If you are reading this and work in a church you will probably agree with me that most of us didn’t enter into our career with the goal of making money. But, I do think that a calling to Youth Ministry is not a calling to being poor.
I think there are generally a bunch of reasons why youth workers make some of the lowest salaries of staff in churches.
1. In general youth workers are young
2. Most youth workers don’t stick around very long
3. Many youth workers are single
4. Most youth workers don’t know what they are doing when they are negotiating a salary.
5. Many churches don’t see the youth worker role as a life career but more as a stepping stone to something else.
One hard thing in youth ministry too is that we often feel guilty leaving a church or job to look for something else because of the relationships we have with students and families. Hear me when I say that I’m not telling you to leave your current job. In fact your longevity there may be your greatest asset to negotiating a better package. I’m just advising you to be smart. Get some others opinions about what you are being offered and be careful to know fully what you are saying yes to.
I’m a huge fan of friends at YouthMinistry.com they have done some great research into the area of salary surveys for youth workers. For more detailed info and to check out Groups 2010 Youth Ministry salary survey go here.
After checking out that list you are either going to feel pretty happy with your salary or sad that you are eating ramen again tonight and starting to look for a new job.
A few years ago I wrote a series of posts about how to get a job and negotiate with a church. It’s been one of my most read series and I think it’s pretty good stuff to helping you think through some areas that you might want to consider before you say yes to any church or salary package.
If you are in the youth ministry world and ever want an opinion of someone who has been doing this for a while look me up and send me an e-mail. I’m always wiling to take a look at an offer and help anyone negotiate.
I should probably tell you too that just last week I offered someone a full-time job in my student ministry department. And as a part of the conversation I had with him I told him that he needed to negotiate with me if he wasn’t comfortable with the offer I gave him. I let him know that I was 100% comfortable with that type of conversation and that this was really his only chance to have it for a while. I tell people all the time that you will have more negotiating power when you are first offered a job than you will again for years.
So I don’t believe you need to be poor. I don’t think it’s a prerequisite for youth ministry. I think many youth workers end up in that place feeling the crunch every month because we do a poor job of knowing what to ask for and how to negotiate.
I’m guessing that some of you reading this though might be stuck in a situation at a church where you feel like you are not being paid enough and you are considering looking for a new job or giving up on youth ministry entirely. Here’s a couple bits of advice for you.
1. Pray- I am a part of a denomination that believes very strongly in being “called” to something. Ask God to clearly make your path known to you and what you are supposed to be doing with your life. If it’s not youth ministry you might want to start considering something else.
2. Network- Find other people doing the same thing with you and ask how they manage. I have a bunch of friends who are not youth workers who have a very different life and financial situation than me. In general they are pretty useless to talk to. But, I also have a bunch of friends in ministry who I can ask questions about how everything is supposed to work.
3. Write out your needs- You may be getting by now but you realize that if you get married or need a new car or start paying back student loans you won’t. Write out all of that and talk to your supervisor way in advance of those things happening. They may be able to help you walk through those transitions with you. But, it’s not a good idea to wait till those life changes happen and then go try to negotiate.
4. Ask to renegotiate- You can play this card very few times so save it up for when you really need it.
5. Be realistic- You may feel like your job is one of the most important at the church but the reality is you may be alone in that thinking. You may have to work to build your resume for a few years and transition to another church before you receive that package that will sustain you. I’m not an advocate for leaving too soon but the reality is that may be your only answer.
I apologize if it seems like I’m always pointing to things I’ve written to help in this area but as I’ve written a lot about this stuff I want to point you to one more article. This came out in Youth Worker Journal a few months back and it’s all about how to make your ministry job a “career”. I’ve been told by a bunch of people that it has really helped them. You can find it here.
Youth Ministry Falsehoods.
- You must be with students 24/7
- You must be young
- You must be single/married
- You must be irresponsible and fly by the Seat of your Pants
- You must be theologically trained
- You must be an extrovert
- You must a great upfront communicator
- You must be wild and crazy and a kid magnet
- You must be willing to be poor
- You must want to be a “real” pastor some day
Hey man, thank you for your post! You should request to follow me on twitter… I was going to ask a simple question, and then decided to give you way too much info on my background…
Anyhow, I knew I would be more on the depressed side of things from reading your post and the ones you referenced. I think it has been hard for me to go from YWAM to “Youth Director” in terms of how I view money. When in YWAM, I took on the sacrifice of a regular income and knew I would often be living day to day. During my last year in Seattle I lived off of $20,000 with high rent. So when I took a job at Shelton Pres for $35K with the church desiring to grow that over time, I was almost doubling my salary! I was expecting another child at the time but did not foresee that we would buy a home.
