Dan Reiland writes to church leaders: Meeting the needs of the poor and needy is difficult to say the least. It’s not just a matter of limited resources, but understanding vision, direction and God’s heart in the matter. This article provides thought to stir you and your church to assess and strengthen your local church benevolence.

Solomon understood the requirements of his kingdom when it came to the poor and needy. “He will defend the afflicted among the people and save the children of the needy; he will crush the oppressor.” Psalm 72:4. God’s heart in this matter is clear. We have a responsibility to those in need. “Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed. Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked” (Psalm 82:3-4).

How often do you (your local church) respond to a person who needs help? It may be a homeless person who is hungry. It may be a member who needs help paying their electric bill. The needs are seemingly endless and scripture is clear that it is God’s heart to help the poor. How you determine who gets what is another story altogether. This tension is not a new one.

After years of experience I now think it is sometimes okay to be taken advantage of if we have done our best to discern the situation. It’s better to be taken advantage of on occasion than to allow your heart to grow cold. God will take care of the rest.

It is imperative that we are wise with our time and resources. They are both limited. That’s the tension for the local church. It’s not a lack of compassion. So what’s a pastor to do? The following are some thoughts to help you evaluate a plan for your church.

Keep your own heart tender to the needs around you.

It’s easy to allow the pressures of local church ministry to override your heart for people. It’s a strange irony. We do what we do in part simply because we love people. Then at times people become the burden of ministry. There are so many needs and so little time. We all understand that. Finding the balance is the insight we need.

Understand that the need doesn’t constitute the call.

The first point made, now there’s the proverbial “other shoe.” You may have heard the phrase “the need doesn’t constitute the call.” It’s a good principle to guide your ministry. There are hundreds of needs, thousands really, but just because a need exists doesn’t mean it’s your responsibility to take care of it.

Part of educating and maturing a congregation is to teach the people that it is not their job is to find the poor and needy and bring them to a pastor! They should follow God’s heart and meet the need as they can on their own. In many cases they can do just as good of a job if not better.

Consider strategic partnerships within your community.

There are two distinctly different approaches in the way a local church goes about developing and implementing a benevolence strategy. One approach seeks to cover the needs directly from within the church by utilizing a direct hands-on method. The other forms strategic partnerships with organizations in the local community.

I have practiced each of these in a local church and there are benefits to both. It’s a good thing when a church is hands-on, and for example, has a food pantry and or a clothing bank. But now after trying both approaches, I personally lean heavily toward partnerships. By sending our volunteers and our financial resources to a number of existing agencies in the community, the process is more effective and the end result yields a greater impact.

Because a number of churches and organizations participate in these strategic partnerships, the total resources leveraged to any one need is significantly larger than when compared to what any one church could do on their own. Further, that organization puts their full time talent and attention to that work. Candidly, they’re better at it.

Image: Joel Muniz

The danger with partnerships is that the church might never “get its hands dirty”. They may just refer people out. That is a rare danger because there are always people you can’t refer, and the process of assessing and referring still requires time and care. Further, as already mentioned, one of the essentials is to send volunteers to wherever you send your financial resources. This helps ensure personal engagement at a hands-on level.

Know your strategy and put a plan in place.

This is important. You simply must know what you are doing. First pray about the specific needs you believe God wants you to lean into. There are dozens to choose from. Just because a church member brings you a new need doesn’t mean the church should own it. You can’t do all of them, so choose prayerfully. From there, decide what your limits are. For example, perhaps you decide to put a process of benevolence in place for your members. You need to decide, ahead of time, what criteria makes a person eligible to receive help, including how much they can receive. Exceptions can always be made, but you will be wise to have written guidelines.

Follow your discernment, and own your decisions.

You have noticed that I have not given you a list of local compassion options or guidelines for how much to invest. You have to decide that. My desire is to stir some fresh thought in hopes of strengthening your local church benevolence practices. I trust that intentionality will decrease headaches and increase your impact in people’s lives with the love and mercy of God.

Originally from the October 2008 issue of The Pastor’s Coach (Volume 9, Issue 18). “This article is used by permission from Dr. Dan Reiland’s free monthly e-newsletter, The Pastor’s Coach, available at www.INJOY.com.”

