I found this interesting article on a random blog, “The Worth of a Pastor” by ‘Crosstrainer’. I know the figures listed are in US dollars (also note that their pay scale is lower than ours in Canada) but I’m sure you can agree that this is pretty universal.

The Worth of a Pastor by Crosstrainer.

While I don’t believe I agree with many of the presuppositions of this article (ie, how can anyone measure personal worth-pastor or businessman?) The goal of pastor on Sunday morning is to motivate, or even the idea of placing a monetary value on the expression of ministry. There are also many “ministries” who are paying their leader a significant sum of money and I don’t view what they do as being in line with the scriptures) it is stimulating in that it attacks some long held views of the worth/salary of those who have been called to preach. I believe it implicitly asks the question, why, as Americans, we generally tend to only give 3-6% of our income to the church – statistically this is especially true of those making more than $150,000/yr. On the contrary, in my personal experience I find that I receive far more from the Lord than I deserve, and that the people we are most closely associated with tend to be amazingly generous on many fronts.

“What’s the fair market value of the services a pastor renders? How can you compare the pastorate to the business world? The varied responsibilities of pastoral ministry demand that the pastor be a versatile and time efficient professional. What other executive faces the pressures of research and multiple presentations every week, gives administrative leadership to a complex organization, makes personal visits to care for the spiritual well – being of members, enlists the unchurched and is on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week? A company would have to hire three or four people to fill the corporate positions corresponding to the pastor’s job description!

In order to put some objective valuation of pastoral ministry, I checked the wages of comparable professionals. The reasoning is, if you hired a professional with a similar job description to do each part of the pastor’s job, what would you expect to pay? The startling results are below. Remember, “The labourer is worthy of his reward.” (The worker deserves his wages). I Timothy 5:18.

A. Preaching and teaching. To ascertain the value of the pastor’s speaking ministry I checked on the costs of hiring a speaker from a talent agency. I called Gemini Talent Association in Denver and talked to Jim Sullivan. He said that the low figure for a competent speaker for a workshop would be $350 per speech. The least expensive motivational speaker was $1,500 for one of the few available in the Denver area. If you figure that a pastor preaches to motivate on Sunday morning and to teach during the other two presentations during the week (although the distinction is not always that clear), you could compute the value of the pastor’s speaking ministry, which would also compensate for the 20 or so hours of study each week in preparation for those messages:
$1,500 X 50 Sunday mornings = $75,000$350 X 2 teaching sessions a week = $750$750 X 50 weeks = $37,500Annual total = $112,500

B. Counseling. Counselors get between $50 and $95 for a 50-minute session. A pastor will probably average five in-office counseling sessions a week with individuals or families.
Counseling at $50 hour X 5 X 50 = $12,500Counseling at $75 hour X 5 X 50 = $18,750

C. Home visiting. A local M.D. informed me that the minimum rate for a house call is $62.50. A plumber will charge $35 plus parts and mileage. Let’s use a conservative figure of $50 per hour for pastoral visitation to homes, rest homes or hospitals. That includes evangelism, checking on church families, and etc. Our surveys indicate that a pastor will spend between 11 and 18 hours a week in personal work outside of the church building.
So $50 X 11 hours a week = $550 X 50 = $27,500Or $50 X 18 hours a week = $900 X 50 = $45,000

D. Administration. A pastor is the chief operating officer responsible for a sizable business. To get a comparison I checked with our school system for the salary of a grade school principal. Figures hourly, the principal of a small grade school makes a little more than $20 per hour. That would be low for the manager of a small business. But we’ll use the $20 per hour figure. (Remember these are US figures where minimum wage is under $6/hr) Let’s say that the pastor spends 15 hours a week planning, programming, attending to details, training and overseeing.
So 15 hours X $20 = $300 X 50 weeks = $15,000

Paying comparative professionals to perform the pastor’s job, 51-58 hours a week, would cost between $167,500 and $191,250 per year. You’ll notice that this doesn’t include a paid vacation, compensation for being on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, extra pay for “hazardous- duty” crisis counseling and many other responsibilities the pastor routinely performs.”

——————————————————————-