Ministry Minimum Wage: The Hidden Cost of Underpaying Church Staff

This podcast episode, hosted by Todd Rhoades, addresses the issue of underpaying ministry staff and how it impacts churches negatively. It highlights the cycle of attracting underqualified candidates due to low salaries, resulting in increased turnover, training costs, and operational inefficiencies. Rhoades emphasizes that providing competitive compensation is crucial for attracting and retaining quality staff who can contribute positively to the church's mission. • Underpaying ministry positions leads to attracting underqualified and desperate candidates. • Low salaries create a cycle of turnover, higher training costs, and operational issues. • Investing in competitive salaries for quality staff reduces long-term costs and improves church operations. • Professional compensation reflects the expertise required in ministry roles. • Offering appropriate compensation shows value and respect for the work involved in church ministry.

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Transcript

When Low Pay Starts The Spiral

SPEAKER_00 0:07

We oppose a ministry job position at $35,000. And the only people who apply are a fresh Christian college or maybe a seminary grad with zero experience. Or desperate pastors that are fleeing toxic situations or even part-timers who need the income but can't fully commit. Maybe it's a prince from Nigeria that applies. But you hire the best of whatever you get, not the best person for the job, but whoever applies for the price that you're advertising. And two years later, they're struggling, you're frustrated, there's a departure, and the cycle repeats. This happens over and over in thousands, literally thousands of churches across the country. And if this is your church, if this sounds familiar, we're going to talk about it. If it's not your church, hang on, listen to it. I think you'll find this to be helpful as well. Hi

Ministry Minimum Wage Explained

SPEAKER_00 1:10

there, my name's Todd Rhodes. You are listening to the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. I'm one of the co-founders over at chemistrystaffing.com. Here's what's really happening when we chronically underpay ministry positions. Our topic today is ministry minimum wage. The hidden cost of underpaying church staff. When you pay below market value, you don't attract best candidates. You just don't. You attract desperate ones. People who have to take a job, not people who want the job. And that's a massive difference. I don't think we think about this when we think about how much we're paying. Are we really attracting people that have to have a job? Or are we attracting people that want to have a job? And man, is this important in ministry because it's a massive difference. Desperation doesn't breed excellence. It never has, it never will. Desperation breeds survival mode.

Desperation Creates More Problems

SPEAKER_00 2:12

And that's where it even gets a little bit worse because it's a vicious cycle. Low pay attracts underqualified candidates, and underqualified people struggle in the role. And struggling people and struggling staff require more management and create more problems. And problems cost time and energy and often money to fix. And I tell you what, this is where you end up. You end up paying more in turnover, you end up paying more in training, and you pay more in damage control, and lost time. And it's like you just paid market r if you had just paid market rate at the beginning, you wouldn't have lost the momentum, you wouldn't have lost all the trust, and it just would have gone a lot better for you. Now, I know the budgets are tight, and I know everybody's trying to be a good steward. And I know you massively need people to be on your team. But I want to talk to you just a little bit about the math that you may be missing.

The Math Behind Paying Market Rate

SPEAKER_00 3:15

Okay. A $45,000 person who gets it right costs less than a $30,000 person who gets it wrong. Let me say that again. And I think $45 is low, okay? So I'm being very lenient here. A $45,000 salary that you pay a staff person who gets it right costs a lot less than a $30,000 salary person who gets it wrong. Quality staff attract other quality staff and they solve problems instead of creating them. Quality staff build momentum instead of requiring constant course correction. Really good staff, really well compensated staff, stay longer and then reduce your hiring and training costs. The expensive hire often becomes your cheapest long-term investment. Now, I know you say, Todd, your math isn't math, and I'm telling you, it might not math when you're trying to hire somebody and you're like, we don't have an extra $15 or $20,000. But the math totally maths in two years in, when you're having to go through all the process again, when you've lost momentum and trust of other people, volunteers and people on your team. That's a really expensive mistake. But let me even take it a step further because there I think there's something even deeper that's happening here. Because

What Underpaying Communicates About Ministry

SPEAKER_00 4:35

when we underpay, we're essentially saying that ministry doesn't require real skill. We're treating church work like anybody can do it. But leading worship, discipling teenagers, managing operations, those do require some level of expertise. Professional level work deserves professional level compensation. Your community pays their accountants and their lawyers and their consultants well. Why? Because expertise matters. And guess what? Don't kid yourself, ministry expertise matters as well. So here's the bottom line for

The Bottom Line On Compensation

SPEAKER_00 5:12

today. You cannot build a first class ministry on third class wages. You can't. It can't be done. You'll get exactly what you pay for over and over again. And actually, a lot of times you get a lot less than what you pay for because you're paying for a huge mistake. Your people deserve leaders who choose to be there, not people who had to be there. And that starts with compensation. It's just one piece of it, but it starts with compensation that reflects the value of your calling. Hope this has been helpful to you

How We Help Churches Benchmark Pay

SPEAKER_00 5:48

today. A lot of the work that we do at chemistry staffing, that I do at chemistry staffing, is working with churches on compensation levels. And it's always amazing when I talk to a church and I ask them how much they're offering for the position, and they'll say $30,000 or $35,000. I'm not having as many of those conversations as I did maybe a year or two ago. But still, if you need some advice, somebody to say, hey, Todd, look at our compensation levels across our team and tell us how we're doing compared to other churches and compared to what the market really should bear, compared to the expertise level and what we need to pay for this level of expertise on our staff, reach out to me, podcast at chemistry staffing.com. We do compensation analysis quite often for churches and would happy, be happy to walk alongside of you, take a look at your overall compensation and personnel budget and tell you how you're doing. And give you any pointers, give you any red flags that we see as an outside third party. So if that's something that you'd like to have a conversation with, reach out to me, podcast at chemistry staffing.com. Just say, hey Todd, I'd love to grab 30 minutes of your time on a Zoom call. Let's talk about compensation. Be happy to do.

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SPEAKER_00 7:03

All right, we're here every Monday through Friday on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. And I hope you'll join me right back here again tomorrow. Tell your friends about the podcast as well. Love to have them join.