Where does your authority come from? Your answer to that question makes a difference.

Leaders deal in the realm of authority—it’s the currency with which we get things done. We prefer the word “influence.” It is a better term. It more accurately describes the innate function of leadership. It communicates what we are about better than “authority,” but at the end of the day if a leader can’t handle authority, he or she can’t lead.

Leaders often struggle with handling authority. Some leaders take advantage of their authority, others barely act on it. Some leaders over-step their authority, others hide behind it. The wisest of leaders understand that the authority wasn’t theirs in the first place and steward it with wisdom, grace and strength of character.

Where does your authority come from? Your answer to that question makes a difference. What you believe about the source of your authority shapes how you handle your authority.

The Source of Your Authority

There are two primary sources of authority: God and Man. The two are usually integrated. The important point is that you are never the source of your own authority. The implication is that it doesn’t belong to you. The complication is that you are still held responsible.

God gave leaders gifts and abilities. He gave us the ability to influence, skills to work with, and talents that give us a unique edge. He gave all these things to us, and they are ours to keep. But ultimately they did not begin with us. Is this a fine line? Perhaps it is, but again, how you think about this really matters.

I have sat in many ordination services where young pastors were commissioned into the ministry of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That night they were scared to death, humble, and quick to acknowledge that all that they have came from somewhere else. Their God-given talents and their earthly-given opportunity to exercise those talents, all were given to them.

Then as time passed, they began to believe that they owned what they had been given, and some even began to believe they were the source of their own authority. And in these cases, nearly always, the ministry headed for trouble. Looking from the outside in, this seems impossible. But it is no more impossible than a young couple standing before a pastor reciting their sincere promises of love before God, family and friends only to find themselves a few years later in a bitter divorce.

Phrases like “my church,” “my staff,” and “my ministry” may be innocent, but they may also be a preview of ugly things to come. You may resist here, saying “But it IS my church, I’m the one held responsible.”

This is the complication I stated earlier. The life of a servant is complicated. We are responsible for that which does not belong to us.

Let’s face facts, we are all going to face some type of pressure in our ministry. How are you reacting to pressure and how do you overcome it?

My nearly-sixteen-year-old daughter’s favorite movie is Braveheart. Naturally, if William Wallace can capture Mackenzie’s heart I want to be all that Wallace is and more. In my more delusional moments I envision myself with a huge sword, blue paint on my face and looking to “pick a fight.” When I return to my senses and look in the mirror, I hardly resemble the Scottish hero.

We all face pressure. What separates good and great leaders from average and failed leaders is how we handle that pressure.

I wonder if that’s who is needed today. As a matter of fact, if I arrived at church on Sunday morning clad in a kilt, swinging a sword, and yelling FREEDOM, it is highly likely that I will be given a very long vacation.

While most leaders long to be as brave as William Wallace, most will not be called upon to face an English sword. (Then again, William never faced an angry church secretary.) Seriously, what does a modern day warrior look like? Underneath all the trappings of a thirteenth-century Scot (1270-1305) or a twenty-first-century church leader … pressure is pressure.

When I say words like courage, risk, abandon, sweat, passion, and sacrifice, I can see myself, and hundreds if not thousands of other church leaders.

We all face pressure. What separates good and great leaders from average and failed leaders is how we handle that pressure.

How about you? What kind of pressure are you under? How are you coping with the debt load of your church? You’ve outgrown your building, so how do you keep growing when you are out of space and short on parking? How are you holding up under the pressure of being way behind in budget and losing some key givers? Then there is the matter of staff. Now there’s a piece of cake without any pressure whatsoever. Remember your youth pastor? What do you mean you aren’t getting along? Then there’s that small group that wants to break away and start their own church. Let’s not go there. One of your trustees is having an affair …OK, enough!

