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How can churches best approach payment for their pastors? On this episode of Pastors Talk, Mark Dever, Jonathan Leeman, and Jamie Dunlop discuss what the Bible says about paying pastors. They talk about realistic amounts of payment for pastors and principles that can help your church decide on a reasonable amount. They finish their conversation by advising pastors on how to approach conversations about their pay.

• What Does the Bible Say about Paying Pastors?
  
• How Much Should Pastors Be Paid?
  
• Principles for Deciding How Much to Pay a Pastor
  
• How to Address Your Pay as a Pastor

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Show Notes

Podcast ep: On How Your Budget is a Spiritual Issue (with Jamie Dunlop) | Pastors Talk, Ep. 82
Book: Budgeting for a Healthy Church, by Jamie Dunlop

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Transcript

The following is a lightly edited transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.

Jonathan Leeman:

Hi, I am Jonathan Leeman, and with me is the ever-helpful Mark Dever.

Mark Dever:

I think we should talk about paying pastors.

Jonathan Leeman:

Let me introduce this podcast first. People don’t know what it is.

Mark Dever:

This is 9marks..

Jonathan Leeman:

This is a pastor’s talk where pastors talk about building healthy churches. Learn more@ninemarks.org. You’re right, Mark, I do want to talk about paying pastors. Last time we talked about church staffing and kind of when do you fire?

Now the opposite side of that, how much do you pay? How do you figure out how much you pay? And you think about Paul’s epistle to Timothy.

Mark Dever:

Remember when we used to talk about the Bible?

Jonathan Leeman:

That’s where I’m going. Here we go. Okay, listen on the one, you got to strike a balance with Timothy, right? On the one hand, in Timothy six, he tells the young pastor that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.

And that’s through this craving, that sum have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many payings. Or you think about chapter three where not a lover of money is a requirement for an elder, what an elder must be.

But on the other hand, at the same time, we have chapter five, right where he tells the church not to muzzle the ox and that the worker deserves his wages. So pastors know they’re not supposed to be greedy, but they also know that churches ought to provide for them.

And all of this, to be honest, reminds me a little bit of Pink Floyd money. So they say is the root of all evil today. But if you ask for a raise, it’s no surprise they’re giving none away. So that’s what I want to think about. And to help us, we have our friend Jamie Dunlop, the

Mark Dever:

Chief Nonox Muzz among us. Amen. Oxon muzz, anti-muzzling oxen.

Jonathan Leeman:

Almost sounds like a conspiracy

Mark Dever:

Brother among us

Jonathan Leeman:

Almost sounds like a conspiracy.

Mark Dever:

So Jamie is the one who wrote the book on budgeting for a healthy church,

Jonathan Leeman:

Which is aligning finances with biblical priorities. 

Mark Dever:

For ministry. Far more enjoyable read than people think is going to be from

Jonathan Leeman:

The title. It’s more helpful than I expected

Mark Dever:

And I let him write some of the compelling community,

Jonathan Leeman:

Some, and go back and listen to the interview on budgeting for a healthy church listener if you haven’t heard that, in which we talked to Jamie about the book. But brother, thank you for helping us think about this particular topic.

Jamie Dunlop:

It’s a delight to be here. You’ll note that sound is never because Jonathan pushed the button.

Jonathan Leeman:

That’s true. Do you address this in your book, this area, how much to pay a pastor?

Jamie Dunlop:

I

Mark Dever:

Do. Okay.

Jonathan Leeman:

So you can look there for that. But we also want to think about it

Mark Dever:

Here before we Jamie’s book. Just back to the Lord’s book for a minute. Jamie Paul a couple of times, in One Corinthians and One Timothy, quotes this proverbial saying from the Old Testament that Jonathan’s already mentioned, do not muzzle in Oxs while it’s treading out the grain.

Since that seems to be the place Paul went to most frequently. Do you want to just unpack that for people? So since we’re not in an agricultural society anymore, what that basic principle is that Paul seems to keep drawing on.

