Remember your ministers’ present and future
Church budgets for 2024 probably already are completed. If so, I hope churches will have remembered these are days of high inflation and will have adjusted their ministers’ salaries accordingly. That goes for all the ministerial staff and the other church employees, not just the person holding the top job.
Days in ministry sometimes know no end. Pay your ministers a living wage, and occasionally put a little something extra in the pot as well as a pat on the back. And that goes for others on the church payroll as well.
And while you are at it, review how your church budget supports your ministers’ retirement future. Make sure the budget, apart from the salary package for each minister or any other employee, contributes a portion to their retirement programs—usually the ones provided by Guidestone. And give the minister, church staffer or employee the opportunity to match from their salaries whatever the church provides. Further, make the amount the church provides a vested investment in their futures—not an amount they can take as salary.
The church then can rest easy in the knowledge they have done what they can to protect the financial future of those who have served them. Too many ministers have had to retire on Social Security alone, because short-sighted churches have failed to help them provide for their futures.
Toby Druin
Waxahachie, Texas
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