Are you taking care of yourself?
Image: Marcelo Leal

But wait, we haven’t even started on your personal life yet. How are you dealing with the pressure of your family acting more like animals than angels? Your spouse and kids are struggling and demanding more of your time. You want to give them time, but …Then of course you have your health to reckon with. Are you exercising regularly? Are you still eating double-cheese bacon-burgers, fries and topping it all off with ice cream? Your kids are getting close to college age and how are you going to pay for that? And last but not least, being the spiritual leader you are, how well are you doing in your passionate pursuit of God and hearing His clear voice of direction for you and your Church? I have one word for all that. PRESSURE! Like it or not, leaders are called to higher standards than non-leaders. 1 Timothy 3:1-7 gives a good picture of those standards. We are not called to be perfect, but we are called to live lives above reproach and be productive at the same time. Isn’t that the real pressure?

There is a powerful dynamic set in motion when someone takes the first move.

It was Thursday afternoon, and I was on my way to a local bakery to pick up a box of goodies for a family I would visit that night. And, yes, I got one of their huge and unbelievably delicious chocolate chip cookies. There was light rain off and on, which was a nice break from the heat of our Georgia summer. Not enough to get you all wet, but just enough to make things slippery.

I was second in line in the right-hand lane of a four-lane road. It was a large and busy intersection—not the kind of road you would cross on foot. The light turned green for those making a left turn in front of us. One of those people had a pick-up load of about fifty or sixty 1 1/2 in. x 4 in. x 20 ft. pieces of lumber—it was a load of wood!—but his tailgate was down and the wood wasn’t tied in well.

In a second, as he was making the left turn, the wood sprayed across our side of the road. Everyone stopped and stared. The guy pulled over and ran out to start picking it up. Only a few, maybe thirty, seconds passed, but it seemed like slow motion. Everything in me said, get out of your car and help. But I was second in line, and couldn’t move my car.

A few cars in the lane next to mine drove slowly around or over the wood and carried on with their agendas. Then it happened—the passenger door of the car in front of me opened, and a boy in his late teens jumped out. His dad pulled the car over and got out with him. That’s all it took.

Then I pulled up and over and jumped out to pick up lumber. What took place next was so cool. Within ten seconds, another seven guys jumped out of their cars and started lifting and moving lumber off to the side of the road and back into this guy’s truck. No one knew each other but everyone knew exactly what to do. Two of the guys directed traffic. The lumber was heavy, so the guys worked in sets of two to lift the wet slippery wood.

Now, admittedly, this next part is a guy thing—no one ever said a word! There was a lot of eye contact and tremendous connection. When the wood was cleared and back in the truck (3 or 4 minutes, tops) everyone got back in their cars and drove off—silent, but tremendously satisfied and with plenty of testosterone pumping.

The power of the first move is incredible. We’ve all seen it in action, but I think leaders can forget to be intentional about making the first move.

Pastors, is it hard to talk about money with your church? In this article, Pastor Dan Reiland looks into the reasons behind why people give, wanting to fuel fellow church leaders to speak about finances well and with the right spiritual emphasis..

I find it interesting that many good pastoral leaders are hesitant or even timid in the area of challenging their people to give. In this issue of The Pastor’s Coach I hope to give some insight into the reasons people give and hopefully encourage you in this challenging area of leadership.

For most pastors, Monday morning carries with it anticipation for two critical numbers. One is how many people responded to the Holy Spirit’s promptings (as guided by the morning sermon.) And a distant second, but nonetheless second, is the offering. Let’s get honest for a moment, no matter how clear the priority of changed lives according to God’s purpose and power, money still matters when it comes to ministry. If you don’t believe that then you have never in the history of your church fallen below budget for several months at a time. (And if that is true, we would all love to hear how you do that!)

When I was a young leader I often said I wish money wasn’t an issue. I wish that some rich person would write one big check a year so we wouldn’t have to deal with this. My rationale? It is difficult enough to focus on life transformation without financial issues getting in the way. When you add the “money factor” to the equation it seems to get intensely complicated. That kind of thinking showed both my naivety about the reality that “ministry cost money” and the deeper theological issues about God wanting us to wrestle with the topic of money. Why? Money always leads us to the real issues of the heart. There are some 2,000 scriptures on money, and the following three give us a taste of the truth of this point.

