Chronic Clergy Complaining Syndrome

I love the brethren, my ministerial colleagues, fellow soldiers of the Lord, partners in our common calling of pastoral ministry; however, there is a malady that is common only to us: Chronic Clergy Complaining Syndrome (I recognize that my brethren have an unnatural and perhaps unhealthy love for alliteration and am happy to feed their addiction). Perhaps you have seen it, or, had it.

I haven't overlooked that the data show that "clergy rank among the highest rates of obesity, depression, high blood pressure and adult-onset diabetes when compared to other professions" (from an informative Associated Baptist Press article here) and acknowledge that many of the brethren seem to lack the ability to manage their job tasks with the result that they are frustrated, unsatisfied, and unhealthy.

Nonetheless, I have heard enough to have identify three areas where I believe that our church members and others might consider us to be, well, whining about our calling. See if you recognize these. Disagree if you wish. Feel free to try and convince me I am wrong in my assessment here. Perhaps I am.

Pastoral ministry is extraordinarily stressful, moreso that other occupations.

It can be. It might be. There are unhealthy churches and the brethren might be advised not to tarry too long in those. But setting ourselves and our ministry as exceeding all others in job demands and stress probably isn't realistic.

Pastors do endure the complaints of members, their unrealistic expectations, the pressures of being a pastor of a church, the emotional toll of hearing peoples’ difficulties, and of dealing with folks in the crises of their lives.
There is some truth to this but one might compare clergy to other ‘helping’ professions – nursing, hospice care, and the like. The truth is that since we deal with people, we deal with all of life events for our people – the joys and the sorrows.

If the Lord isn’t sufficient in the life of the pastor as he ministers to others, perhaps another occupation would be better; regardless, I rather think that the average layperson responds with half an eye roll when his pastors talks about how hard it is.

Preaching a sermon is like working an eight hour day.

Oh, please. Please, please, please don’t try this one on your congregation. You may get plumb tuckered out by a thirty minute sermon on Sunday morning but don’t tell the guy who manages a restaurant and works a 80 hour week how hard it is. Laypeople give a full eye roll to this old saw.

I’m underpaid for the level of my education.

No you are not. You are paid what the market considers you to be worth. Sure, your MDiv is worth less in the marketplace than a BSN, or an MBA even though it may have required more credit hours but none of us have the right to expect to be compensated commensurately with our education. You should have gone into a field where a degree and skills obtained thereby translates readily into money. An MDiv should make you a better minister and therefore has value even if the value is not expressed by increased compensation.

Plodder’s suggestions to help the brethren avoid unbecoming whinefests:

1. If you think preaching a 30 minute sermon is like working an eight hour day, take a nap on Sunday afternoon.
2. If you think you are underpaid, find a better paying occupation. You are in an occupation you chose. No one forced you into it.
3. Talk to some eightysomething retired pastors about compensation and other job related matters.
4. Figure out a way to be paid a dollar every time someone says, “I wouldn’t want your job.”
5. Thank Jesus for your high calling.

Hope this helps.

BGCT 2011 Budget: Who gets the $100k+ salaries?

My friend David Montoya, the little Japanese/Texas bulldog, links the BGCT's proposed 2011 budget, the detailed one, 177 pages long. Whatever their faults and sordid recent history, give credit to the BGCT for giving access to a detailed budget.

While I have nothing to do with Texas Baptists, don't contribute a penny to the work there, and am many miles away, it is fascinating to peruse any Baptist entity's detailed budget. A few comments:

Seems like a couple of years ago David linked a previous budget and I was struck by the number of people whose salary was over $100k. I don't have that one to look at and am going on memory. In this budget I find only seven people salaried in six figures. The honcho Executive Director is highest $165k. Of course, add in benefits and most all of the directors are in a package that costs BGCTers over $100k. The pay levels look quite reasonable to me.

The directors of the African American and Hispanic Work departments are among the lowest paid among the three dozen or so listed directors. They are at $69k/yr. There are two others at $53k. To be fair here, there are a dozen or so just a little above the African American and Hispanic directors. Perhaps longevity increases or something.

The director of the Texas Baptist Mission Foundation gets about a 10% raise, to $104k. Must have been a good year.

