I’ll pass on the TV. Been off cable for years. The $24,000 doesn’t include a free anything. No free car, free house, etc. He’s in his 60s, has Social Security, $2K/month and a few hundred a month going into a retirement account. The numbers are posted at every quarterly business meeting. We have 30-40 in the church. We spend more on missions than the pastor’s salary, with the full support of our pastor.
The point is that while their ARE preachers who preach for money, there are a great many who are not.
“The Western Recorder reported an average annual compensation of $55,829 for Southern Baptist church pastors in 2010, which also included compensation for housing. The average annual salary for a Southern Baptist church pastor, excluding housing, was $41,000 as of 2013, according to the job site Indeed...
...In 2013, average salaries for Southern Baptist church pastors varied somewhat within the four U.S. regions. In the South, they earned the highest salaries, $49,000, in Washington, D.C., and the lowest, $35,000, in Louisiana, according to Indeed. Those in the West made $28,000 to $45,000 per year in Hawaii and California, respectively. These Baptist preachers earned $35,000 to $50,000 in Maine and New York, respectively, which represented the lowest and highest salaries in the Northeast. In the Midwest, they made the most in Illinois and least in Nebraska and South Dakota at $45,000 and $31,000, respectively.”
https://work.chron.com/income-pastor-southern-baptist-church-24717.html
I’m sure that your pastor is “the genuine article.” To work for the “salary” you state, he has to be there for the right reasons. I am on SSA, and I had high-paying jobs my entire life. I get less than $30,000. a year, so even if your pastor was able to tack on the best number available from SSA, he’d still not be living on easy street.
You’re lucky to have him!