19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matthew 6:19-21)

24 “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money. (Matthew 6:24)

1 And now, brothers, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. 2 Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. 3 For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own, 4 they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the saints. 5 And they did not do as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then to us in keeping with God’s will. (2 Corinthians 8:1-5) The “Money Factor” is really more about the “God Factor.” It reveals levels of spiritual maturity, obedience, commitment, trust, and an overall Kingdom mindset that causes people to invest in the eternal.

Pastor, my purpose is to encourage you and challenge you to dive into the issue of money in your church. Why people give is a good place to start.

Let’s begin with the wrong reasons people give.

I love the local church, and at God’s invitation, I have given my life to it. Overall it continues to be the most rewarding endeavor I could possibly imagine. When the church is working as God designed it, there is nothing quite like it. There are other times, however, when the church is a mess. Personally, I’m highly motivated either way. Success or mess, I love the church, and I’m fired up to help strengthen it any way I can.

This article is written to leaders who find themselves in a mess of crisis proportion. First, let me say take heart. You can navigate through tough times no matter what is happening. Keep these four things in mind.

1. It’s not your church. It belongs to God, and He cares even more than you do.
2. Set your vision on the long haul, not the short run.
3. Don’t panic. God isn’t panicking and remember He’s the owner.
4. Think much and pray more.

So let’s take a more dramatic case, since the topic is Leadership Crisis. A church in San Antonio, Texas wanted to sell their property, relocate and build a new building. More accurately stated, the Pastor, staff and board wanted to relocate. It was a congregational government so a vote was taken. The membership was split nearly 50-50. The older generation wanted to stay, and they controlled the money. The younger generation wanted to go and they controlled the volunteer power. This is overstated, but accurate enough to paint a picture of what happened. So the pastor and board made the call, it was time to sell and relocate.

No one would have guessed what happened next. The tension got so thick, and the infighting became so all-consuming that the Senior Pastor took it as a sign from God to resign. He delivered his final message, packed up his office and left. No fuss, no muss. No drama. Just gone. He had been there for 9 years and the people loved him.

How does a local church flourish, by building the Kingdom of God or by offering a cafeteria of amenities to its surrounding community? Pastor Dan Reiland warns of appeasing cultural or consumer Christians, instead calling for bold and courageous leadership.

At Crossroads, we pray what can seem like a strange prayer. We pray that God does not send Christians to our church. Before you yell “heresy” and push your delete key, keep reading. We have such a passion to reach the un-churched that we don’t want to fill up the limited space we have with Christians who are looking for a new church to attend.

I have been asked: “How can you pray such a prayer?” “Do you turn away followers of Christ?” Of course we don’t. We don’t turn anyone away. We don’t have our parking lot attendants “carding” people, asking if they are Christians and turning them away. It’s easy to pray such a prayer when your heart is hot to reach people far from God.

We pray also for a second group. We pray for Christians to come who are nominal in their faith. We would love for the majority to be non-Christians, but particularly in the Southeast, that is not our reality; there are many who have some church background and consider themselves Christians even though their lives give no evidence. (Don’t go theological on me, stay practical here.)

We pray for a third group to attend. We pray that the Christians that do come are leaders who are ready to serve. For these believers we are most grateful. We ask God to make this a small but powerful percentage of new people.

Pastor and ministry coach, Dan Reiland, says there are important lessons to be learned in the garden about leadership.

My brother Lan is the one in the family with a green thumb. He and his wife Stacey live in Southern California, and their yard is a registered wildlife habitat. When he first told me, I thought, that’s no big deal. We may not be registered, but my house is a wildlife habitat with teenagers of all shapes and sizes running loose. Seriously, it’s quite an effort to be registered. He had to have certain plants, in certain places that provide very specific food or cover for defined wildlife species. Lan recently told me that when the basil in his garden goes to seed his yard fills with beautiful “lesser Goldfinches.” Cool.

As for me, if you can plant it, I can kill it. Nonetheless, I do invest time and energy to a nice looking yard. Actually, I’m sort of an existential gardener. I’ve hired a landscaper, consequently, “I pay therefore I am.”

When we talk Lan loves to talk gardening and I love to talk leadership. And believe it or not there is a connection. Below are four insights I believe will be helpful to you from a slightly creative angle.