Stray comments:

This is the first time I've seen a director of "Western Heritage." Must be the cowboy church guy. He is at $73k.

"African Youth Camp" is budgeted for $3,000. Dont' know how you could get to Africa on that. "Asian Youth Camp" gets the same.

"Clergy Sex Misconduct" is budgeted at $3,504. Not anticipating much of this, I suppose.

"Cowboy School for Churches" is at $8,000. Bring your own horse?

One reason so many Baptist entities don't like to release a detailed document like this is because everyone can find something to take a shot at. Although I'm sure some surprises can be tucked away in a 177 page budget, I again give credit to the BGCT for being public on this.

Why not make a week of it?

Why not make a week out of suggesting that the SBC could be helped by our entity leaders being open and transparent about their employment contracts, severance provisions, and compensation?

Here’s a personal experience:

I served as pastor in South Carolina for about 15 years. One year at the annual meeting of the South Carolina Baptist Convention some of the brethren got stirred up about pay levels at the Baptist building. A motion was made that the complete compensation package of all ministerial level employees be published.

Needless to say, SCBC Executive Committee members argued strongly against the motion. I don’t recall the exact words but they indignantly rounded up the usual suspects: ‘disclosure would embarrass our employees,’ and ‘our pay scales are reasonable and fair,’ ‘trust us,’ etc.

Sorry, but you know how Baptists can be at times. The messengers were exercised enough to pass the motion.

After some months every SCBC church received a document that listed the pay of the Baptist Building folks. I recall looking through the thing and concluding that there was nothing out of line here. The head guy was paid well, though not excessively. The section heads were paid well, the lower level ministerial folks were paid quite modestly. No big deal. No shocks. No surprises. Employees didn't drag around in despondency that his or her compensation was made public and the South Carolina Baptist sky didn’t fall.

The folks who pay the bills wanted to know. They were given the information. That was that.

Sure, the SBC in annual session cannot force trustees of the entities to do the same, but trustees should voluntarily be open and transparent. Whatever Southern Baptists paid the two former NAMB CEOs is a secret, but it shouldn’t be. Kevin Ezell can easily avoid any problem here – just put it out for the people who pay the bills to see. No secret agreements. No confidential contracts.

I’ve read that research shows that when people don’t know what other employees are paid their speculation about it is almost always too high. Disclosure would avoid this.

So I say again that NAMB and our new CEO would help themselves with ordinary Southern Baptists, the ones who are being asked to increase our support of our beloved, if somewhat dysfunctional mission board. If we get openness and transparency one would expect that we would not have disenchanted employees who feel compelled to write about how NAMB is spending God's money.

I do wish that someone would at least make an argument as to why not being open and transparent is the better choice here.

[Just as an aside, Bill Mackey, retiring head of the Ky Baptist Conv was working for the SCBC when I was there. He is an example of a wonderful servant of Christ whom we as Southern Baptists have been blessed to have. He doesn't know me from Adam's housecat, but I wish him well in retirement.]

What's the problem with openness and transparency on compensation?

My dear alma mater, University of Georgia, has an enrollment of above 35,000 students and a payroll of over 10,000 employees. The head guy, Michael Adams, makes around $650,000 per year.

My friend David Montoya, who prefers the third person designation of Spiritual Samurai, notes that the president of Dallas Baptist University, a private school with an enrollment somewhere around 5,000 students and 125 or so faculty, made around $850,000 for the most recent year. It may be that his annual compensation is much less. Perhaps he was given a house or something after years of tenure. Details haven't been made public. Sensible Texas Baptists have defended DBU's pay for their CEO. Fair enough.

UGA gets some of my tax dollars, so I have a monetary interest in Adams. DBU doesn’t so I’m just an outside observer for whatever happens there.

Check the comment stream, people like Montoya and myself are invariably criticized for even asking about the compensation of our Southern Baptist entity employees. “None of your business” we’re told.

Well...sez who? Why isn't it our business?

I don’t hear anyone making a good argument against Baptists being open and transparent about what we pay our people.

Who would be harmed if full disclosure, like public corporations and universities, were the rule? Would our CEOs be harmed? The only way I can see that they would be harmed is if they were grossly overpaid, an assumption I have never made about any of our SBC people.

[Slightly edited by William]