How Much Do Pastors Make?

According to the 2006 Compensation Handbook for Church Staff (Amazon), the average US pastor makes $77,096 per year. As you would expect, the single largest factor determining that amount is the number of regular attenders.

Excluding insurance and educational benefits, senior pastors with a worship attendance of more than 1,000 people made an average of $111,052. That’s 73 percent more than the $64,266 paid to pastors with a worship attendance of 300 people or fewer.

Many megachurch pastors make much more—into the millions—usually from TV ministries or book sales.

Some of these pastors have found creative ways to keep their salaries in check. Joel Osteen (Wikipedia | Theopedia) no longer receives his $200,000 salary from Lakewood Church, and has chosen to live off the money he makes from his book, which I’d guess is still no small amount.

I’ve heard that John MacArthur (Wikipedia | Theopedia) takes the opposite approach and lives off a modest salary from Grace Community Church, while giving all the proceeds from his books to Grace to You Ministries.

Megachurch pastor Rick Warren (Wikipedia | Theopedia) makes a huge amount of money, but in addition to not receiving a salary from his Saddleback Church, he paid the church back for 25 years worth of salaries and does what he calls reverse tithing: he keeps 10% and gives 90%.¹

The Warrens have vowed never to change their lifestyle. They have lived in the same house for 16 years. Warren drives the same Ford truck he had before the book came out. And he owns the same two suits.

Antioch Community Church in Waco, TX takes an unusual approach. All church staff members make a base annual salary of $26,400 with an additional $4800 for a spouse and $3300 for each child—up to four—living at home.

“We believe that we’ll have greater integrity with our people if we’re living off a salary that is similar to what most of the people in our church earn,” Abshire said. “It’s easier to preach about finances when the pastor has as much faith-need for God to provide as the congregation does.”

Read the whole report at The Baptist Standard.

HT: Dallas News Religion

Notes

1. Cf. the interview with Rick Warren by David Kuo of BeliefNet. [↩ back]

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