Jamie Dunlop:

I mean individual context, it seems to be pretty clear. It said if the oxen are doing work, then he deserves some of the fruit of his labor, which could have been quite literal, which

Jonathan Leeman:

Allows him to keep working as

Jamie Dunlop:

Well, that allows him to keep working. But Paul was clear, he said, was it oxen that Moses was concerned about? So he certainly, sees a principle there that he then wants to apply more broadly.

Mark Dever:

But the muzzling, the ox was stopping it from eating exactly while it was working.

Jamie Dunlop:

Right, saying, Hey, that’s my grain. I don’t want my ox to be eating my grain. And so the law said no, you need to let the ox have some of it.

Jonathan Leeman:

Right? And that is what Paul applies to the work of pastors. And so we have an understanding of pastoral pay or a shoulder to pastoral pay,

Mark Dever:

And he even breaks that out into the vineyard worker and the soldier in one Ians nine. He says we have this example in all kinds of areas of life. We understand it applies to the pastor as well.

Jonathan Leeman:

Before we get to the how much, actually Mark it does make me think, I remember one occasion in which we were in a conference, and a particular individual made note of the fact that he was working and thus saving the church money.

And I remember you kind of went after that and offered the suggestion that may not be the best way to teach training people. Can you expand on why you would go after that or at least on that occasion?

Mark Dever:

You did? Yeah, it depends. I mean there are times when it’s good and even heroic for a brother to be willing to do that, Paul would select different ways of being depending on what the situation was like in the city he’s trying to reach, he does one thing in Corinth, another thing in Philippi, maybe another thing in Thessalonica.

So in that brother’s case, and I’m not remembering the exact situation, I assume it was a situation in which he needed to do that in order for the church.

Jonathan Leeman:

Well, no he didn’t. He kind of prided himself on it and wanted to keep doing it.

Mark Dever:

He thought to save the church. Then that’s why I would’ve gone after it because the church is going to be infantilized by that. You need to get the church used to paying for what it can pay for. If you want your church up at a full stretch and a walk and a trot and eventually even a run and helping to fulfill the great commission, you want it to be able to give what it can give.

You don’t want to overtax it, you don’t want to hurt it. You don’t want it to fall over a heart attack, but you do want it to get used to being generous and you don’t help it if you coddle selfishness and you don’t even have to direct that money toward you or if that money’s coming at you and you feel bad about it, don’t get them to give less. You give more away.

You give it to other good causes or to help like Richard Baxter to pay for an associate pastor out of his own salary. He needed the help. But don’t teach them to be less generous because many churches around the world today are hampered by not having the workers that they do because you will get better teaching if you have a brother who’s set aside full time to prepare the teaching.

Jonathan Leeman:

Right.

Mark Dever:

You will get better food and you will grow and mature as

Jamie Dunlop:

A church if you can do that. Well, that seems to be another, you said don’t teach the church to not be generous. Don’t encourage that lack of generosity. But also if you run an automotive manufacturing company and you boast about buying less steel, you’re saving costs.

That’s so shortsighted and everything we do begins with the teaching of God’s word. And so if you’re hamstrung in the teaching, then I don’t know what you’re there for

Jonathan Leeman:

Now. Mark, in your answer, you used the word generous and that takes us where I want to go for most of this conversation, which is how much, not weather, but how much Jamie

Mark Dever:

Connie has been practicing the harp and she’s gotten very good.

Jonathan Leeman:

I know. I almost found

Mark Dever:

That. I’m not saying that was her. I’m just saying she has been practicing the harp and she has gotten very good at

Jonathan Leeman:

It. Jamie, how much does scripture say we should pay a pastor? It doesn’t. Okay.

Jamie Dunlop:

I think the closest it gets is the very end of the book of Titus, do your best to speed Xenos the lawyer, and Apollos on their way. See that they lack nothing.

Jonathan Leeman:

Okay.

Jamie Dunlop:

So that’s

Jonathan Leeman:

Lacking nothing.

Jamie Dunlop:

Yeah. I mean there’s a lot of wisdom in those four words. That means that Xus and Apollos will not have their ministry hampered by a lack of money. I think a lot of pastors find their ministers are hampered by a lack of money.

