HPCC Raises Presbytery Minimums for Full-Time Pastoral Relationships

Each year PCUSAers determine what is needed for a pastor to live in the bounds of our presbytery.  It considers the cost of housing, the needs of family and friends and the compensation that recognizes a pastors training and commitment.  This year the commission that oversees pastoral relationships recommends an increase of a few hundred dollars for a full-time call.  The “formula” we use is 80% of the churchwide median salary as reported to the Board of Pensions. We also require reimbursable accounts for continuing education, business expenses like taking members and seekers out to lunch and auto reimbursement.  What part of the salary is cash salary and what part of the salary is housing is left up to the Session and minister, and must be recorded in the Session or congregational minutes  by the end of each calendar year (for audit purposes).  For 2020 the following “numbers” are key:

Vacation (31 days per year with a maximum of 5 Sundays. (Pastor is required to use vacation time each year)

HPCC acknowledges that usually on the cusp churches figure out what percentage of the Effective Salary they can pay and then make the pastor a 4/5’s, half-time or whatever.  (Full-time is considered 40-50 hours/week.)  Thank you for extending the Gospel by compensating our pastors fairly and adequately.  We hope congregations will do the same for the rest of their paid employees.