What Happened to my Church?

5 minutes ago, Salyan said:

I would be curious what the original salaries were. Our pastor emeritus had a very low salary, with rare increases. When his son took over, he had a mortgage to consider that required us starting him off at a higher salary. (Not an egregious mortgage, very appropriate and even insufficient for the size of his family).  Some salary increases could just be bringing pastors up to a living wage. A lot of churches don't necessarily provide benefits or retirement packages, so salaries (in the corporate world) would generally be larger to account for self-payment of those.

That study also says the scope of the study grew over the years. I wonder if they adjusted the 1996 salary study with numbers from the 23 additional conventions that participated this year? Otherwise you could be comparing apples to oranges with different states/costs of living/etc. 

I don't believe they did count those others. I know that the SBC-affiliated church we attended in 2001 was a mega-church by standards, and our pastor was somewhat well-to-do. His mother was killed in the fire at the nursing home owned by the local hospital in Nashville, and he got a huge settlement from the lawsuit filed for negligence on the part of the nursing home. He retired a few years later, just after my wife and I moved to a smaller church. The pastor of that church hadn't had a raise in nearly 10 years, and he was living in his own privately owned residence without a housing allowance. He didn't have a car allowance, either. Just his salary. He was bi-vocational. Our current pastor has a job outside of the church, but he makes a fair amount of money and lives in the parsonage. I don't believe his income is outrageously high from the church, though. I know he turned down a raise a few years back because of the economic downturn during the pandemic. I believe his increase the last time was only 4%. That's not very much, especially considering at that time my wife was making nearly as much as he was and only got a 3% raise that year. 

9 minutes ago, Salyan said:

I would be curious what the original salaries were. Our pastor emeritus had a very low salary, with rare increases. When his son took over, he had a mortgage to consider that required us starting him off at a higher salary. (Not an egregious mortgage, very appropriate and even insufficient for the size of his family).  Some salary increases could just be bringing pastors up to a living wage. A lot of churches don't necessarily provide benefits or retirement packages, so salaries (in the corporate world) would generally be larger to account for self-payment of those.

That study also says the scope of the study grew over the years. I wonder if they adjusted the 1996 salary study with numbers from the 23 additional conventions that participated this year? Otherwise you could be comparing apples to oranges with different states/costs of living/etc. 

True this is a unique situation, and all situations are different. This is why I support paying a pastor well, and let him take care of his own benefits, example retirement, living  and health plan. Sometimes churches want to control the pastor, so they provide housing and pay for their taxes and some health but the church is getting into business they shouldn’t have to. The pastors, are grown men, pay them well, and let them take care of themselves. Like you and I,  plus everyone else.

8 minutes ago, TheGloryLand said:

True this is a unique situation, and all situations are different. This is why I support paying a pastor well, and let him take care of his own benefits, example retirement, living  and health plan. Sometimes churches want to control the pastor, so they provide housing and pay for their taxes and some health but the church is getting into business they shouldn’t have to. The pastors, are grown men, pay them well, and let them take care of themselves. Like you and I,  plus everyone else.

That I would agree with. Convention churches can probably offer better health & retirement plans due to the larger number of participants, but in our independent churches, that's often not feasible. 

The large churches here followed the same downward trends most of you are talking about. Several years ago there were a handful of churches who had 2-3 different worship services. The sermon was exactly the same so they were mostly divided by "music style". Later every one of them decided to drop Sunday night service and even the traditional Wednesday night services because so much was going on on Sunday morning. Eventually they all blended into one service and for the most part the hymns went out the window in favor of modern music...but even after that they still decided Sunday and Wednesday nights were unnecessary. At least one of the churches out new seats in and got rid of pew bibles and hymn books. Now everything is shown on the screen and no one has any idea what the bible says except for what their pastor says.

18 hours ago, Disciple.Luke said:

The large churches here followed the same downward trends most of you are talking about. Several years ago there were a handful of churches who had 2-3 different worship services. The sermon was exactly the same so they were mostly divided by "music style". Later every one of them decided to drop Sunday night service and even the traditional Wednesday night services because so much was going on on Sunday morning. Eventually they all blended into one service and for the most part the hymns went out the window in favor of modern music...but even after that they still decided Sunday and Wednesday nights were unnecessary. At least one of the churches out new seats in and got rid of pew bibles and hymn books. Now everything is shown on the screen and no one has any idea what the bible says except for what their pastor says.

What would you say was the first thing that lead to this slippery slope down? Was it changing it to 2-3 types of services or was there a change in standards or doctrine that started it all?

