Pastors' Retirement: Crisis Beyond the Shrinking of Social Security

Abstract

This article examines the financial aspect of pastors' retirement using pastors from Korean churches in the Southern California area. Although the sample may not exactly reflect the retirement preparation of Korean pastors in Southern California, it is amazing that only a small number of churches consider their pastors retirement seriously and provide help into their golden years. In addition, the fact that more than 85% of the pastors do not prepare for their retirement brings the seriousness of the problem to attention. The findings that smaller churches and lower salaried pastors have much less retirement savings worsens the situation. The research results will assist church leaders in establishing a plan to provide pastors with a better quality of life in the retirement years.

KEYWORDS:

• Retirement
• pastor
• church

We thank the participants of Fall, 2006 CREV (Center for Research in Ethics and Values) Seminar at Azusa Pacific University for their valuable comments.

Notes

¹ Institutional Review Board at Azusa Pacific University approved the research proposal because the research involved human subjects.

² Typically, a junior pastor in a Korean church has a college BA degree and either earned or is pursuing a ministry related BA degree in a seminary. Typical associate pastors have a college BA degree from a seminary and many of them have earned or are pursuing a master's degree in a seminary. Many lead pastors in a Korean church have a master's degree from a seminary and some of them have a doctoral degree in ministry.

³ Because many Korean churches pay “ministry supporting money” for pastors, including housing support and ministry activity support in addition to the regular salary, the “real salary” may be higher.

⁴ Although not reported here, the logistic model with each variable shows pastors' salary, church history, church members, and church budgets are significantly related to churches' supporting their pastors' retirement. However, pastors' rank, service years, number of pastors in a church, and church denomination are not significantly related.

⁵ No formal interviews were conducted; however, several informal interviews with local pastors were conducted.

⁶ We think some Korean churches currently provide this kind of opportunity. However, we do not have any data regarding it.