Clergy Compensation Guidelines
An important disclaimer: As a congregationalist church tradition, we do not—nor can we under our current governance rules—require local congregations to pay clergy a particular amount. However, as part of being a covenantal community, we share best practices and lessons learned with one another, for the edification of all. This document is a guide, not a policy, meant to help all parties better understand what is common, fair, and healthy.
prepared by Rev. Jean-Daniel O’Donncada, national pastor
October 2025
WHY WE PAY PASTORS
We should generously serve out of the goodness of our hearts! Should not also our pastors? Across the nonprofit sector, not just churches, there is a notion that people truly motivated by love would not need money. Within reason, volunteering is a healthy expression of love and service, whether at a local museum or food bank or within our congregations. But landlords and grocery stores and pharmacies do not accept love for the Gospel as payment, so those who dedicate themselves to serving others must still be supported!
Pragmatic Questions
Paying pastors is part of a larger discernment between what roles in our church should be fulfilled by volunteers versus which roles should be compensated.
Some questions to ask in that discernment may include:
Is this a one-time task or an ongoing task?
Does this responsibility take more time regularly than one can do without affecting their ability to have full-time employment elsewhere?
Does this responsibility require specialized training or experience?
Does this position require particular reliability and accountability?
If the answer to one or more of these questions is yes, compensation is often a reasonable expectation. The line is not absolute, but this is why a choir member who spends a few hours a week in rehearsal and on Sunday morning may reasonably be a volunteer while a music director who selects and arranges the music each week, plans rehearsals, and has a master’s degree in music may reasonably be compensated.
Sometimes a church is blessed to have an especially qualified person with sufficient means, sometimes from a previous career or wealthy family, to serve in a significant leadership capacity as a volunteer. When that occurs, it ought to still be understood as a temporary blessing, not a reasonable ongoing expectation.
Biblical Understanding
In Matthew 10, Jesus gives instructions to his disciples as they go out on his behalf to proclaim the good news. Some have read his instructions against carrying wealth with them as a justification to not compensate clergy, but its implication is quite the opposite! They are not to go out depending on outside earnings or wealth, but to be sustained by the people who accept the gospel! “The labourer is worthy of his wages,” says Jesus. All of us in the church have a collective duty to support those who dedicate themselves to church service. Saint Paul writes, “the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel” (1 Corinthians 9:14). It is understandable to be suspicious of pastors living lives of extreme luxury, yet making a living wage is a reasonable expectation for those who responded to the church’s call to have. No Disciples pastor is ordained without a process of the whole community discerning their vocation! Just compensation is therefore part of how Christians collectively honour the vows we all make when calling pastors to serve us.
Further reading:
A Study of the Theology of Compensation from the Presbyterian Church (USA)
Clergy Compensation Setting Practices by Andrew B.Y. Hargrove
How Much Should Churches Pay Their Pastors by Ben Jolliffe
Being an ethical employer
Sufficiency
An ecumenical lesson from the Presbyterian Church in America is the phrase, “That you may be free from worldly care and avocations,” which they use in their pastors’ employment contracts. A full-time pastor should be liberated to serve the community with their whole heart, without need for outside employment. A pastor needing supplemental income is one who cannot minister fully.
Justice
We ought to pay fairly in light of experience and responsibilities, with no injustice for protected demographic categories of those who serve us. Those in a position to consider what wages the church will offer should strive to ask what they themselves would expect to be paid to live in their community, to serve full-time, to have earned the educational credentials they expect in a pastor.
Transparency
As a nonprofit organization it is a good practice to be open with all your members about the expenses of the church, including clergy compensation. When compensation packages include employment taxes, benefits, and pension contribution matches, both the total expenses to the church and the salary should be openly reported distinctly. Transparency allows donors to be confident in giving, and while it is true that parishioners may have strong opinions on the pastor’s salary, both considering it too low or too high, those opinions can be discussed more effectively when based on clear facts.
CALCULATING A MINIMUM SALARY
Various Approaches
Compare with other denomination
Use another denomination’s pay scale:
Our full Communion partners, the United Church of Canada, have a minimum pay scale that takes into account local cost of living and the pastor’s years of experience.
If your church is a shared ministry with the United Church of Canada, you must meet these minimums, even if you hire a pastor primarily affiliated with the Disciples of Christ. It is the national pastor and/or the United Church regional personnel minister who determine(s) where on the scale your pastor lands, not a local decision.
Even if your congregation is not jointly affiliated with the United Church of Canada, as all Disciples clergy are eligible for United Church positions and vice versa, your congregation will likely struggle to attract candidates if paying below this minimum.
The Presbyterian Church also has a national pay scale available publicly. The Anglican church varies by diocese, but your local diocese may publish its pay scale.
Comparison with other professions
In most of Canada, public school teachers’ salaries are public information. You can research those pay tables and see where the minister would be on that local scale. In calculating education, it is worth noting that teacher pay scales tend to assume a bachelor's degree as a baseline, and ordained ministers usually have a three-year master’s degree, which should be noted when finding the appropriate equivalent pay.
Local Median Salary
The Canadian Census shows local median salary, although only every ten years, so adjusting for inflation is important the further away from a census year one looks at it. This is a good metric of what a community’s overall economic capacity and cost of living are.
Housing Costs Times Three
Search your local area’s median rental prices. Better yet, search actually available rental properties near your church. A two-bedroom apartment should be the minimum standard of a housing search no matter the family situation of the pastor, but a more generous standard may be advisable in the case of a pastor with accompanying family.
When Housing is Provided
When housing is provided, these minimums may be reduced by 1/3 or the fair market value of the housing, whichever amount is less.
A CASE STUDY
A pastor with three years of experience and a master of divinity is hired by a church in Charlottetown, PEI, and no housing is provided.
The first step is to find the average rental price of a two-bedroom apartment, which at time of making this document was $1,288/month. That is $15,456/annually. (Both the Presbyterian minimum and the Housing x 3 formula depend on this data.)
A minimum of minimums approach would set this salary at $82,961.
An average of the approaches (averaging other denominations first as one approach) would be $60,401.
The lowest allowed by any individual formula is $43,914.
If your church is about to begin a pastoral search, the national pastor can do this research for you and report the data to your congregation.
Paying Above the Minimum
When a congregation can and does pay above the minimum, it shows gratitude for the pastors’ work and service and relieves pastors’ from stress. The generosity of spirit and service that congregations rightly expect of their pastors ought to be demonstrated to their pastors as well, within the congregations’ means.
WHEN “We Cannot Pay the Minimum”
When a congregation cannot pay the minimum fair full-time wage, it should pro-rate the hours of work down to make for a fair proportional compensation.
For example, in the sample scenario in Charlottetown, PEI, if the church genuinely felt it could only afford $30,000 annually, to meet the minimum fair pay, the position should be no more than 2/3 time. A more generous stance, more in the middle of the road, would be half-time.
Challenges for the Church of Part-Time Ministry
The pastor will not always be available as they need another job or to attend to other responsibilities.
The church cannot hire a pastor from outside of Canada, as ordinarily we cannot sponsor visas for part-time work.
Hiring Canadians who do not already live locally is difficult, pragmatically, as few people will relocate for part-time work.
Pulpit supply coverage increases with part-time ministry, which is both considerable organizational work and may mean the financial savings of having a part-time pastor are less than anticipated.
Challenges for the Pastor of Part-Time Ministry
An ordained pastor has normally completed seven years, minimum, of post-secondary education. It feels reasonable to expect full-time work from employers, including churches, with such high expectations.
Finding other part-time work is challenging, and most challenging in the very communities most likely not to afford a full-time pastor.
Other part-time work may not pay as well as pastors often supplement income with service jobs that do not pay for their level of experience or education.
Creating a Full-Time Position with Part-Time Resources
A church which cannot afford a full-time pastor, can partner with another nearby church in a similar position to create a shared ministry.
This partnership can be structured in many ways, from multiple congregations fully merging into one institution with one worship service, merging into one institution with multiple buildings, to remaining distinct institutions but partnering with one another for a joint pastoral search process. Such a partnership can be done between Disciples congregations or across denominational lines. Partnerships across denominations will ordinarily require involvement from the national church and the appropriate body of the other denomination, but are possible, and often bless multiple communities.
When a Church Wants Full-time work for Part-Time Pay
This can be tempting, both to a church seeking a pastor and to a pastor desperate for any work. It is nonetheless exploitative, amplifies risk of burn-out and bitterness, and in the rare cases that the pastor seems to succeed under this model, it creates impossible expectations for a potential successor.
One of the best times for a congregation to carefully discern reasonable expectations for its pastor is in the search process, when it is abstract and depersonalized.
OTHER BENEFITS
It is advisable that churches provide other benefits including:
At least four weeks of vacation time.
Expense allowances if expected to use personal phone, internet, or office equipment.
Continuing education allowances, including for workshops required to maintain clergy standing.
CRA-minimum travel allowances for positions that require visitations or attending multiple churches.
Health and dental benefits.
Pension plan matching contributions.