A mentor of mine who for decades was a circuit counselor in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod told me that when he was working with a church that had a pastoral vacancy, when the topic turned to salary some old German always said, “How cheap can we get him?” He didn’t seek to muzzle the ox. Just to limit its eating.
My pastoral mentor, never told me what he did in those situations. I hope he nuked him. I think I would have, but then again as Luther says, “It’s easy to be brave against 10 men when you’re not facing them.” And since I never was elected, I don’t even think I was nominated, to be a circuit counselor, I never have nor ever will face the 10 men, more like 5 men and 5 women now, of a Call committee.
Did you hear about an AI company used by landlords? It’s illegal for landlords to collude in fixing rents in an area. Now they are hiring an AI company who crunches all the numbers in an area and tells landlords what they should all charge.
These guys are so behind the church. This is atypical. Typically, the church is 10-20 years, now with the Internet it’s more like 5 years, behind the world. Here, churches, including the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod is bleeding edge, or at least avant-garde. For the last 7 years, they have been using the following tool which you can find on the Texas District website: “Compensation Decision Support Tool. Go here https://tc.cbiz.com/CompToolCPS/Login.” The user name and password are all right there for you to log in. Put in some numbers. You will find the Market Range, the LCMS Range, and Church Additional Factor that you add. You will find this broken down into Lower Pay, Midpoint Pay, Higher Pay.
Really this is an improvement over the last time I checked this, 2022. At that time there was no room for a Church Additional Factor. Years and years ago my last parish, at the suggestion of an Elder who wanted his church to go above and beyond, suggested adding 5% after it was all added up.
This being said: Isn’t the Compensation Decision Support Tool price fixing? Aren’t you telling people what they can “get away with”? Isn’t this ‘tool’ so market-based and driven that it asks and answers the question that ought never to be asked about the Good Shepherd’s Undershepherd, i.e., how cheap can we get him?
Read the story for yourself here: https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/national-international/doj-lawsuit-realpage-helping-landlords-collude-scheme-rent-hike/3628521/?os=io….&ref=app . I suspect since I’ve never run a business or decided a full-time person’s salary, I may not completely understand this. But, as I’ve said before, every model that I personally know the Texas District of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod to have recommended has been abandoned.
Usually they tied the suggested salary of a pastor to some secular position in his area. The one abandoned before the last one was tying his salary to a middle school principal in his area. Go ahead and look what your school district is paying a middle school principal in your area and compare it to your pastor’s salary which unlike any layman’s anywhere, with the exception of the military, is published for all to see. You pastor’s salary, even with parsonage, will likely be well-below most middle school principals. Now you know why that way of determining pastor’s salaries was abandoned by The Texas District Lutheran Church Missouri Synod.
Won’t most congregations simply look at the LCMS Midpoint Pay and say, “That’s enough”? Or is this really going to function like my giving quizzes and grades to Confirmation students? It was because the flesh remains with us not in order to see who makes the grade for being confirmed. Also, seeing what the local market is paying for pastor’s, may discipline the flesh of the square-headed German enough so he won’t ask, “How cheap can we get him?” That man deserves the cheapest pastor out there.
