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Home > Articles > When to Give Your Church Staff a Raise
When to Give Your Church Staff a Raise
Five guidelines to evaluate your staff.
Crown Financial Ministries

Topics:Church staff, Compensation, Contracts, Evaluation, Firing, Handbook, Hiring, Job description, Policies
Filters:Business administrator, Church board, Discipleship, Elder, Pastor
Purpose:Discipleship
References:1 Timothy 3:2, Titus 1:7
Date Added:July 12, 2007

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Although church staff evaluations are used to determine many things regarding the work performance of church staff members, the purpose of this article is to show how staff evaluations can be used to determine whether salary increases are justified.

The one area of church staffing that seems to cause more disagreements than any other is the reviewing processes that churches use to evaluate whether staff members deserve pay increases.

Evaluation of church staff members is quite different from employee evaluations in the corporate world, which rely heavily upon productivity, effectiveness, performance, and contribution to the overall profitability of the company.

How can a church evaluate the effectiveness of staff members as a determining factor for the issuance of salary increases? Can their salary be linked to the number of baptisms they performed? The number of commitments made to Christ through their influence? How much money was brought in to the general fund by the particular department in which they minister?

In reality there are only two points in which church staff, especially pastoral staff, can be evaluated: accountability and effectiveness.

How church leaders view their staff

Although the following list is far from extensive, it does identify five guidelines that church leaders can use to evaluate their staff members with regard to salary increases (anything over a cost-of-living adjustment).

  1. Staff potential. Every staff member's potential to his or her respective department and/or ministry, as well as to the church overall, should be taken into consideration when making an evaluation.
  2. Position appreciation. Staff members should be evaluated with regard to their attitudes toward their positions and responsibilities. Whether members are appreciative or resentful of the opportunity to serve should be taken into serious consideration.
  3. Fair day's pay for a fair day's work. Although it may be difficult to determine how faithful staff members are at performing the jobs for which they were employed to do, special efforts should be made and notice given to both conscientious as well as lackadaisical work habits.
  4. Rewards are earned, not given. All staff members must realize that the paternalistic corporate approach of "giving" a raise or "giving" a holiday cannot be extended beyond the accepted just because they work in a church environment. Laborers are truly worthy of their hire and their work ethic must reflect that truth.
  5. Fair and consistent treatment where there is no favoritism. One of the quickest ways to lose the respect of staff is for the church leadership to vacillate in the observance of standards and procedure, be inconsistent in day-to-day policy, and show partiality in the treatment of one member over another.
The evaluation

Staff performance reviews are not only valuable tools in determining responsibilities, expectations, and performance, but they can serve as guidelines to determine whether particular laborers are truly worthy of their hire.

Staff members are done a disservice when reviewers consistently give flowery and nonconstructive evaluations. This type of policy seems to imply that the reviewer wants to be a person who is liked by the staff more than one who is honest and can give constructive criticism for improvement.

For performance evaluations to be effective, there must be honesty, objectivity, and open communication.

Conclusion

The managing of staff members in the church must be done with care, concern, and a desire to help them attain their goals. This is especially true when the question of the monetary worth of staff members' responsibilities and work performance come into play.

Although it is not totally foolproof, the performance evaluation is the most common tool used by churches to determine whether staff members are fulfilling the obligations and responsibilities they were hired to perform.

These evaluations should be fair, yet firm; consistent, yet compliant; and discerning, yet encouraging and constructive.

Copyright © 2002. Crown Financial Ministries. www.Crown.org.