In addition to adding 7 new positions, ChurchSalary is also revising our existing 18 legacy positions to better reflect the terminology and categories that real world churches are using.
All of our 25 positions are now also grouped into 8 department categories.
- Click here to learn more about our new department structure.
- Click here to learn more about all the new ChurchSalary 3.1 features and apps.
What are the new labels?
We examined the job titles, keywords, and position categories of almost 30,000 new employees added to the site in the last 12 months and have revised our position labels accordingly.
The revision process is designed to help you to help you understand how other churches are using these categories using terms that reflect the language most churches are using.
With the exception of the Associate Pastor role, the labels for all of 18 of our legacy positions have been revised in the following ways (italics = revised or new label):
- Executive Pastor or Director
- Associate Pastor
- Student / Youth Pastor or Director
- Adult Ministry Pastor or Director
- Children’s Pastor or Director
- Christian Education Pastor or Director
- Worship / Music Pastor or Leader
- Media / Tech Pastor or Director
- Administrator / Office Manager
- Accountant / Bookkeeper
- Childcare Worker
- Custodian Worker
- Facilities Supervisor or Manager
- Musician / Instrumentalist
- Administrative Assistant (formerly Secretary)
- Communications / AV Staff
- Lead / Senior Pastor
- Solo / Teaching Pastor
Overview of label revisions
Out of the 17 total revisions, the following 7 are worth noting because they may impact how you categorize staff.
Student / Youth Pastor or Director
Twice as many churches use the title "Student Pastor" versus "Youth Pastor." To reflect this real-world usage, which increasingly includes college-aged "students," we expanded the label for this category.
Media / Tech Pastor or Director
& Communications / AV Staff
The COVID pandemic increased the number of pastors and staff who are explicitly in charge of and/or who lead a team that takes care of media, communications, online presence, video/audio, and/or worship service production for the church.
We have revised the two roles in the Communications Department to reflect this shift away from printed bulletins and newsletters to digital communications and audio-visual presentations.
The two roles in the Communications Department are arranged into the following hierarchy:
- Media / Tech Pastor or Director
- Communications / AV Staff
If you only have one part-time individual who assists with media/tech duties, you likely have a Communications / AV Staff member. If you have a full-time director or coordinator who is in charge of a team of volunteers and/or paid staff, you likely have a Media / Tech Pastor or Director.
Examples of job titles for these two positions include:
Solo / Teaching Pastor
As very small churches grow, the first employee they hire full-time is a Solo Pastor. This employee is a pastor who preaches and leads the church spiritually.
As churches grow in size and they hire more staff, a Solo Pastor becomes a Senior Pastor in charge of multiple paid staff. This shift occurs by the time the church reaches a $250,000 budget (or earlier).
Over the last several years, though, we have seen a rise in dedicated Teaching Pastors at medium, large, and megachurches whose primary duty is to preach and teach on Sunday mornings. These Teaching Pastors often do not perform other non-teaching duties that an Adult Ministry, Christian Education, or Associate Pastor does.
Accordingly, many larger churches have started to use the Solo Pastor category to price their Teaching Pastors.
To reflect the ways that churches are using this category in the real world — which we fully support — we have revised this label to clarify that for smaller churches this is a Solo Pastor role and for larger churches it can become a Teaching Pastor role.
Facilities Supervisor or Manager
& Custodian Worker
Similarly to the Solo / Teaching Pastor position, churches in the real world have been using the position that was called “Maintenance Worker” to price employees who are supervising or managing a facilities team.
To reflect this real world usage, we are officially converting the Maintenance Worker into the Facilities Supervisor or Manager category.
Our newly created Facilities Department now includes two distinct types of roles in this hierarchy:
- Facilities Supervisor or Manager
- Custodian Worker
In some instances, depending on your org chart, your church may have an Operations Director in charge of a Facilities Supervisor who is in charge of multiple Custodians.
Musician / Instrumentalist
To clarify for churches that the category formerly called Musician is intended to be used for individuals who are paid to play an instrument (such as the piano, organ, guitar, drums, etc.) as opposed to Worship Leaders, we have revised the label to include the word “Instrumentalist.”
Our newly created Worship Department now includes both the Musician / Instrumentalist and Worship / Music Pastor or Leader position categories. To differentiate between these categories, consult the top 7 job titles for each category below:
