More and more often, I'm called or emailed by churches or individuals asking me what kind of salary for a "media person" is average. This is one of the most difficult questions for me to answer because the jobs, expectations, skill sets, gifting and even the location (cost of living) can be so wildly different. But I wanted to bring this discussion out in the open through my Blog and deal with it head-on.

I have two main thoughts about this discussion: one is how churches generally think/act when it comes to staff salaries and the second is in quantifying and qualifying the roles within "Media & Communications".

I believe 1 Timothy 5:18 when God says "a worker is worthy of his wages." Most churches, in my experience, take the approach of paying less than what the secular world would pay for similar skills and experience. I can't find this in Scripture, so I wonder where it comes from. I love what I've heard both Andy Stanley has to say on the subject: "Pay your staff well." Amen!

OK, now that I've got that out of the way, I can deal with quantifying and qualifying the roles so that salary averages are discussed in context.

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First I think it's helpful to point out that the size of the Senior Pastor's vision is the biggest factor in determining how many people will be needed for Media & Communications. I know this goes against the traditional wisdom that says the bigger the church, the larger the salary and the more staff it should have for Media & Communications. But there are a lot of large churches that put very little effort into media while a growing number of smaller to medium sized churches make made Media & Communications a high priority. The difference is the vision of the leader.

In order to more accurately address the salaries for people in these relatively new positions, I think it's important to break down the kinds of roles that exist and the responsibilities that go along with each one. However, let me note that I do not claim for this list to be comprehensive or complete. It's just a good place to start.

I wanted to have some sort of data to back up my experiences, both personally and in working with hundreds of churches. I decided to use the 2003 Church Salary Report of large churches from Leadership Network. Admittedly, these are from larger churches, so that will skew the data to churches that will typically have larger incomes than small churches. However, I decided to go ahead and use this data because it's a relative starting point and, equally as important, the data comes from churches that many growing churches want to be like.

Here's some relevant facts about the churches that were surveyed in their report:

• average 3,569 in weekend worship attendance
• all report at least 2 worship services per weekend
• average of 5 worship services per weekend
• median income was $4,752,241 annually

Positions and Salaries: these numbers are all relative to the positions above them, I have included the Business Administrator and Worship Pastor salaries from the report to keep the other salaries in context.

Worship Pastor
Average $ 73,402
Low $ 40,000
High $110,000

Business Administrator
Average $ 70,041
Low $ 50,000
High $110,000

Church Technology Director
Average $ 57,146
Low $ 25,000
High $ 91,050

Communications Director
Average $ 50,305
Low $ 35,000
High $ 75,000

Director of Programming
Average $ 47,623
Low $ 15,673
High $ 66,500

Media Director
Average $ 42,295
Low $ 25,200
High $ 52,500

Graphics Artist
Average $ 42,760
Low not provided
High $ 60,000

So where do you fit?
I don't necessarily want you to post your salary (unless it adds constructively), but listing the kind/length of your experiences and your responsibilities might aid in providing additional context to the conversation.

I want to open the discussion up to you and find out what you think of these statistics. Are they in line with what you expect? Do you think that your church needs to take a look at these figures as a base reference? What kind of positions should your church consider in light of these similar parallels? The discussion is now open...

special note: data provided by Leadership Network's 2003 Church Salary Survey. For full information, please visit the Special Reports web page at Leadership Network.