The 2008 Compensation Survey for Southern Baptist churches, provided through the joint efforts of Baptist state conventions, LifeWay Christian Resources and GuideStone Financial Resources, is now available online atwww.LifeWay.com/compensationsurvey.
DALLAS — The 2008 Compensation Survey for Southern Baptist churches, provided through the joint efforts of Baptist state conventions, LifeWay Christian Resources and GuideStone Financial Resources, is now available online at www.LifeWay.com/compensationsurvey.
All ministers and employees of Southern Baptist churches are encouraged to participate.
Answers to the online survey are kept confidential and are not reported individually.
The survey takes, on average, less than 10 minutes to complete. In addition to salary and benefit information, participants in the survey will need to have available their church’s average weekly worship or Bible study attendance, resident membership and annual budget.
LifeWay and GuideStone are pooling resources to provide the online survey, compile the data and make available an online reporting tool for users to access results.
The survey is available through mid-April, and results will be released in time for the Southern Baptist Convention in June.
“Both GuideStone and LifeWay have a mission supporting the churches of our Southern Baptist Convention,” said O.S. Hawkins, president and chief executive officer of GuideStone Financial Resources.
“The 2008 Compensation Survey for churches is another avenue by which we can all work together to serve our churches with information to help them adequately compensate their ministers and employees,” Hawkins said.
“Our Louisiana Baptist pastors and staff members faithfully expend their lives in the service of the Lord. Almost every week the Louisiana Baptist Convention office receives a call from a church leader needing the information compiled by this survey,” Dale Lingenfelter, LBC director of business services said. “Our churches have a biblical mandate to adequately provide for those who are called to serve. So, I hope our churches will take a few moments to complete the simple survey.”
For more than a decade, GuideStone has teamed with Baptist state conventions to survey Southern Baptist churches concerning their compensation of ministers and church employees.
Every state convention participated in the last bi-annual study in 2006, which included results from more than 7,000 churches and 17,000 individuals.
Through the survey, church administrators, personnel and finance committees and minister search teams have access to an accurate baseline by which they can compare their own church’s salary and benefits with similar churches across the country.
Southern Baptist church ministers and employees may complete the survey through April 15.
For staff at churches without Internet access, a paper copy of the survey may be obtained by contacting GuideStone Financial Resources at 1-888-98-GUIDE (1-888-984-8433) or by calling the state convention office.