Jonathan Leeman:

What do you mean hampered? Look, I can pay my mortgage, I can feed my kids. I’m in the black,

Mark Dever:

My attention is divided. I’ve got to think about other things because they’ve got to do things to bring in money for my kids who need to go to school. And

Jamie Dunlop:

At the same time, it doesn’t appear that XUS and Apollos were in it for the money. They weren’t doing it because of the money, but money is necessary.

Jonathan Leeman:

Mark, same question for you. I’ll come to a moment in figuring out how much in your particular context, but are there any general principles you want to offer on how much or is it just basically what Jamie said enough to not divide your attention?

Mark Dever:

It’s what Jamie said. I would say enough. And if enough allows you yourself to be generous, that’s going to help you disciple the congregation. So enough is good enough is not bad, but then enough it can be an elastic design or expression and enough, I can imagine being heard by some members of the committee who will say, well, we’ll keep him poor and God will keep him humble.

That’s a phrase commonly used sometimes in just sometimes in seriousness. And I think it’s a very shortsighted self-defeating phrase because if you have the ability to provide generously for your pastors they then in turn can be models of generosity in the hospitality they have in their home and other things they provide for others, that’s going to cascade down in its effect in the congregation.

On the other hand, if you have that ability and you don’t, I fear that also is going to set. And I think I’ve been involved in both kinds of churches in that regard.

What Does the Bible Say about Paying Pastors?

Jamie Dunlop:

Well, and when you mentioned generosity, I think it’s important to note that the Bible doesn’t talk much about pastor pay, but when it does, it does emphasize generosity. So Galatians 6 shares all good things for those who teach you one. Corinth, Timothy five, the idea of double honor here and T in Titus three, see,

Mark Dever:

Which is a financial term double honor.

Jamie Dunlop:

Well, and if you don’t need to have any cultural understanding to do that next verse. He quotes from Luke when he says the worker’s worthy of his wages making it clear he’s speaking financially,

Mark Dever:

This doesn’t mean literally double the salary, but it just means greater honor.

Jamie Dunlop:

Be generous.

Mark Dever:

Yeah.

Jonathan Leeman:

I may have told this story a long time ago in one of the,

Mark Dever:

Oh, that was a good one. I remember that one.

Jonathan Leeman:

Yeah. But assuming people don’t remember, let me try again.

Mark Dever:

The memory medicine. Yeah,

Jonathan Leeman:

That’s right. At one of the churches, I was an interim pastor, I requested the ability to have a little bit of a budget to take guys out for lunch and maybe even buy books. And one of the lay elders was like, why? I don’t have the budget for that in my personal budget.

And I tried to explain to him discipleship in a modern context isn’t always just Richard Baxter going into people’s houses. Often it’s lunchtimes downtown or wherever it is.

I’m going to go downtown and meet a guy for lunch, and that’s going to be a little constant. We can do McDonald’s every time. That’s fine. Maybe a step up Chipotle or something like that,

Mark Dever:

But it’s hard on the heart.

How Much Should Pastors Be Paid?

Jonathan Leeman:

That’s exactly right. And I think he understood that, right? It just requires a little bit of money to do that kind of discipling work you’re describing. Okay. But we’re thinking about the floor here in terms of how much you guys keep saying generosity, but if you want to give me a ceiling, I mean, what about Paul’s instructions that an elder must not be a lover of money?

So if we go out into the Twitter-verse and we look around, I think that’s that’s still a lot of people’s concerns. They’re going after these celebrity pastors who are supposedly making a lot of money, and that’s a concern of people, understandably. Any thoughts on that? Is there too much one can pay a

Mark Dever:

Pastor? I’m sure

Jamie Dunlop:

The answer is yes.

Jonathan Leeman:

Okay. How do we think through that? What are the criteria for that? Or are there,

Jamie Dunlop:

It’s probably easier to look at what’s your process for deciding how much to pay a pastor.

Jamie Dunlop:

You’re going to have more biblical guidance there than a fixed number if there is no accountability and the pastor can just take whatever he wants from the money that comes in, which some people think is maybe a preposterous idea. It actually happens in many churches.