The church has increased my salary to $37K with a tiny benefit package. However, it was not a earned raise but rather a “this is closer to what we should have started paying you” raise. When I took the job, there were only 8 youth involved (who also had not met for several months) and my position was to develop youth, family and children’s programs. There were very few families at the time. My position was the first position that was not the head Pastor or secretary. Our church size is 220-250. Someone donated $35K to get this position going and give the church time to get my position to fit the budget. I did feel God calling me here, but man that has been a tough position to be in. Every financial strain has been directed at me! All our budget cuts have been to afford my position. We cut the secretary down and lost our previous one who had been here for quite a while just to keep my position. So this has also put a lot of stress on me to just keep my job and what I am getting.
I have been here 3 years now. Somehow, I am finding that our finances are tighter than I imagined. I also work a ton now. I run 2 youth programs, working with 70-100 youth throughout the year. I run all of our churches large events, I run our kids programs (though am limiting Sunday school involvement as much as possible), I expanded our kids camp to 100 kids with 50 adults involved and 25 youth developing leadership skills. I have also brought in 2 week long mission trips.
I know as far my income goes I would make more if I had a higher education. I do have 13+ years of unique experience. Being in a Presbyterian church has many more limits than other denominations. I would have to do a lot more education wise here than elsewhere. But also, there is no way I could do this job and any education and still see my family. I do not currently feel my lack of formal education limits me in my abilities and I do not feel God leading me down a formal education road. I also know this denomination has more limits because of my lack of formal education than others.
So here is my conflict: I love being here and feel called here but am concerned about the lack of opportunity for financial growth and growth for what I can do ministry wise down the road. Currently, I feel called to youth and family and children’s ministry for life. I would like to get more into working with parents and training adult members in general ministry.
I want to ask for more finances, but our church has been cutting budget, not growing it, we are starting a building campaign to pay off our new building, my youth budget is only $3,000 and it really needs to increase! My job also does not offer any stipend for gas, cell phone, food expense when traveling or meeting with youth and adults…
So I guess my question is, do you have any ideas of where I should go from here? So far the personnel committee has not made any future plans for my position. Thank you for taking time to read my long response.
Marcus- You are going to get a longer reply. Thanks for throwing all this out there. I want to make sure to have a good response when I reply. That means I’m going to think about it first.
Marcus- Here’s a better answer. First the calling bit is what you really need to think through but maybe from a different perspective. Often we think of call as to a location or a group of people but the reality it is first to God and really smart great people like Oz Guinness say that’s the only calling. But, where we often get messed up in the youth world is we we that the “students and families” we minister are our calling and we feel guilty thinking about leaving them. The simple question that I think you answered here is that you are “called” to youth ministry. That’s a great thing but not the same as being called to a particular church.
Now the good stuff. You’ve been there a long time. You’ve successfully grown a program and are doing it with a very small budget and few resources. That speaks to your ability to lead and the creative decisions you are making. Unfortunately it seems like there is some bad stuff as well. The church doesn’t know how it will continue to fund your position. They potentially really like what you are doing and appreciate it and don’t feel a need to do any sort of increase because they might not think you will go anywhere.
My main advice is to be strategic. You have $3,000 who tells you where to spend it. If it was my budget I would use it to pay for gas to go see students, a cell phone so they can call me and food so you can buy them a burger or a coke every once in a while. It’s not a lot of money but it could potentially be reallocated. But even more than that you need to keep track of the expenses you are paying for out of pocket and log all of that so that you can show the church what the reality of doing your job well is.
A couple of other things to think about. 1. Find who makes long term strategic plans and find out what there’s is or help them develop it for students. 2. Take care of your family. If that means saying no to things or potentially even looking for something different then you may have to make tough choices. 3. Find someone on the personal committee and find out if they can tell you anything. Ask hard questions. 4. Network more. If you eventually do have to leave then hopefully wherever you go next will be a job that comes from your networking and not from a resume. Education is a marker that a lot of people use but honestly if I know of someone who doesn’t have a specific degree and people are telling me how great that person is I look to that first.
Send me your address to my e-mail and I’ll send you a copy of my book too. It might help.
Thanks bro! I know my situation is kinda unique. I appriciate you taking time. Hope you are getting some recoup from your busy summer!