ChurchSalary is adding 7 new positions, expanding our position categories from 18 to 25.
The following article is designed to give you an overview of these new categories and how they may help you benchmark pay for your staff.
In addition to these 7 new positions, we have also revised 17 out of our 18 existing legacy position categories and grouped all 25 roles into a series of departments. To learn more about these changes check out the articles below:
Click here to learn about all the new ChurchSalary 3.1 features and apps.
Table of Contents
- Why now?
- What are the new roles?
- Campus Pastor
- NextGen Pastor or Director
- Preschool or Kids Coordinator
- Ministry Support Staff or Coordinator
- Operations Director or Manager
- Finance / HR Director of Manager
- Event Coordinator or Director
Why now?
Categorizing staff is hard because churches hire different kinds of staff as they grow in size. Historically, since 2018, ChurchSalary has relied on 18 tried and tested position categories to price staff.
However, over the last decade the shift toward multisite churches and more organizational complexity has led to the creation of several new roles.
To accommodate the added complexity and specialization that we are observing in real-world org charts, ChurchSalary is adding several 7 new roles and updating the labels for our existing 18 positions.
This expansion is only possible with the help of our members who have shared a tsunami of new information on our 3.0 platform over the last 12 months.
What are the new roles?
With the release of ChurchSalary 3.1 on August 19, 2026, ChurchSalary has added the following 7 new position categories. All members can categorize staff and generate reports using these new positions (as data becomes available).
- Campus Pastor
- NexGen Pastor or Director
- Preschool or Kids Coordinator
- Ministry Support Staff or Coordinator
- Operations Director or Manager
- Finance / HR Director or Manager
- Event Coordinator or Director
To reflect the real-world job titles that churches are using for these roles, we have added an “or” modifier to many positions. If an employee at your church is called the “Operations Manager” instead of the “Operations Director,” they fit under the same umbrella.
Campus Pastor
While our research indicates that multisite churches are paying campus pastors either like (1) an Associate Pastor of the entire church or like (2) the Senior Pastor of their campus, we are rolling out a dedicated position to make pricing Campus Pastors easier and more transparent.
Over time we anticipate that these two approaches will converge to create a distinct pay range for Campus Pastors. In the meantime, we encourage everyone to read our in-depth statistical analysis on How Multisite Churches Pay Campus Pastors.
NextGen Pastor or Director
Our research indicates that NextGen Pastors are paid like either Associate Pastors or an Adult Ministry Pastors, depending on their level of responsibility.
We are rolling out a dedicated position category for this role in the hopes that a distinct pay range for NextGen Pastors will emerge over time, much like the Campus Pastor position.
NextGen Pastors or Directors are in charge of the “next generation” — overseeing not only the Student / Youth Ministry but also College, Young Adults, Young Families, and in some cases also the Children’s Ministry. The precise mix of responsibilities varies for these roles but they are becoming a more common — and intuitive — way to group together ministries that span "the next generation."
Preschool or Kids Coordinator
For years, members have been categorizing these types of employees using the part-time flavor of our Children’s Pastor or Director role.
While this was a legitimate way to price staff, the challenge is that many churches employ both a full-time Children’s Pastor and one or more part-time Coordinators who oversee Nursery, Preschool, or Elementary aged children.
To better capture the distinctions in pay between a Children’s Pastor or Director who oversees the entire ministry and a Coordinator role who oversees a subsection of the ministry, we are adding this new position.
The Children’s Department now features three roles that are arranged in the following hierarchy:
- Children’s Pastor or Director
- *Preschool or Kids Coordinator
- Childcare Worker
The rule of thumb for when to use this position is the following:
- If the employee is in charge of the entire Children’s Ministry and oversees either all children’s staff or all volunteers, they fit into the Children’s Pastor or Director category.
- If the employee is in charge of a subsection within the Children's Ministry and they report to a Pastor or Director above them, they fit into the Preschool or Kids Coordinator category.
- If the employee is tasked with caring for babies or children either during the week or on a Sunday, and they report to either a Coordinator or a Pastor/Director (or both), they fit into the Childcare Worker category.
