Church compensation survey now available online (unrestricted content)

By Staff, Baptist Press

DALLAS – The 2010 SBC Church Compensation Survey for Louisiana Baptists, provided through the joint efforts of  the Louisiana Baptist Convention, LifeWay Christian Resources and GuideStone Financial Resources, launches again in January.

The survey – available by visiting www.LifeWay.com/compensationsurvey – studies the compensation and benefits of ministers and employees of Southern Baptist churches. All Southern Baptist church employees are encouraged to participate.

Through the survey, church administrators, personnel and finance committees and minister search teams have access to an accurate baseline that compares their own church’s salary and benefits with similar churches across the country.

Answers to the online survey are kept confidential and are not reported individually.
The survey takes, on average, less than 10 minutes to complete.

In addition to salary and benefit information, participants in the survey will need to have their church’s average weekly worship or Bible study attendance, resident membership and annual budget.

LifeWay and GuideStone are pooling resources to provide the online survey, compile the data and offer an online reporting tool for users to access results. The survey is available through April 30 and results are scheduled for release in June.

“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 Financial Resources. “The 2010 SBC Church Compensation Survey 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.”

For more than a decade, GuideStone has teamed with Baptist state conventions to survey Southern Baptist churches concerning  how they compensate their ministers and church employees.

Every state convention participated in the last bi-annual study in 2008, which included results from more than 7,000 churches and more than 13,000 individuals.
Southern Baptist church ministers and employees may complete the survey online through April 30.  

For questions about the survey or for staff at churches without Internet access, a paper copy of the survey may be obtained by contacting Stacy Morgan, LBC church administration strategist 318.448.3402 ext. 293 or your local associational office.