Caring for those who serve you

By Gary Ledbetter
April 18, 2004
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Last month, several Baptist editors attended a biennial briefing with the Annuity Board of the Southern Baptist Convention. Being 10 years closer to retirement, I must admit that those briefings are more interesting to me than when I attended my first one.

One important point of the day was an explanation of ABSBC’s proposed new name. Messengers to this year’s annual convention will vote on a recommendation from the Executive Committee to change the Annuity Board’s name to GuideStone Financial Services of the Southern Baptist Convention. I’m not sure what an annuity board is but we were told that ABSBC has not been one for years, partly because of the wide range of services they offer. The proposal involves a change in the SBC Constitution (sections where convention entities are named) and must be approved by the messengers twice before being final.

The change will also involve a proposal to broaden the reach of the Board to include other like-minded or compatible Christian ministries. The who and the what of this have not yet been clarified but I gathered from the discussion that parachurch ministries would be more likely to qualify than would denominations (or denomination-like fellowships).

Of course we also discussed health coverage. Regardless of how you or your church are covered, you know the nightmare that health insurance has become. My best understanding of the problem is that opportunistic lawyers, aggressive drug companies, and fat, stressed out preachers add up to horrific health insurance costs. I don’t know what might solve the first two problems but the Annuity Board is trying to address the matter of participant lifestyle. One of the neatest tools is www.baptistwellness.org, a website resource that helps evaluate, track, and plan progress toward a healthier lifestyle. It is currently available to Annuity Board participants only. You go to the site, enter your Social Security number (don’t be squeamish, they already have your number), set a password, and then start surfing. Your login will allow you to access whatever evaluative or strategy work you’ve done on diet, exercise, or other health-related needs.PAN>

And then we talked about retirement, a lot. A bunch of middle to late middle-aged editors sit up straight when the subject is our retirement accounts. The good news is that the trend in fund growth is going the right direction and has made up for the past two year’s losses. ABSBC plans have outperformed industry benchmarks and seem to be safe and well-managed.

Adopt an Annuitant continues to be a great ministry that uplifts nearly 2,000 retired ministers or their widows. The stories of these who went into retirement without any resources are poignant. The testimonies of those who have been helped are heartening. Our own Sagemont Church in Houston is the pacesetter in this great ministry. Sunday School classes, individuals, and the entire church have made Adopt an Annuitant a personal ministry.

Sagemont demonstrates one way to address the needs of underfunded retirees. There is another part to this problem. Currently, about a third of churches in the SBTC participate in a retirement plan through the ABSBC. Some may have other plans but many are making no allowance at all for their pastor’s retirement years. There are several reasons for this.

The most common reason has to do with limited funding. If you give your pastor his entire pay package and leave it to him to find health insurance and invest for retirement it is often because the package is pretty small to begin with. The church is doing all it can and the pastor puts retirement below food and clothing in his own priorities. Retirement planning can wait. The decisions the church and pastor have made are understandable but short-sighted.

For one thing, it doesn’t take much money to make a big difference over time. In the SBTC, all the church or pastor has to do is contribute any amount toward an ABSBC account to qualify for a no cost life insurance policy as high as $100,000. The state convention and Annuity Board work together to provide this. If the church contributes $52.50 per month (a little over $600/year) the SBTC will contribute an additional amount each per month toward a minister’s retirement. This minimal amount can become about $200,000 over the course of a forty year ministry, assuming a moderate growth rate and no increase in the contributions. That is why there is no substitute for starting now.

As you see above, a pastor’s age may be a reason for putting retirement savings on the back burner. Most of us can’t imagine retirement when we are twenty-five or thirty. In fact, most preachers I know aren’t planning to just quit and go fishing. They love ministry and want to continue in some way for as long as they are able. I agree with that view. At this age, though, the idea of doing a different kind of ministry (involving very few staff meetings and very little paperwork) sounds great for my grandfather years. A healthy retirement fund makes that possible. Consider also the possibility that your health will not allow you to continue as long as wish. Again, starting young gives you options as you become less young.

I was blessed as a newly-minted seminary graduate to be surrounded by lay leaders who provided for their ministers in a way similar to what they received in their own vocations. They didn’t offer me the option of just taking the cash, although I really needed it. I look at that church’s name on my list of contributors over the past 23 years with gratitude for the good start they gave my family. It took me several years of ministry to reach a salary comparable to what a minimally-funded church planter makes today. All those years, ten percent of my salary went into a retirement account without much thought on my part. It looks pretty good to me as I think of the next 20 years of ministry.

Many of us remember a day when preachers were not considered people who “work for a living” and should thus not be paid for their service. Mostly, churches have a more biblical attitude towar