Examples of job titles for this category include:
- Children’s Coordinator
- Child Care Coordinator
- Kids Coordinator
- Family Ministries Coordinator
- Kids Director
- Preschool Coordinator
- Kids Zone/Life Coordinator
- [Kids Program] Coordinator
Ministry Support Staff or Coordinator
As ministries grow in complexity, large or multisite churches are increasingly hiring dedicated Administrative Assistants who specifically provide weekly support for key ministries and who function outside of an “office” setting.
While churches have relied on the Administrative Assistant category in the past to price these types of employees, ChurchSalary is adding a dedicated “Ministry Support” position to capture the nuances in pay and responsibility between these types of roles, especially at larger churches.
- Administrative Assistants tend to work in an office setting or function as assistants to office staff during the week.
- Ministry Support Staff tend to work in support roles that help run Wednesday or Sunday ministries.
As another comparison point:
- Ministry Support Staff might be in charge of preparing, copying, and distributing curriculum to children’s ministry teachers and to prepping supplies for activities on Sunday mornings.
- Administrative Assistants might be in charge of coordinating meetings, answering emails, making copies and phone calls in the office, answering phones, and/or might also help coordinate the distribution of curriculum materials.
The question to ask is, “Who is this employee hired to assist: “the ministry” or “the minister?”
Stated another way, one role assists staff by performing administrative duties and the other role supports a specific ministry by performing administrative and planning tasks.
Another good way to differentiate these two roles from one another is to compare and contract real-world job titles.
Operations & Finance / HR Director
As churches grow in size and complexity the number of administrative tasks scale beyond what an Executive Pastor and an Administrator / Office Manager can perform on their own.
In these situations, we have observed churches creating two types of Director roles.
- Operation Directors are responsible for everything from managing staff, to strategy, to tech, to the church’s database or IT, to the daily operations of the church.
- Finance / HR Directors are in charge of the church’s finances, often several accounting / HR staff, and often their duties include HR and staff management.
Many of the churches that have these director-type roles also have an Executive Pastor who is in charge of the entire Admin department and one or more Administrator / Office Manager staff.
ChurchSalary is adding these new roles specifically to meet the needs of larger churches where this kind of administrative specialization is more common.
Before you use these new categories, ask yourself two key questions:
- Does this employee report to an administrative supervisor who could be categorized as an Executive Pastor or Director? If they do not report to a superior (aside from the Lead / Senior Pastor, they probably are better categorized as an Executive Pastor or Director themselves.
- Does this employee lead other staff in an operations or finance department, or do they supervise paid administrative staff? If they do not supervise admin staff, they may fit into the Administrator / Office Manager category.
In the Admin Department, these two Director new roles slot in between the Executive Pastor or Director category and the Administrator / Office Manager category.
- Executive Pastor or Director
- *Operations Director or Manager
- *Finance / HR Director or Manager
- Administrator / Office Manager
- Administrative Assistant
- Ministry Support Staff or Coordinator
- *Event Coordinator or Director
While this is not prescriptive, an Admin Department at a church might evolve and grow in the following manner. Note that if the org chart at your church does not have a similar hierarchy to the large or mega church, these new Director roles likely will not apply. Your staff probably fit better into an Executive Pastor or Director and/or Administrator / Office Manager role.
Examples of job title for the Operations and Finance / HR Director or Manager categories include:
Event Coordinator or Director
As church calendars grow in complexity — and more churches open up their building to be used by outside groups and the community — we are seeing a rise in “Event Coordinators.” These employees may be in charge of coordinating the church calendar, planning or coordinating events, and ensuring that ministries are fairly sharing and leveraging church resources.
If you have a staff member who is in charge of a Coffee Shop or food service type of ministry, we encourage you to use this category.
Common job titles for this position category include:
- Event(s) Coordinator
- Ministry / Schedule Planning
- Special Events Coordinator
- Building Use & Events Coordinator
- Church Events Coordinator
- Creative & Events Director
- Director of Events & Environment
- Events Experience Manager
