At our recent General Assembly I spoke with several friends who had moved a long way from "home" and family, and gleaned some interesting comments and reflections on their experiences. (Read part one here.)Now let's consider a comment from "John" whose family is from Alabama, and who is now a pastor in California. Here's what John said:"The best advice I received was from [a seminary professor] who

Pastors-- and pastors-in-training-- who are westling with matters financial would do well to visit this website: Pastor Personal Finance.com.This is a website and blog that is passionate about strengthening and informing pastors in their financial life in a similar way that this site is about pastoral transition. There is great help here about budgeting, debt, tax-related concerns, financial issues

Doug Wilson recently wrote a series of posts on "ministerial compensation" on his blog. He included four posts:Double HonorShepherds Who Feed Only ThemselvesShortchanging for JesusActually Count the ShekelsI recognize that Mr. Wilson tends to evoke strong reactions (favorably or not), and I certainly don't agree with everything he says. I do find that he sometimes puts his finger upon something exactly,

My Associate Pastor (who is bi-vocational) and I were talking about some recent statistics from our denomination, which show that more than 80% of the congregations in the PCA have memberships below 100. His comment, to which I fully agree, was that, "bi-vocational ministry may be the best hope for the future of our denomination."Along that line of thought, here is a great post from a guy named Todd

Here's an interesting and helpful idea from David Gordon at Gordon-Conwell Seminary:Dr. Kenneth Swetland, from Gordon-Conwell, recommended a good practice for our students when they were candidating for church positions: that in the later stages of that process, whenever possible, the candidate meet with the appropriate committee and, with a chalkboard or whiteboard, ask the committee members what

As I have mentioned before, being in ordained pastoral ministry affords a number of wonderful tax benefits. It also brings a number of tax peculiarities. (This is doubly true if you have chosen to opt out of Social Security and the rest.)Having access to a good CPA or tax preparer-- and one who is familiar with clergy tax law-- is a great help. The trouble is, they can sometimes be difficult to find.I

Here are a couple of new resources you might be interested in:Covenant Discipleship Communicant's Curriculum. My good friend and colleague, Richard Burguet, and I have been working on this together for years, and have finally seen it come to the point we've been hoping for. You can learn about about it, and order it, through Doulos Resources (which is a new ministry I'm involved with, and this blog

I have a lot of people visiting my blog who are looking for salary information for pastors (according to the stats and search strings that lead people here). I imagine some are churches looking for data about how to set a pastor's salary, while others are candidates (or established pastors) who are trying to determine if the figures they are being offered are fair, if they match the averages, etc.Frankly,

The New York Times recently posted an article called, "How Much Should You Get Paid?" It's a good article, with helpful advice about negotiating (and re-negotiating) salaries.While the article is geared toward businesses and the secular workforce (naturally), it did point to a few interesting resources:Salary.com posts the results of its own salary surveys.PayScale.com goes a different route, actually

Most Pastors I know vehemently claim that they plan to work until they die.  Thus, they really don't need to invest much in terms of retirement savings.That's good, because most of them have done a terrible job at building up any retirement savings.  I actually know men in their 50s who have little or no retirement funds set aside.The problem is, there may come a day when they do want to retire--

I asked my friend Maria (who is also a CPA) a few questions about the housing allowance.  Her answers are quite informative.Me:  Does the portion of the pay package designated as "housing allowance" affect the Adjusted Gross Income (AGI)?Maria:  Yes-- it is not included as a part of the AGI.This is huge; the AGI is the primary determinant of the tax owed for Federal Income Tax.  Since the housing

After reading yesterday's post on opting out of Social Security, Marcie had an astute question: if the application form 4361 only requires a conscientious or religious objection to public insurance, why do I include things like student and housing loans in my list?This is such a good question that it may account for why many have opted out even though they are not opposed to loan or disaster relief

As I mentioned the other day, a recent NY Times article has reminded me that I need to address the question of opting out of Social Security.  Think of this as an issue related to, but not directly a part of, negotiating terms of call.Social Security, and other programs covered under the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA), are normally divided in cost between employer and employee. 

The New York Times did an article today about the laws that allow a pastor to take a housing allowance.  Specifically, they question whether the housing allowance is legitimate, in light of the fact that similar staff members of secular non-profits do not receive the same benefit.They also discuss the option that ordained clergy have for opting out of the Social Security system, a topic that I

Or, What about a manse?When churches provide housing for their pastor-- usually called a "manse" or "parsonage"-- it creates a peculiar situation for the pastor, as far as his salary package goes.To begin with, this is technically income: a material benefit, in this case free housing, is offered as a part of his payment.  However, whatever it represents as income is eligible to be sheltered as

There has been a lot of interest recently in what pastors get paid-- specifically, what are some averages of salaries for pastors in the PCA.(I know this is a bit esoteric, but consider that the PCA is a growing evangelical denomination-- basically what conservative denominations WANT to be-- and so it therefore a "typical" example.)The Administrative Committee of the PCA does a good job of tracking

We've defined the Housing Allowance, so now let's talk a bit about how to determine what you need.First of all, there are some limits to what can qualify as legitimate Housing Allowance. According to IRS code, a Housing Allowance cannot be more than the smaller of any of the following:The fair market rental value of the home, including furnishings, repair, etc.The amount officially designated (in

When it comes to the housing allowance, the first thing to know is this:If you're not ordained, everything you're about to read is irrelevant. Since your tax status and employment status are different when you are ordained, you're able to designate a portion of your salary package as your "Housing Allowance" (according to IRS Code Section 107). If you don't know already, this should be one of the

So now we've talked about the factors to keep in mind. How do you calculate the actual amount you need to ask for?All of this forms a sort of calculus for establishing the cash salary that you need. Here are some suggested steps for determining the best numbers for you:1. Re-evaluate your budget history. If you're good with this sort of thing, this step will probably take very little time. However,

In part one, I discussed the negotiation of cash salary for emerging seminary graduates. In this post, I want to think about the same topic for those who are already pastors and moving to a new ministry. (Most of these apply to seminarians as well.)In some ways, the factors that hinder a seminarian from making a fair estimation of needed cash salary are removed. For example, those already in the

Talking with a fellow alum and former classmate this morning, we discussed our recent changes in financial status. This particular friend accepted a position with Covenant Seminary, and has remained in seminary housing as a part of his job. He recently had another conversation-- this one with a current seminarian, a neighbor in seminary housing-- in which the other person assumed that my friend was

There are a lot of factors that go into the successful negotiation of the "terms of call" when a pastor is in transition.When I say "terms of call" I mean those things which would, in other fields, be included in the contract. For the most part, however, there is no "contract" in the pastorate. [In the PCA, there is typically a letter, stating the agreed-upon terms, which is sent to the presbytery

A recent survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers shows that this year's graduates will likely fare better than in recent years.CNN reports a summary of the results in a recent article. Even the lowly liberal arts folks (like myself!) show improvement: starting salaries are just below $31,000, which is a 2% increase from last year. Naturally, the hot careers are in media, technology,