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.
“The survey is quick and easy to do,” said Lee Wright, coordinator of church compensation services for the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions (SBOM). “It takes less than 10 minutes to complete.”
Answers to the online survey are kept confidential and are not reported individually.
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.
Wright noted that while the survey is basically the same, there is a new element to it this year.
For the first time, LifeWay and GuideStone are partnering to provide the survey, he said.
They are pooling resources to provide the online survey, compile the data and make available an online reporting tool for users to access results, according to a GuideStone news release.
“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.
“The 2008 Compensation Survey for churches is another avenue by which we all can work together to serve our churches with information to help them adequately compensate their ministers and employees,” he said.
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 biannual 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.
Wright also pointed out that the survey this year is entirely online, but the SBOM office of church compensation services will assist churches without Internet access.
“If a church doesn’t have access to the Internet, we can send them a form to fill out,” he said.
The church would then return the form to Wright’s office, and personnel in the office will enter the data online for the church.
Southern Baptist church ministers and employees may complete the survey through April 15.
Results will be released in June, and Wright’s office will provide a hard copy of the results to churches that request it.
For more information, contact Wright at 1-800-264-1225, Ext. 241. (GuideStone, TAB)
Share with others: