Clergy work load expectations
In the discussion on the use of recorded music said the CoE in his/her area were expected to work 52 hours---40 working plus 12 hours volunteer. That seems excessive. There were times in the military when our mechanics had to work 50 hours a week but not on a sustained basis. After just a few weeks accidents increased and planes would fall out of the sky.
In civilian ministry I tried to keep my full time work to no more than 42 hours. That included worship planning and services, administration, evening meetings, hospital visits, home visits, instructions plus area clergy meetings and still have time for continuing education. I needed time for travel too since regional hospitals were over an hour away. Did I mention funerals or weddings and community affairs?
Which raises the question how many hours do your clergy work? Or if clergy, how many hours do you actually work?
Then too a follow up question. Do you think your clergy is receiving a fair wage?
In civilian ministry I tried to keep my full time work to no more than 42 hours. That included worship planning and services, administration, evening meetings, hospital visits, home visits, instructions plus area clergy meetings and still have time for continuing education. I needed time for travel too since regional hospitals were over an hour away. Did I mention funerals or weddings and community affairs?
Which raises the question how many hours do your clergy work? Or if clergy, how many hours do you actually work?
Then too a follow up question. Do you think your clergy is receiving a fair wage?
Comments
As numbers of worshippers drop, so parishes get combined, increasing the load still further.
The burn-out and sickness rate among them is startling. Our priest has type 1 diabetes and has been out of action since he contracted meningitis 15 months ago. He has missed three out of the last five Holy Weeks due to sickness.
One of the reasons the permanent diaconate was introduced was to lift some of the workload. But these are mostly retired men so past their most energetic days.
I remember one Holy Week when he was expected to attend a 7am prayer service each day, as well as other duties, including youth group which rarely finished before 11pm. He managed to scrape the car the next day.
In the Church of England, most full-time, paid, clergy are not employed and they are not paid a wage - they are office holders who are paid a stipend. These clergy do not have set hours, or a minimum or maximum number of hours they are required to work - they determine their own hours. In these circumstances, Cathscats' observation tends to dominate: Any mention of working hours made by the various dioceses in the CofE can only be for guidance #. In my experience, when full-time clergy are approaching their first post (ie as a stipendiary office holder), they often want to know how many hours a week they are expected to work. As the Church of England is not their employer, they cannot answer this question.
# For example, Oxford Diocese says: "In a working day, proper time should be set aside for family responsibilities and relaxation, with an overall aim of an average working week of up to 48 hours."
If a full-time, stipendiary, office holder is able to fulfill their duties working 30 hours a week, they are entitled to do so.
Actually certain other roles used to not have defined working hours. My employment at the University did not for the first decade I worked there. Then they changed contracts though I think with a clause of non-implementation as so many good will hours were worked above the hours on the contract at the time. The downside was, that we never were off duty. A colleague was asked question on the use of Word while in a hospital bed and I have certainly been asked work questions while at church on a Sunday.
Oh my goodness, I (an Anglican priest) have a horrible memory of being in a hospital bed in a psych ward. Someone I'd never met - the daughter of a parishioner - came to see me. I'm still not sure why; I've always suspected that her mom sent her to spy on why, exactly, I was in hospital.
However, the first sentence out of the daughter's mouth was an apology for why she never came to church. It was all I could do not to respond, "I'm in this bed, on a psych ward, because I am an emotional and psychic mess. Do you really think I give a shit why you don't go to church??!" I don't remember what I actually said, but I'm sure I reverted to priest mode and then tried to get rid of her as quickly as possible.
Though I would have loved to have seen her face,had you said that...
We have had people come up to us right out of the blue to give us defensive reasonings on why they haven't been to church for a while... like at a crab restaurant? And I'm thinking, "Who exactly ARE you, again?"
When my last call went from full time to three quarters time, I went down to seven slots. A year later I changed careers.
Presumably playing time only.
Practice and travel bump things up even more.
Alan
Ship of Fools Admin
It could be argued that this puts unreasonable pressure on office holders, and that telling clergy they should be taking their statutory entitlement of time off (which appears to be the current approach) doesn't really address the issue, but I don't think that equating their situation to employment is going to work for everyone.
Was that averaged over 17 weeks?
But the problem they have, like some other jobs, is that there is always more work to be done. It is not like a standard 9-5 job, where you can be expected to do 7-8 hours of work a day and the time-frames will expand*. So the clergy need to decide what they will do and stick by it, which can be difficult, because they are sometimes caring people who want to do as much good as possible, and solve as many problems as possible. And sometimes, they are wanting to show that they are suitable for preferment and so are brown-nosing the higher-ups. As in any caring profession**.
But they should be on a limited hours week, and not be expected to work outside those hours. And those hours may be staggered to cover evening needs, but should be made to make sense.
* That is the idea at least. Unless you are on Start Trek where something that will take a week has to be done in 2 days.
** Bear in mind I work in IT, a profession that is heart-less. And sometimes care-less. But I don't work for the big IT names, because they are brain-less, soul-less and dangerous to the working environment for everyone.
My recollection is that our Diocese pays mileage for pastoral-related travel. Of course this isn’t direct compensation for time but it is compensation of a kind (depending on what the mileage rate is which I don’t know). The Rectory for our parish is very close to the church which is a practical necessity for a parish with an active liturgical life.
This. The whole social care system in the UK is pretty broken and studies consistently show that many social workers routinely work a significant number of hours of unpaid overtime (at least ?5 to 10 hours per week average, but that's a guestimate / half-remembered figure). I think the picture is similar with teachers, NHS staff, etc. Plus, what Schroedingers Cat says again, and some of what Cathcats said about personal expectations on onesself. Since qualifying as a social worker, I have worked for a number of employers. Not doing everything an employer or a manager would like of me is easy and doesn't bother me. What has sometimes had me working 60 hours+ per week is the terror of letting down the children and families I'm working with. I can imagine that members of the clergy feel similar in terms of it not being what their superiors want of them but what they feel their parishoners need from them which leads to them working too many hours.
But if you have something such as chartership for your career, Professional development is normally done in work time if you are employed and outside of work time if you are not. That which is part of maintaining a status essential to the role is counted as part of the employment.
I can't speak for Anglicans; but Baptists follow the HMRC rate (unchanged for many years) of 45p/mile (it reduces significantly after a certain number of miles). This is supposed to cover not only petrol but costs such as road tax, maintenance, depreciation, insurance etc, some of which are fixed and some which are mileage-related. It isn't supposed to be "remuneration".
That seems to say the question is whether the hours worked during Holy Week, when averaged with the hours worked in the other 16 weeks of the 17-week period, put the salary below minimum wage.
One of the reasons that dioceses focus on telling clergy how much time they should take off is that they should not, under the terms of their non-employment (and probably going all the way back to the discussions with the government that led to Common Tenure), give them prescriptive answers to these two questions.
It does seem to be the case that this causes problems for a lot of clergy, and it also seems that many clergy don't have have enough friends telling them that IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT.
As you allude, and Zoe said: Meanwhile, Apologies - I was still thinking of the maximum weekly working hours, which involves a different reference period. The criteria and reference periods for calculating the minimum wage look more complex - amongst other things, it appears to depend on how the salary is defined and paid. If there are a set number of hours per week, then it may well be the case that they were paid below the minimum wage. But (according the National Minimum Wage Manual): But at this point, I am sure there are people who are more up to speed with the detail than I am (or want to be).
I see that Nick Tamen also picked up on this.
Only in England is the arguably true; it is not and was never true elsewhere in the Commonwealth nor in the United States. I will have to check Scots law on the matter.
Under Long v. Gray English law regarding regarding establishment did not apply to the colonies. The officeholder argument turns on interpretations of various benefice and tenure laws in England that did not apply elsewhere and where the law has developed in a considerably different manner.
If a congregation does provide a parsonage in the United States, they are usually encouraged to provide a separate equity fund that matches the average gain a house of similar value in the community market. Say, I live in a parsonage that is worth $450,000 on the open market and that house would gain 8% in value annually, that would mean the congregation should set aside $36,000 in an equity fund. This set aside would increase every year that I would live in the parsonage. Frankly, this method is very complicated. Thus, most parishes have given up their clergy housing
Perhaps that’s usually encouraged in the ELCA. I’ve never encountered such encouragement in the PC(USA). In my experience, the congregations that still provide a manse are often also congregations least likely to have the resources to provide an equity fund of the type you describe.
@Nick Tamen I invite you to read the following recommendations put out by the Presbytery of Geneva Section A, 1, a.
https://www.presbyteryofgeneva.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/D-Manse-and-Housing.pdf
What this Presbytrey is saying is if a manse is provided the appraised rental value or 30% of the salary should be set aside for pension purposes for housing.
Actually, this formulation is simpler to calculate than trying to figure the difference in the market value of a parsonage from year to year, but it has the same effect,
Reading further, it seems the Presbytery is saying it would be better to sell the manse and let the clergy buy their own home.
Fixed quoting code. BroJames, Purgatory Host
Oh, and it's physically attached to the church building itself--it's one wing, and the other wing is the nave.
The reason I still think the employment position is "unclear" - probably not the right word to use - is that there have been cases of employment law - specifically complaints I think - used where it seems that clergy are effectively employed.
So it may not actually be unclear, it may just be that it doesn't fall under the usual expected categories.
I believe the same is true for clergy of other denominations, including the CofE:
https://www.churchofengland.org/resources/clergy-resources/national-clergy-hr/clergy-payroll/ministers-religion-tax-return-pages
English employment law has developed a curious (and IMO dubious) legal doctrine that both employee and employer have to have the intent to create a contract of employment. English clergy employee claims usually fail on this point. Canadian employment law has rejected that approach as it facilitates employment obligation avoidance (usually by the employer).
Congregations are required to pay dues (some pension plans would use the term “contributions”) on behalf of all ministers of Word and Sacrament serving the congregation. Those dues are based on “effective salary”—the total compensation package for the minister. In instances where a housing allowance is provided, the annual amount of the housing allowance is part of the “effective salary.” In cases where a manse is provided, then there has to be a means of calculating the value of that provided housing to include in “effective salary.” The Board of Pensions requires that this “housing figure” be at least 30% of the value of all compensation other than housing. That is why the provision you’ve cited says that the housing figure for effective salary shall be “the appraised rental value or 30% of the cash salary.”
So, what you’ve cited is purely about calculating dues payable to the Board of Pensions. It is not at all about “a separate equity fund that matches the average gain a house of similar value in the community market” would have, like you said in your post above is “usually encouraged.”
I have certainly not undertaken looking at the minimum compensation guidelines of all 166 presbyteries in the PC(USA), but I have looked at maybe a dozen. Of the ones I looked at, only one (West Virginia) required anything like contributions to a separate “manse equity fund.” However, the minimum annual contribution is $500, so likely not nearly enough to match the average gain in property values in the community market, nor anything like your illustration.
So I stand by my response to your statement. I am aware of nothing that supports your claim that an equity fund like you described is “usually encouraged.”
If they're in post long enough, clergy also have paid sabbaticals, which they often have a hard time explaining to their parishioners.
That is rather the point - the context of the OP (and of my posts) is the CofE, in which the majority of clergy are not employed. But the two questions asked in the OP are about working hours and wages, which are rather more questions of employment. Trying to directly compare employed ministry to stipendiary ministry makes a number of assumptions.
I wouldn't try to suggest that it fits the category well! But the origins of the (freehold) system go back over 1500 years, so it isn't that surprising. Gaining the right of appeal to secular employment tribunals was part of the deal in switching to Common Tenure (from freehold). Some clergy promptly made use of it.
Thanks - I had it in mind that they mostly failed. It might be dubious in a lot of respects, but it seems consistent with the longstanding English notion (tradition? desire?) that the people seen to be in charge be office holders and not employees.
It occurs to me that neither the Church nor the State (nor the Crown, I suspect) consider it to be in the national interest to have employed clergy.
And I took “wages” to be meant as used in a conversational sense (at least in the US), meaning “what someone is paid for work,” not in a technical sense that distinguishes “wages” from “salary” or “stipend” or other particular forms of compensation.
In my experience of various forms of paid work - fixed hours, variable hours, billable hours, set my own hours, my recollection is that the attitude and the (self) discipline required by each is quite distinct, and takes a while to get used to. And that is in a sector where people's well-being wasn't directly affected by the work I was doing.
In other words, the technical difference does seem significant and directly relevant to the thread title "clergy work load expectations".
As to the questions, my observation is that most CofE parishioners don't know how many hours their clergy work, and sometimes their clergy don't know either. And many of them don't really want to know. (Aside from the clergy person's immediate family.)
This puts me in mind of voluntary work, as does Alan29's post, and the effect on someone's attitude to working hours when they are paid and are working alongside people who are unpaid volunteers (such as churchwardens and other parish workers). In this situation, I suggest that whether clergy are employed or stipendiary still makes a difference to their attitude to working hours, as do the attitudes to working hours of the people they are working with.
You then gave a very specific example of the kind of thing you meant: (Again, my emphasis,)
And then, you looked at a provision in the Manse and Housing Allowance Recommendations of the Presbytery of Geneva that has to do with calculating effective annual compensation so as to calculate the percentage of annual compensation payable as dues to the Board of Pensions, and you completely misread and mischaracterized it as:
The problem is you’ve asserted a very particular thing—a separate equity fund that matches the average gain in value a house of similar value in the community market would experience—as “usually recommended” in the US, yet when questioned on it, you seem unable to provide even one example of such a thing being recommended. Instead, you’re moving the goalposts by saying that since it’s really about money for retirement, it’s all the same thing.
I’m sorry, Gramps, but the claim you made seems to me to be pure misinformation.
But it is more than recommended in at least one ELCiC synod: it is mandatory! In the Eastern Synod of the ELCiC: "An equity allowance shall be provided if the rostered minister lives in a congregation owned house, including a congregation-owned house rented by the rostered minister. Each year the congregation should provide a determined amount, which is not below $1,985 as a housing equity allowance." (bold mine) https://easternsynod.org/wp-content/uploads/Compensation-Schedule-2022-2023-3.pdf on page 3 of a 5-page PDF
When it says "shall be", the document does not mean "may" - it means "you must".
Gramps is correct in principle, even if the numbers in Gramps's example are way off. The housing equity allowance actually disbursed would be closer to the figure given above ($1982 CAD per annum) than $36,000 USD per annum. I can't think of a congregation that could or would pay the Gramps-example level of housing equity allowance.
Clergy who had been living in congregation-provided housing were retiring in near-poverty, as they were not able to build retirement funding in the same way as those who were able to use their privately-owned home equity.
The Eastern Synod side-eyes with disapproval congregations and clergy who overuse (my word) parsonages: "Each congregation is encouraged to offer the housing allowance in lieu of congregation-owned housing. Congregations where the rostered minister has served for ten or more years and still lives in congregation-owned housing should consider re-evaluating their present housing arrangements." I love the shade being thrown here
The average home in Washington State is around $450,000. The average equity increase in home value is around 8% over the past five years which is in the neighborhood of $36,000. Of course, houses in Seattle are much higher than houses in Pullman, where I live, and the equity increase in Seattle is much more than 8%
Leaf's statement reflects the minimum equity allowance required by his synod. Off hand, I do not know the minimum required by my synod.
But my point was the requirement of providing an equity allowance for a clergy living in a parsonages does get prohibitive fairly quickly.
I will amend my calculations slightly, though. The equity allowance is based on the fair market value of the existing parsonage, what it would cost if it were on the open market.
Of the ELCA churches in our area, there are 8. There are only three congregations remaining that provide a parsonage. Two of them are in very rural areas. I would think the synod is telling them they have to provide a minimum housing allowance such as Leaf is saying.