastors stay in the pulpit because they can’t afford to leave.
The best young leaders aren’t coming.
- $38,650what a first-year youth pastor earns, against $50,117 a single adult in Florida needs for basics alone
- 13%of Protestant senior pastors are 40 or younger. In 1992 it was a third.
- 131stof 137 college majors: where theology ranks in lifetime earnings
Faithful pastors can’t afford to step down.
- 36%of retired and retirement-age pastors have less than $100,000 saved
- $4,000a year: what $100,000 provides at a typical 4% withdrawal rate
- 48%of ministers under 55 have less than $5,000 in savings outside retirement
Here’s the good news: it’s solvable, usually with the budget you already have. This book shows how.
Inside the book
The crisis, the standard, and the way there.
Six parts, 35 chapters and 19 charts, with a worksheet, a board script, a scorecard and answers to the questions pastors ask most.
Part 1The crisis, and why it’s solvable
- 1The reality check: typical pay vs. what a family needs
- 2The squeeze: flat wages, flat giving, rising costs
- 3Can a pastor still buy a home?
- 4The career math: starting pay, debt, lifetime earnings and retirement
- 5The federal earnings test: a deadline for the whole pipeline
- 6Why your youth pastor has a side hustle
- 7Why young leaders pick the microphone over the pulpit
- 8The headwinds facing young men called to ministry
- 9The world young men are looking at
Part 2What Scripture and history say about paying pastors
- 10The Levitical pattern: God provides for those who serve his house
- 11The laborer’s wage, and the right Paul waived
- 12Double honor
- 13What the early church did
- 14The guardrails: neither poverty nor prosperity gospel
- 15This has happened before
Part 3The new standard
- 16The new standard: every staff family thriving
- 17Cost of living by region: the new floor
- 18Building the package: the whole number, not just the salary
- 19Worksheet: find your number
- 20What to pay each role
Part 4Three steps to get there
- 21Step 1: Lead pastor, are you thriving?
- 22Step 2: Get your staff to thriving with the budget you have
- 23Stop stipending doers. Pay the multipliers.
- 24The multiplication pastor: the role every church needs next
- 25Step 3: Be the place excellent people want to work
- 26Hiring discipline: an open seat beats a wrong hire
- 27Your first hire: when, and who
- 28If your church is under 100 people
Part 5Budget for growth
- 29Growth budgets vs. stagnant budgets
- 30The missing line in most church budgets: retirement
- 31Find the leaks: zero-based budgeting and a church-first mindset
Part 6Big moves, starting now
- 32Ten big moves for the next 12 months
- 33This will feel impossible. Start anyway.
- 34The courage to have the hard conversations
- 35Scorecard: is your church paying to thrive?
Fewer staff, far more ministry
One staff member plus Engage does the work of two or three.
Much of what churches hire extra staff for is coordination: following up with guests, getting care requests and email to the right pastor, covering volunteer declines. Engage connects to your tools, like Planning Center, surfaces who needs a call and tees up the ask, so a smaller, well-paid team can do far more ministry. Your team still makes the calls.
See Engage →
Also free: Breaking Growth Barriers →
Free book · 107 pages
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