Mennonite Church USA and Everence have updated the Pastor Salary Guidelines (PSG) for congregations to use to guide their compensation packages for their pastors. An article from Mennonite Church USA can be found here. Everence provides a tool on their website and a printable version that we recommend all congregations familiarize themselves with and utilize. This can be found here.
The following is a summary from the article noted above concerning the changes/updates:
- Base salary. The 2023-2024 PSG increased the base salary and unit value by 8%, to adjust for inflation, based on government data.
- Seminary debt. Congregations are recommended to increase the salary by $1,000-$3,000 for pastors still paying off seminary debt, for the remainder of the life of the loan.
- Covered technological expenses. Congregations should provide the pastor with the technology necessary to do their work and compensate them for using their personal cell phone for work.
- 40-hour work week. Pastors may work more than 40 hours some weeks and less other weeks, but the average should work out to be 40 hours per week.
- Parental/family and medical leave. Congregations are required to offer up to 12 weeks of job-protected leave for specific medical needs. The updated PSG recommends that congregations offer eight of those weeks as paid leave and allow the other four weeks to be covered by the pastor’s vacation and sick time.