Then you can say, okay, that’s not the kind of process that Paul would advocate for. Say in two Corinthians eight where he says that we want to do what is honorable in the eyes of God and man.

So that idea of honor and accountability is important. So I think you want to look at what’s the process you’re using to figure out how much to pay your pastor.

Mark Dever:

The thing seems to be the way the pay is referred to preachers is honoring, but again and again, it’s also just getting their living. So the idea seems to be taking care of all the reasonable expenses.

Now, as the three of us all know who have raised or are raising children in the metro DC area, taking care of expenses can be a thing that costs an amount of money that my parents in rural Kentucky would’ve just staggered them in 1970 if they had heard of the kind of expenses that we all know. But never

Jonathan Leeman:

Public school seems tough to send to private school. Oh my gosh, it’s

Mark Dever:

Expensive. But nevertheless, if we are pastoring congregations full of people who are like us, they live where we live, they’re in our situation. Then even if someone on the internet doesn’t understand people who live in that community, people who live in that congregation, yeah, they’re very much nicer.

They see it. They know they would understand. Your salary is going to be the highest salary in the church, but it’s probably going to be the lowest. You’re going to be somewhere in there with other similarly trained people who are trying to lead their families and pay for the expenses of an entire family out of a single paycheck if possible.

Jonathan Leeman:

I still want to get to this question how do you determine an appropriate salary? Kind of what you were getting at there just a moment ago, James.

Mark Dever:

Well, I was just talking about the expenses of the family. So living expenses, trying to total those up and see what that’s like.

Jonathan Leeman:

So create a budget.

Mark Dever:

And then the generosity is another component of it where you don’t want the person to be distracted by hoping they will be able to have dental care,

Jamie Dunlop:

But it’s important to note that determining what it costs to live, that’s a useful input. But that then opens up to all kinds of 800 people looking at how you spend your money and saying, oh, I don’t think Mark needs this or I don’t. And that’s not helpful at all

Mark Dever:

Often, especially for the wives.

Principles for Deciding How Much to Pay a Pastor

Jonathan Leeman:

So what do you do? Do you look at the average salary of the blank high school Gs scale? How do you figure that out? What are some of the principles you would recommend, Jamie?

Jamie Dunlop:

I think it’s useful to have a few different data points. Certainly. One is what Mark just brought up to think through, okay, what is a sustainable budget in this community? That’s a useful data point. I don’t think you want to base everything on that.

It’s really useful. I think another good data point is what other churches pay in your area. That’s a dangerous one. Also, some churches pay extravagantly because I fear their pastors do love money. Other churches don’t pay enough.

Mark Dever:

Well, and sometimes churches hide what they really pay.

Jamie Dunlop:

That’s true.

Mark Dever:

So there’ll be the stated pay is how they’ll answer that question. But there are all kinds of other things they’ve done to remunerate the pastor.

Jamie Dunlop:

But talking to churches that you trust in your area can be a useful data point

Mark Dever:

When they know what you’re trying to do and they want to help you do that.

Jamie Dunlop:

And I think we have similar philosophies of ministry and we’re trying to accomplish the same things with our salary package. I think a third data point that’s really useful is what do civil servants make in your community?

Because I think that a government has very similar goals for compensation as a church does. This means nobody, at least in this country, generally, people don’t go into government service in order to get wealthy. However, governments have an incentive to make sure that someone can live on that income for their entire career.

A government doesn’t want to pay so little that you can only do it for five years and you’ve got to get another job or your kids can’t get educated. And so I think there are similar goals, which means looking at what a, I think when I helped your church set salary for your pastor, I encourage ’em to look at what the local high school principal made or maybe what the local police chief makes because we’re in Washington, DC

Jonathan Leeman:

Quote, endquote. Executives.

Jamie Dunlop:

Yes. Similar responsibilities, right? Yes. So here, because people are in charge of things, we can look at the government pay scale for the federal government, which is what we’ve used.

Obviously different communities are going to be different. I think the last thing you need to look at is what that pastor needs. Because there’s a fallacy,

Jonathan Leeman:

Four kids, no kids that, is that what you mean?