2 hours ago, Pastor Matt said:

What would you say was the first thing that lead to this slippery slope down? Was it changing it to 2-3 types of services or was there a change in standards or doctrine that started it all?

This is kind of a tough question for me. This specific time period was shortly after I had been saved so by the time I began attending with my mother it's worship style was already transitioning.

This particular congregation had grown in attendance to the point that a second service was necessary because there weren't enough pews or parking spaces. While the first two services were basically identical the third service felt like a worship "experiment" that was completely a rock worship service. At the time it seemed like that third service that started at 11:30 was an attempt to appeal to the college students at Anderson University.

This was back in 2001 and I'm sure was partially influenced by Bill Hybels seeker friendly blueprint. Just from what I observed it seemed to me that decision was made to grow church attendance and the music was just part of the plan.

By the time I started attending the Pastor had switched from the NIV translation (apparent from the outdated pew bibles) to the New Living Translation that was projected on screens so no one had to be bothered to actually read the verse for themselves. They also bought a Starbucks type coffee and tea makers set from the library and set it up right inside the main doors. And as I mentioned earlier they did away with Sunday evening and the traditional Wednesday night services.

I had been attending there for about a year when the church began sending VHS tapes in the mail that explained why and where all these changes were headed. The video was a very emotional attempt to explain to everyone how the Lord had been telling the staff they needed to buy property on the other end of town and build a mega church like worship house. This was a project that at minimum was a several million dollar relocation so they needed the convince the members to jump on board and finance it.

The coffee machines, music, use of projectors instead of bibles and hymn books seemed to prepare everyone to worship in a auditorium as opposed to a sanctuary. Instead of bringing back Sunday evening and Wednesday services they decided to keep fellowship by having everyone join small groups and have those meetings everywhere but the church building I remember the first book they picked out for the church to read and study in these small groups. It was The Purpose Driven Life.

I began to drift away from that the church after the relocation plans were announced. By the time it was all complete I had left for a smaller congregation. 

I have some old friends on Facebook who attend there now...and I end up rolling my eyes when they post Sunday afternoons talking about how awesome and "spiritual" the services are with the guitars and drums and the seeker friendly sermons that resemble a Joel Osteen book more than the New Testament.

17 minutes ago, Disciple.Luke said:

This is kind of a tough question for me. This specific time period was shortly after I had been saved so by the time I began attending with my mother it's worship style was already transitioning.

This particular congregation had grown in attendance to the point that a second service was necessary because there weren't enough pews or parking spaces. While the first two services were basically identical the third service felt like a worship "experiment" that was completely a rock worship service. At the time it seemed like that third service that started at 11:30 was an attempt to appeal to the college students at Anderson University.

This was back in 2001 and I'm sure was partially influenced by Bill Hybels seeker friendly blueprint. Just from what I observed it seemed to me that decision was made to grow church attendance and the music was just part of the plan.

By the time I started attending the Pastor had switched from the NIV translation (apparent from the outdated pew bibles) to the New Living Translation that was projected on screens so no one had to be bothered to actually read the verse for themselves. They also bought a Starbucks type coffee and tea makers set from the library and set it up right inside the main doors. And as I mentioned earlier they did away with Sunday evening and the traditional Wednesday night services.

I had been attending there for about a year when the church began sending VHS tapes in the mail that explained why and where all these changes were headed. The video was a very emotional attempt to explain to everyone how the Lord had been telling the staff they needed to buy property on the other end of town and build a mega church like worship house. This was a project that at minimum was a several million dollar relocation so they needed the convince the members to jump on board and finance it.

The coffee machines, music, use of projectors instead of bibles and hymn books seemed to prepare everyone to worship in a auditorium as opposed to a sanctuary. Instead of bringing back Sunday evening and Wednesday services they decided to keep fellowship by having everyone join small groups and have those meetings everywhere but the church building I remember the first book they picked out for the church to read and study in these small groups. It was The Purpose Driven Life.

I began to drift away from that the church after the relocation plans were announced. By the time it was all complete I had left for a smaller congregation. 

I have some old friends on Facebook who attend there now...and I end up rolling my eyes when they post Sunday afternoons talking about how awesome and "spiritual" the services are with the guitars and drums and the seeker friendly sermons that resemble a Joel Osteen book more than the New Testament.

Sadly, a lot of churches here started going that way in the 90s and early 2000s. They've only gotten worse with time. Even some of the churches here that used to be quite conservative have started with the leftward drift. Sad, indeed.