by Rick Hiemstra, Director of Research and Media Relations, The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada
Grace Tabernacle could be any Canadian evangelical congregation. It has a senior or lead pastor who does preaching and leadership development, a youth pastor, a family ministries pastor, a worship pastor, an administrator, and a custodian. This may seem like a lot of people but only the senior pastor and the administrator are full-time. Five years ago the church brought on the youth pastor so the senior pastor could hand off that ministry. Four years ago it hired the person who was leading worship for 10 hours a week so it knew worship was being looked after instead of relying on volunteers. Sunday school was growing and the church could not find anyone to be a volunteer Sunday School superintendent, so a 25-hour-a-week family ministries pastor position was created.
Grace Tabernacle’s staffing is changing in response to declining volunteerism along with rising congregational expectations. Like other congregations, it is bolstering its staff with specialized, part-time ministers. At the same time, full-time positions are in decline. Exactly what is happening with Canadian evangelical full- and part-time staffing complements and what might it mean for ministry? These are the questions that this paper sets out to answer.
These are the major findings of this paper:
- The percentage of congregations without any salaried staff grew between 2003 and 2009.
- Both urban and rural congregations tended to reduce their full-time staffing complements.
- Both urban and rural congregations tended to add part-time staff.
- Both urban and rural converted some full-time positions to part-time ones.