You cannot make mechanical or synthetic what was meant to be natural, and obtain the same results.

There is something divinely creative about life producing life, and there is something patently synthetic about that which is man made. I’m not remotely qualified to use genetic engineering even for the sake of illustration. So let’s stick to something less complicated, like tomatoes or apples. There is an undisputable difference between the taste, texture, and touch of a tomato you grow in your own garden and one that is grown (engineered) in a hot house. The difference between pesticides, super-fertilizers, and artificial lighting; and how you garden using natural methods is undeniable. My wife Patti buys organic apples. They don’t look perfect, nor are they shiny (no wax coating to catch your attention), and, they are usually smaller than apples grown “professionally.” But when you bite into one, they literally burst with flavor, and catch your taste buds by surprise.

The best leadership is natural, not synthetic. Many of us can spot a leader that lacks authenticity a mile away. For those that can’t, they still sense something isn’t quite as it should be.

Synthetic leadership is saying the right things to the right people at the right times, but never really connecting at a heart level with any of it. At a quick glance it still looks like an apple, but when you take a bite, it just doesn’t taste the same.

Synthetic or mechanical leadership is based on a formula, and carries a certain degree of lifelessness. It may be executed by highly intelligent leaders, but it doesn’t move people. It is more science than art, and it’s based on position not influence.

Continuing with the second part of this mini-series on staff and salary, we’ll cover — the wrong reasons to increase salary, key issues in setting the first salary, and key issues to consider when increasing a salary. As you pray and do your homework, this will help you as you design your compensation plan for your church.

 
Staff and Salary: Part 1
 

On a number of occasions during a hiring process a candidate will ask me this specific question related to their salary: “I just want to know, are you going to take care of my family?” My response is always the same. “No.” Then I explain that it is my job to take care of the staff member and the staff member’s job to take care of his family. I tell them: “It is my job to pay you well for a job well done and help provide a positive environment so you can excel at your work. My job is to train you, encourage you and empower you. My job is to care about you. It is your job to take care of your family.”

The overwhelming majority of responses are something like: “Wow, I get it, good call.” There are a few who counter with something like: “But my wife doesn’t want to work and we want to live in a certain neighborhood.” So I explain further that a chosen lifestyle is not the responsibility of the church, and refer again to what I previously said is my / the church’s responsibility.

If you have hired more than a few people, you have walked through something like this. If you haven’t you will. And let me caution you, you will want to say: “Of course we’ll take care of you and your family.” But that’s not true. It’s impossible for you to make and keep that promise. It’s almost impossible to define what that actually means from family to family, let alone actually make it happen.

There are multiplied dozens of stories and examples like this one. The issue of salary is complicated and always will be. But we can do our best to learn all we can, do our homework, and think these things through in advance in order to minimize the complications and maximize a great experience for every employee.

The following practical ideas will help you reduce tension and problems and increase good will and morale.