Jamie Dunlop:

Yes. Four kids, no kids. Maybe he’s from a different country and it’s wise for him to go back and visit family sometimes. And frankly, that trade-off of time versus money is going to look different for different men. So sometimes the church has a fallacy of believing well because the last guy was able to do this much then his replacement must be able to do it that much.

And I think that’s shortsighted. Different guys are going to cost different amounts. It shouldn’t be radically different. But I think it’s fine for a pastor to say, look, if you’re going to hire me, you just need to know the way my family operates, given our medical needs, family background, whatever. I think we may cost more than the last guy you had.

And if you don’t want to hire me, that’s fine, but be upfront. So those four data points are what does a reasonable budget look like? And for that, ask someone in his fifties to draw that up.

Not someone in their twenties, they don’t know what’s going to cost. Not someone in their eighties, they forget, they don’t remember.

Mark Dever:

And it’s changed.

Jamie Dunlop:

And it’s changed. That’s good. But maybe someone in their fifties. What do other churches you trust pay? What is a civil servant of comparable responsibilities pay? And what does that pastor need?

Mark Dever:

And if you have the ability when in doubt, pay a little bit more

Prioritizing Generosity

Jamie Dunlop:

Because the scripture emphasizes generosity.

Mark Dever:

And if you think, ah, I don’t really want to trust them with that much money, then the problem is not the amount of money. The problem is the person you’ve chosen.

Jonathan Leeman:

To what extent should I think about the guy’s own qualifications specifically I’m thinking about number one, age, age, and experience. 30. He’s been an associate pastor. This is his first senior pastor versus he’s 50.

He was the senior pastor of this church for 15 years. Age experience and education don’t have an MDiv, does, doesn’t have a PhD. Do those factor in?

Jamie Dunlop:

I think there’s some guidance here in one Timothy five you mentioned at the beginning, we haven’t actually read it. Verse 17, let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor and preach. And in teaching

Jamie Dunlop:

For the scripture says, you shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain and the laborer deserves his wages. I think what’s significant in that passage, is seems that what Paul has in mind is you have a church with multiple elders.

One of them seems to particularly be giving his time to labor and in preaching and teaching. And Paul’s essentially saying, look, if that guy’s given his time to you and so he can’t hold a job, then you need to pay for his living expenses so he can give his full-time to eldering you and teaching you and pastoring you.

And what that means is that the justification for pay is not based on the man’s office because there are multiple elders. It’s not based on the man’s need to say, let’s pay as little as we can. So he is not starving.

It’s based on his work, which is just what Jesus says. The laborer deserves his wages. And so I think churches generally will want to pay for the work. That means when you,

Jonathan Leeman:

So how does that answer my question?

Jamie Dunlop:

Well,

Mark Dever:

Because experience or education enhances that work, that work product then, but it’s possible that the education or the experience would not enhance the work project product, in which case you can take that into account as you consider the pay.

Jamie Dunlop:

Yeah, so taking into account, but ultimately you’re taking into account not because those things themselves are worthy of more money because presumably they helped the pastor do better work.

Jonathan Leeman:

Mark, any lessons put on your historian hat, any lessons from history, and how they’ve paid pastors in the past that might be helpful for us.

Mark Dever:

It varies so much. If you’re talking about a state church. So Charles Bridges wrote the Christian Ministry, well, that man would’ve lived in manor houses. He would’ve lived in probably the second nicest house in the town he would’ve been in and or Spurgeon. He was quite well paid and he was quite generous.

That’s a historic ministry. I mean, there’s no parallel to that ministry. If we go back to our own church, Capitol Hall Baptist Church, how were the pastors paid in the past? Well, you’d have to ask a historian of our particular congregation like Caleb Morell to know the truth about that.

Jonathan Leeman:

Well, the other thing would be helpful. You gave us two British examples. I’d be curious about African pastors in the past or Brazilian pastors in the past. What?

Mark Dever:

Well, I assume whenever a church is getting started, we see in the pages of the New Testament, that even a congregation that’s generous is going to not have the kind of mass size and capital to pay a pastor really well. But Paul can write to Timothy about the situation they’re in, F says and says double honor. So whatever that group of people is thinking at that time, it’s going to be something above the

How to Address Your Pay as a Pastor

Jonathan Leeman:

Normal. Jamie, what if I’m a pastor and I’m not making enough? Who should I tell? Should I say something? Is that being a lover of money? So I’m a pastor, what do I do?

