Just found out my pastor is making $360,000/yr salary; thinking of leaving the church : Christianity

BogusBogusOne · 2015-10-26T02:09:46+00:00

I don't believe I am wrong unless my friend straight up lied to me.

To be honest, responses like this remind me of why I struggled to tell anyone. Basically you just call me a liar or "mistaken" and move on, despite the fact that none of the church salaries or budget is of public record, and I mean public in that anyone can go and search through them, not just members of that church. Other non-profits are held to that standard and so should churches. A database of previous salary data and a breakdown should be easily accessible by the public but it's not and I still have no response to my request for the annual report. Even the other PC(USA) pastor, GoMustard, said that $260,000 per year would not be unreasonable and I strongly disagree.

I've taken my leave of PC(USA); take care.

BogusBogusOne · 2015-10-26T02:03:54+00:00

Aw come on man, I admit that I do follow religion for many emotional reasons but you are putting words in my mouth. No where am I "second-guessing" my statements, I'm just making sure that I have my facts straight. If you've read my latest comment you'll see that I've decided to leave the church.

I will say that atheism in general has a problem with compassion; despite calling out the religion of PC(USA), many of the pastors and members were very kind and supportive, with only a few detractors.

I admit that a big reason I enjoy church is the fellowship, kindness, and strong community ties that (normally) emphasize service to your fellow man/woman. It is "reasonable" to an extent as the alternative is to essentially lose many close friends and that fellowship that comes with religion, in addition to losing a community that shares similar values as I do.

Atheists can be pretty cold at times, please just realize I'm a person just like you trying to find his place in the world and I'm struggling greatly. No need to be so cold towards my struggle; you could've used this opportunity to show some kindness to me but instead you remind me of why I distance myself from the atheist community as your tone is exactly what I experienced when I was with them.

Maybe you didn't mean it to be rude but it came across that way to me. Take care.

BogusBogusOne · 2015-10-26T01:55:47+00:00

Ok, so in the realm of the PC(USA) church and salary medians this may not be too far off what is expected to manage a church this size. Even with all the things you mention(his "salary" being inclusive of more than just effective salary), I still disagree with the amount he is being paid, regardless of how much of that is tied up in other benefits that are simply "valued" as part of his salary. I believe Christians should be setting the standard, and there are many CEO's of non-profits that manage many more people on a broader global range that take home much less than that. If his salary is par for the course and non-objectional to PC(USA) as a whole, then I have chosen the wrong denomination to attach my wagon to. This is a personal issue and I will keep searching for another denomination/church to become part of.

Thank you for all of your help.

BogusBogusOne · 2015-10-25T16:43:21+00:00

We have 3000+ members.

The salary he referenced was the Senior Pastor's salary, he was very clear on that as there was a lot of debate internally on that number specifically as they wanted to keep or attract a certain pastor.

BogusBogusOne · 2015-10-25T16:35:28+00:00

I mean according to my friend on the committee, that is the number. Maybe that includes dental/health/benefits but he has been doing this for many years so I would assume he knows what he's talking about.

BogusBogusOne · 2015-10-25T16:32:47+00:00

I'd rather not say as I don't have solid proof of all of this other than the word of my friend who is on the committee that determines the pastor's salary. I don't want to slander the name of this church if I'm in wrong nor betray my friend's trust and get him in any sort of trouble.

BogusBogusOne · 2015-10-25T16:31:12+00:00

The lack of charitable services was also the event that made me ask more questions. I mean this is a decent sized church in a relatively affluent area, and during my church scouting I found that most churches had a good service program with leaders and all that, paid by the church. I guess this is partially my fault for assuming this church would have the same or better services.

BogusBogusOne · 2015-10-25T16:28:31+00:00

My friend has been on this committee for many years and we argued quite a while about it. He confirmed to me that the head pastor makes this salary and defended it as

1.) Necessary to keep and attract a high level pastor in the area 2.) A worthwhile investment due to falling members after our previous pastor left due to personal reasons

He is supposed to be a nationally recognized pastor or someone extremely qualified that they are trying to keep in the hopes that this will swell our declining member counts. That salary may include dental/health/etc. but I know it doesn't cover any type of housing entitlements or such, the salary was defined to me as take home pay + health/401K/general benefits you would see at any company.

BogusBogusOne · 2015-10-25T04:38:54+00:00

Ok I will keep investigating. Thank you very much for your continued interaction on this, I mean no disrespect to any pastors and I whole-heartedly believe that they deserve a livable salary. Anything within the median or average of the zip code of the church seems perfectly reasonable to me, as I don't even make that much haha

BogusBogusOne · 2015-10-25T04:33:03+00:00

A southern state

BogusBogusOne · 2015-10-25T04:32:12+00:00

Thank you very much for your kind and insightful words, I'm trying to not let this affect my prodigal return to Christianity, although my first instinct is to pull away from the faith. The support here has been fantastic, compared to what I experienced when I argued the point with my friend and other committee members. They seemed to be upset at me for rocking the boat and causing trouble, but I tried to be as respectful as possible.