The wrong reasons to increase salary

• Compensation based on tenure
  Staff salaries will naturally creep upward the longer a person is on staff, until they hit the top of the category / range they are in. Then, the salary is capped until the entire structure is increased. This is different than paying a staff member more just because they’ve been in ministry a long time. There are staff members who are young or perhaps have been on your staff for a short time who should be paid more because they are highly productive. Productivity is the key, not tenure.There are some exceptions, but rarely in matters of salary. One exception is vacation. For example, if a pastor has 20 years of experience, I will let that count toward cumulative earned vacation time even though they just started on our staff.
• Compensation based on compassion
  One of the most difficult things connected to salary is learning to separate competence and compassion. Because we care about people it’s easy to blur the lines of competence and compassion. But it is important to separate the two. If the Holy Spirit is calling you to be compassionate toward someone’s financial situation, then good. Obey the prompt, but not by putting them on or keeping them on payroll. The very few times I have done this have been a mistake. Again, I’m not suggesting a get out of jail free card here to excuse lack of compassion, I’m simply saying that payroll (or a job) isn’t the way to handle that need.
• Compensation based on size of family
  This may seem silly to you, but it happens more often than you might imagine. Some churches give higher or lower salaries in relationship to the size of the employee’s family. I would urge you not to fall into this common temptation. Pay your staff based on their value to the team, not how many kids they have.
• Compensation based on relationship
  This is the sticky one. We all know stories about hiring family. Unfortunately more stories have an unhappy ending than a happy one. There are “happily ever after” stories about family on staff, in fact, some that are powerfully productive and truly a God-ordained arrangement. My advice, however, in this arena is always the same: “go slow.” Think it through, then think it through again before you do it.Now let’s relate this to salary. If you have family or friends on staff it is imperative that you remain fair and unbiased with relation to their salary. Anyone who is in this situation knows that it is more difficult than it sounds. My advice is to have a personnel team or keep the board involved so that you can maintain objective accountability to help you make salary decisions outside the pressures of relational influences.
• Compensation based on personality
  This is the most subtle on the list and often missed. No matter how good a leader you are, you are human. You like some people on your staff better than others. It is a huge temptation (though subtle) to favor the people who are likeable and the people who you like. Again, a personnel team along with an objective set of criteria will help you avoid this trap of paying for personality.
• Compensation based on education
  I will admit that of my list, this is the one that would be disagreed with by some of my colleagues. So let me make it personal, I hold advanced degrees that I could personally benefit from but would never think of engaging the system for this reason. It is not my education that earns my paycheck, it is my value to the team and my overall contribution to the mission of the local church I serve. A degree will often get a resume read, and probably play a big roll in a person getting a job, but after that, it’s all about what they can do, not what books they read.

What people get paid is a sensitive and personal topic. It is no different for church staff, and particularly so for pastors who often live under standards and scrutiny higher than of volunteers. This mini-series will dive into a candid look at this practical and often complicated topic.

In my first full time job out of seminary, as a pastor in a local church, I made an annual salary of $18,000. That was the total package, and I was thrilled. I was thrilled for several reasons. First, I was making about $40.00 a week serving food in the cafeteria at Asbury, so this seemed like a lot of money. Second, 18K went a lot further in 1982 than today. Third, I wasn’t worth much more than that, (experience wise) and last, but mostly, I really didn’t care. Patti and I were a young married couple without kids and so happy just to serve in a local church it wasn’t about the money. Perhaps we were just young. Today, some 25 years later, it still isn’t about the money, but I will admit that a mortgage and kids in college changes one’s perspective. The reality of what a pastor is paid is a sensitive topic that eventually must be addressed.

There are extremes. We read about pastors who drive Bentleys and live in mansions. And we hear about pastors who must work two jobs in order to barely make ends meet. This article doesn’t reflect these extremes. The context of this article reflects the big middle. My focus is on the vast majority of pastors who are neither rich nor poor. In this first part of the series, let’s start with:

Common mistakes in salary setting

• Lack of clarity in communicating the financial package
  A mistake here can cause an otherwise sweet deal to go south really fast. Pay attention to detail. If you are the employer, you are focusing on finding the perfect staff member. You are likely not focused on the details of their financial compensation. This is why we so often speak in generalities such as, “The job pays in the 40K — 50K range.” I promise you that if you say that to a potential staff member, they heard only one number. 50K. This is a guarantee. Know your numbers before you start. You may have a range, but you must quote the low end. If you can go higher, then do and everyone is happy.Be clear about the difference between basic salary which is comprised of salary and housing, and benefits. Benefits include a number of possibilities such as: health insurance, self-employment taxes, 401K, paid vacation time, supplemental life insurance, disability, sick days, continuing education in either time off for school with pay or in some cases contributing to the tuition.There are other items that are benefits but are typically not included in personnel numbers such as car mileage, business meals, books and magazines etc. These items typically come from their individual ministry budget areas. Where these items are budgeted isn’t as important as how much and that you are clear up front with the potential new employee.Make sure you put all this in writing, and have the potential staff member take it home to read and sign before he or she shows up for their first day of work! This will help you avoid nightmares like, “What do you mean I have to pay for my health insurance out of my salary — I thought you said it was covered!!”
  Do your homework, know your numbers, and put it in writing.
• Determining a salary based on issues of emotion
  This is so common. I remember the first time I did it. I was inexperienced, and foolish about established trust and friendship. I knew the person well and couldn’t wait to have them on staff. This person was experienced and competent. We locked in and made the whole process overly spiritual saying “Ah, we’ll catch the details later”. Big mistake. I didn’t take the time to discover that one of their kids needed a special medication that cost $500.00 a month and wasn’t covered by insurance. Their previous church had paid for this medication. Somewhere in the midst of our “friendly” conversations a huge assumption was made. And this late in the game, if I didn’t cover the medication, they wouldn’t or couldn’t come. I wasn’t desperate, but close. I / we really wanted him. We really liked each other. The whole team liked he and his spouse. The thought of starting all over was overwhelming. I hired him and he was wonderful, but things continued to get complicated from day one regarding his financial package.Know your numbers and stick to them. If you make an exception, make it in the form of a one time bonus or special hiring agreement that isn’t part of the ongoing salary.
• Promising what you cannot deliver
  This mistake isn’t about integrity. I don’t know of any church who has ever knowingly misled a new employee in terms of setting a salary. But church leaders do often speak in highly general terms of “evangelistic exaggeration” in order to encourage the potential staff member. Statements like this are made. “Just join the team, I know the salary isn’t where it should be, but we’ll get it there as soon as we can.” That’s not smart. Even though it’s a sincere gesture, you can never promise (and thereby unknowingly mislead) because you don’t know what the church can and can’t do in a year or two.You can say something like “If God continues to bless us financially and you do well in your job, we have a track record of being generous with our staff.”On more than one occasion, because we couldn’t afford someone, we started them part time and built from there. With one person in particular we set up a three year plan, increasing his salary by 1/3 each year, along with his relative time commitment until he was full time.The good news is that in the local church you can promise the job of a lifetime based on a vision attached to the Kingdom of God. Now that is big. The salary might not be impressive, but the work is the most exciting and rewarding in the world!
• Paying all staff members the same
  I’ve only seen this in a few churches. The leaders were bright and innovative and it sort of worked for them, but as the churches got larger the system broke down. The need to hire more experience “senior or executive” staff required salaries that couldn’t be paid to all levels of the pastoral team.The main thing here is not structure as referenced above, but morale and performance. One of the worst things you can do that will lower morale is to pay everyone the same. In other words, you pay the least experienced, and least productive person, carrying the least responsibility and pressure as much as the top staff. This is not a wise move. Your team may be spiritual and mature, but if this doesn’t bother them, they are not smart.By the way, staff salaries should not be public or known by other staff members any more than you should post the congregation’s salaries or tithe numbers in the bulletin. It is essential that you have guidelines and accountability with the board and an annual audit etc., but I recommend that you don’t publish the numbers. It doesn’t help anything, and never really proves trust as some would say. The requirement to publish is more often a sign of mistrust. Aside from those more negative thoughts, if for no other reason, it kills the morale of the staff. Let’s be candid, nobody thinks anyone works harder than they do. And not all of your staff are mature enough to really understand levels of pressure and responsibility. This is not a harsh statement, it is actually one of major grace that recognizes and embraces our humanity.You will make your own decisions on this sensitive topic, and hopefully I’ve given you some helpful thoughts to guide you to a policy that works for you and your church.
• Lack of generosity
  If anyone has told you that if you want top staff, it will cost you more, they told you the truth. I began by saying that church staff are not in it for the money and that is still true. But keep in mind that a world class staff will more than pay for themselves if you get them working in their sweet spot. We’re all aware of limited resources, salary structures, and the importance to be wise stewards. Nonetheless, within those realities, be as generous as you can. Your staff will know if you are or not. They understand the realities of limitations, but they will know if your heart is in doing all you can for them, or if you are trying to save a buck.

There is much more to cover but I’ll close for now. In part two, I will cover:

• The wrong reasons to increase salary
• Key issues in setting the first salary
• Key issues to consider when increasing a salary
• And five important questions to ask in determining salary

This article is used by permission from Dr. Dan Reiland’s free monthly e-newsletter The Pastor’s Coach available at www.INJOY.com. Copyright 2007, INJOY PO Box 2782, Suwanee, GA 30024.