Jamie Dunlop:

Oh gosh, it could often be a lover of money. Those are really hard questions to answer. I think you should talk to somebody, especially if you are finding that either it is the lack of money is constraining your ministry or you are tempted to grumble against your church or your wife has been tempted to grumble against your church.

Jonathan Leeman:

She’s exasperated. Yeah,

Jamie Dunlop:

I think it’s a kindness to them, assuming they want to keep you for a long time. It’s a kindness to them to explain how they might be able to do that. And it may well be that they’re frustrated with you because you haven’t brought it up before. Gosh, if we had known we would’ve done this, some of this a long time ago

Jonathan Leeman:

And do so obviously opening your heart up to correction one would think Absolutely. I go to my brother, I say, listen, please check me if you see.

Jamie Dunlop:

So who do you talk to? If you have a plurality of elders, hopefully, there’s one man on that elder board, you feel like, okay, I can bear my heart and just say, Hey brother, I may be in the wrong, here’s how I’m spending my money. Here’s where the problem seems to be. What do you think?

Jonathan Leeman:

Yeah. And even opening your budget to the guy. Absolutely. Sure. Think I’ve done that with you. I think I’ve shown you my budget and you gave me wisdom walking through it. Mark-related question, not the pastor in place, but the pastor candidate.

I remember hearing a prominent Christian leader saying, that if a guy asks how much you’re going to pay him, he’s a lover of money. You don’t want to hire him. I assume you would disagree with that.

Mark Dever:

I would disagree with that.

Jonathan Leeman:

Okay. How should a pastoral candidate bring it up? Any wisdom on that? Any thoughts

Mark Dever:

On that? Yeah, that’ll vary depending on what the process is of how they’re talking with you. But I think you want to bring it up on the early to middle side of your conversation. So if you find out that it’s just what they’re able to do is commensurate with what you literally need, that’ll save everybody a lot of time and effort if you can find that out early on.

Jonathan Leeman:

Yeah. And is it fair to say that’s just, I don’t think that’s enough?

Mark Dever:

Of course. Oh yeah. Especially if you don’t think it’s enough

Jamie Dunlop:

And just don’t be manipulative. Just be really honest. Just tell them what you’re thinking about when you don’t

Mark Dever:

Make it a black box.

Jamie Dunlop:

When you work for a church, you don’t negotiate. I used to negotiate with my employer 15 years ago when I worked in business. It’s more like working for your dad, but if your dad’s not paying you enough, you’re going to talk to him about it. It’s going to be in a context of trust where you’re giving them information. You’re not trying to kind of negotiate the best deal you can.

Mark Dever:

If our family needed something that I know this church really can’t in good conscience pay for very well, I don’t want to try to make them do that, that’s not honoring the Lord. It’s not right.

Jamie Dunlop:

And far better to bring it up then than five years later when you say, look, I can’t make know what you’re paying

Mark Dever:

Me. Here’s a slight contrary example. Maybe when I came to this church, I accepted the pastorate here when they did not provide all of the benefits that I thought it would be good for them to and that I thought they probably could. But I would say over my first 5, 6, 7, and 8 years here, those benefits accumulated.

Jonathan Leeman:

You worked at Shepherd the church in that direction.

Mark Dever:

Yeah. Well, I was just worried about shepherding the church generally. And as it grew and became more financially able, it also became younger. I also began to think better about these

Jamie Dunlop:

Things.

Jonathan Leeman:

Yeah, that’s a good example.

Jamie Dunlop:

I’ve been in an interesting situation of having been party to many of these conversations. So when our church has had a pastor who’s gone off to pastor a different church, very often I end up kind of coming alongside him as he and this church work together to figure out how much to pay him. And I think having a third party who doesn’t have a vested interest in this situation can be very useful

Jonathan Leeman:

And fairly typical, isn’t it, for churches to need a little bit of education in this area

Jamie Dunlop:

Sometimes.