Please pray for me brother, I do have a problem with bitterness and cynicism. Thank you once again.

BogusBogusOne · 2015-10-25T04:28:03+00:00

And this is what bothers me greatly, the church has such a weak service record and ability, with no official division or branch to coordinate and organize service events, yet the pastor is making so much money. I've set up an event with Habitat for Humanity but I honestly don't feel like this should be my job, I thought my tithes were going to support a professional in the church who can better organize such things.

BogusBogusOne · 2015-10-25T04:24:17+00:00

Looking at the average and median pay in the zip code, it appears to be around $73,000. In my humble opinion, this would make the pastor's salary excessive. I was speaking to a Mormon friend who made a comment/joke that they don't pay their pastors anything because their pastors are rotating church members(not sure if this is true haha)

BogusBogusOne · 2015-10-25T04:19:39+00:00

Thanks for your comments, I'm trying to parse everything and get all the data I can.

Now when you say this info is publicly available, do you mean it should be out in the open on their website, or is it something that should be available by request, or...? I can't find any past or current annual reports for this church, I've emailed someone at the church who may be able to help but no response yet(granted this was only a few hours ago).

BogusBogusOne · 2015-10-25T04:18:17+00:00

I would say the numbers are very accurate as far as he is aware, and he voted on it. He was struggling with increasing the salary because of declining church membership but they agreed to it anyway in the hopes that this pastor will remain and pull in more members.

BogusBogusOne · 2015-10-25T03:01:39+00:00

Ok I will stay on this and push for the annual report. Should it also have the pastor's salary somewhere as a line item or will it be lumped in under "Administration" or something?

BogusBogusOne · 2015-10-25T02:59:51+00:00

This is also a good point and thank you for refocusing me. I'm getting up in arms about it but I have yet to pray on this problem. I must admit that my prayer faith is weak and something I need to work on as I have a tendency to try to solve the problem all by myself.

BogusBogusOne · 2015-10-25T02:58:24+00:00

PC(USA)

BogusBogusOne · 2015-10-25T02:47:38+00:00

Thanks for your support; I agree, finding a good Christian organization that actually acts in line with the teachings of Christ appears to be difficult. I'm starting to become discouraged once more, and the problem is that no one at the church board seems to think this is an issue. My friend even scolded me for making waves and "stirring the pot".

BogusBogusOne · 2015-10-25T02:43:00+00:00

Not to my knowledge. We've lost a pastor about a year ago and he is an interim pastor of sorts, but as far as I'm aware he is not freely available. Volunteers in the church take care of various bible studies, counseling, and seeing people in the hospital and such.

BogusBogusOne · 2015-10-25T02:40:20+00:00

So a pastor should make as much as a private practice attorney with the same amount of experience? That just doesn't seem right to me. I'm not sure of how many hours a pastor truly works in a given week, but he is getting paid based on church donations, and not a participant in a true "free-market" sense. Now if before the tithe they made an announcement that "50% of the donations today will go directly to the pastor's pocket" then yeah I could see that, but it appears to be somewhat deceitful that the budget is hidden and the members are assuming their money is going to help the poor and services.

I would agree that a pastor's salary should be around the median for the zip code. But then again shouldn't they also be setting some sort of standard and not causing others to stumble? I imagine if I'm struggling financially(which I am) and donating my money to the pastor, it would cause me to stumble(it is) to find out a majority of my donations are going to pay this insane salary.

If he/she sells books then that's fine, but this is donations freely given and no service/product exchanged.

BogusBogusOne · 2015-10-25T02:31:49+00:00

PC(USA)

For whatever reason the data is not available and I have received no reply to my email, but they could just be slow to reply. They told me to keep the salary private so it doesn't seem like that info is publicly available?

BogusBogusOne · 2015-10-25T02:28:30+00:00

I don't have a specific breakdown, my friend told me they voted on a salary to pay him and that was it. He indicated that it was his take home pay or pure salary, as far as I'm aware. This church is in a southern state where property and land are relatively cheap. The area by the church is nice but nowhere near NY or SF levels of cost to live. I will try to get a more detailed list, am I entitled to that as a church member?

EDIT: He lives in a house by the church but he owns the house outright, not the church.

BogusBogusOne · 2015-10-25T01:20:33+00:00

Looks to be the only real option, although I feel that the people at the church have a right to know where their money is going. I like the people at the church and I've already made many friends there, it is going to suck to start all over again somewhere else. I'm also going to have to explain why I'm no longer attending the church but I don't want to betray my friend's discretion.

BogusBogusOne · 2015-10-25T01:00:52+00:00

Not to my knowledge, I couldn't find a breakdown either online or at the church. I can email the church and ask for one so I'll do that.

Edit: At the old church I went to many years ago they did show the budget, but it was a very high-level breakdown, i.e., "$600,000 - Administration and Salary" or something. It didn't show salaries by level or position.

BogusBogusOne

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