Jonathan Leeman:

And again, your book would be a helpful resource hopefully. What’s the book called in addition to

Jamie Dunlop:

This budgeting for a healthy church? Oh, that’s a good use of the button mark. I remember one particular humorous example where I was working with, it’s not humorous until I say it, Jonathan. Oh, too soon. Too soon.

I was working with one of our pastors who was going to pastor another church and one of the elders at that church who happened to be someone I knew and I was sitting at a conference, the future pastor was sitting in front of me. I was on email with the elder.

We were kind of talking through how compensation was going to work. And so the elder would email me and say, Hey, he just asked me this. What should I say? I said, well, you should tell him this. So he leaned back and then he leaned back and he said, Hey, I just got an email from this elder.

Here’s what he says. What should I say back? And so I got to play both sides of the conversation. We reached a wonderfully amicable result. It was delightful.

How Should Other Pastoral Staff be Paid?

Jonathan Leeman:

That’s great. Does Jamie, how does all this translate into salaries for other pastoral staff? We’ve kind of been talking about the top

Jamie Dunlop:

Lead pastor. Well, I think one reason a pastor should care about this is that his salary is generally going to be the umbrella under which everybody else lives.

Mark Dever:

And why is that? Just as a senior pastor with a number of other people on staff. How many people do we have on our 20 total? 14. 14. My salary is important for everybody else’s salary because of

Jamie Dunlop:

Why? Because we’re a church built on God’s word and you are the primary teacher of God’s word. Good.

Jonathan Leeman:

I’m kind of like going back to his previous answer to the question a few minutes ago about a labor worth his labor. He’s paid for his labor. Why would you pay Miv PhD more maybe or experience more kind of everything you said there, right?

Jamie Dunlop:

But the thing we value most is good teaching.

Mark Dever:

Agree. But you understand what I’m getting at. And I think pastors might naturally have this question sometimes. Connie and I are older, we’ve been here a long time. You guys try to give me a pay raise every year or something like that for regular

Jamie Dunlop:

Cost of living.

Mark Dever:

Well recognizing seniority also. But at some point then, aren’t you paying us a lot more than you need to? Because you’ve got the younger families now coming along, the other staff and they have a lot more kids and they just have more pressing expenses. And when I’ve brought this up before, it goes into mumbo jumbo and tax law and stuff.

Jamie Dunlop:

Well, I think it’s just if we pay you more than you need, we know you’re going to give it back.

Mark Dever:

That’s true. But that’s a slightly different question than what I’m asking.

Jamie Dunlop:

Well, and I think most people assume

Mark Dever:

What are the finance people in a church supposed to take that in? What are they taking into account that ends up with the senior guy getting paid more when he may not have the needs that other people have?

Jamie Dunlop:

I think it’s because of his work. He’s the primary teacher of God’s word.

Mark Dever:

So it has nothing to do with tax law?

Jamie Dunlop:

No. Okay. I mean you would pay less in taxes if we paid you less. That’s true.

Jonathan Leeman:

That’s true.

Jamie Dunlop:

Yeah. That’s not a reason to get paid less. No

Jonathan Leeman:

Brother is any other counsel. Any other mistakes you feel churches frequently think of? One thing

Jamie Dunlop:

That’s worth pointing out if the principal, you, this is my wrap-it-up question. You pay for the work, then you do that for all of your staff. Jesus’ principle, that the worker is worthy of his wages is not just for senior pastors.

So you should pay your administrator what his or her work is worth. You should pay your associate pastor what their work is worth,

Mark Dever:

Which can mean some tough conversations.

Jamie Dunlop:

Yeah.

Jonathan Leeman:

Any other advice for churches?

Mark Dever:

Brothers, if you’re listening to this and you think, wow, Jamie Dunlop sounds wise, I would encourage you to pray to get somebody like that in the leadership of your church and maybe even on your church staff if you have a large enough church.

Jamie Dunlop:

And if they don’t,

Mark Dever:

Get ’em in the leadership of their church and read his book. And you can always read his book, budgeting for a Healthy Church. Thanks for your time guys. Thanks. Bye.