Staff and volunteers

Staff cost more than anything else a congregation buys, and the right ones are worth it: a great preacher or teacher (a pastor's sermon, a rabbi's d'var Torah, an imam's khutbah, a granthi's katha, a swami's discourse) lifts everyone every week. How your clergy come, how long they stay, and who pays them is your tradition's to say, and this chapter shows each way. Volunteers cost nothing at all, and are among the best value in the game, as long as you don't wear them out.

Staff

Some roles belong to one faith, and the hire list offers only those that fit yours:

A member of staff who performs rites (a pujari, an assistant granthi, a negi, a Daoist priest) can be booked for the rites families ask for, as the leader can, so the more of them, the more of the price list is held (Money). Pay for the new faiths' roles is an estimate.

Payroll taxes add 7.65% to every salary. The Staff screen calls your clergy what your tradition does: a Catholic parish hires no "pastor" but has its priest, a part-time priest, or an associate priest; a synagogue has its rabbi, a mosque its imam, a gurdwara its granthi, a Hindu temple its head priest, a shrine its chief priest, a Zen center its teacher, a Theravada temple its abbot; and a Salvation Army corps has its corps officers. This chapter says "leader" for all of them: read pastor, priest, rabbi, imam, granthi, swami, or teacher, as yours is. The assisting orders go by their own names too: the Free Methodists' consecrated deacons, the Witnesses' ministerial servants, a Latter-day Saint bishop's counselors, the Army's Corps Sergeant-Major.

Hiring

• Advertise a role and three applicants apply, with skills from 0.3 to 0.95. Better ones ask for more. Hire the one you want, or Advertise again for a new three. A role filled from the members (a deacon, a muezzin, a school coordinator, a fortune-slip interpreter) shows Ask who'd serve instead: the candidates are your longest-standing members of 25 to 75, more skilled the longer they've belonged.
• A skilled leader is worth paying for. Preaching (the sermon, the khutbah, the d'var Torah, the dharma talk, the katha, the discourse) moves everyone by (performance − 0.5) × 0.16, so the swing from a poor preacher to a great one is 0.16 for everyone, every week. That's more than the whole building's fit.

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Your clergy, as your tradition has them

The top of the Staff screen says how your congregation's leader comes, and the hire list follows it. There are six ways.

Dismissing the congregation's leader (Ask to dismiss on the Staff screen) goes to whoever calls them in your tradition: the members' vote, a board, or the wider body. Never the leader alone. The less content the congregation, the likelier it carries: about half at 50% satisfaction, three in four at 30%. If it carries, they go with a month's pay. Other staff, and an interim, are let go at once.

Making a bivocational leader full-time (Make full-time) makes them the congregation's full-time leader, with its benefits, at a quarter more pay, at least the full-time leader's least ($55,000). It goes to the same decision as a call, weighing their skill against what it costs. A full-time leader can know about 150 people well, against a bivocational one's 75.

Asking for a move (Staff screen, for a leader who was sent) works once they've been with you two years and the wider body regards you at 70% or more. It costs the congregation a little of that regard (5%), and a successor comes within two months.

The candidates

• How many apply. Usually three. Two where clergy are scarce (Catholic and Orthodox priests, Ukrainian Catholic priests; an imam for a Sunni or Shia center, a monk for a Vietnamese temple, a priest for a Hindu temple, often from India on a religious-worker visa, an acharya for an Arya Samaj, a priest trained in Japan for a shrine). Four where they're plentiful (Southern and National Baptist pastors, Community of Christ). Two from a wider body's vetted list (ELCA, Presbyterians, Christian Reformed; the Reform and Conservative movements' placement lists; the Theravada temple's council of monks, and FPMT for a Tibetan center), a little more skilled for it. One fewer where clergy must be celibate (a Catholic priest; a Theravada, Tibetan, or Vietnamese temple's monks).
• Their training sets their skill and what they ask:

  Training	Skill	Pay asked
  Seminary or its like (most mainline, Catholic, and Orthodox churches; the Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, and Reconstructionist synagogues; the Sunni, Shia, and Ahmadi centers; the Buddhist Churches of America, the Tibetan center, and the Chinese Buddhist temple; the Hindu community temple and Chinmaya Mission; the shrine and Konko)	as usual	100%
  In-house (Salvation Army, the nondenominational church, ARC, the Coptic Orthodox, the Witnesses, Community of Christ; Chabad; the W. Deen Mohammed community and the Nation of Islam; the Theravada and Vietnamese temples; BAPS, ISSO, ISKCON, the Vedanta Society, SRF; Jain Vishva Bharati; the Daoist temple and Yiguandao)	as usual	90%
  College (the Christian Churches, Churches of Christ, United Pentecostals; the gurdwara's granthis), or an ordination council (Southern and National Baptists)	−0.03	95%
  A course of study (AME, Assemblies of God, Church of God, Nazarenes, IPHC, Friends United Meeting; the Arya Samaj; Tenrikyo)	−0.05	90%
  Apprenticeship (COGIC, Calvary Chapel, Vineyard, Acts 29; the Indo-Caribbean mandir's pandits; the Soto Zen center's teachers)	−0.06	85%

• Women are among the candidates (about a third of them) only where the tradition ordains women or lets them lead: most mainline churches, the Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist synagogues, most Buddhist temples, the gurdwara, ISKCON, the Arya Samaj, Chinmaya Mission, SRF, the shrine, Konko, Tenrikyo, the Daoist temple, and Yiguandao; not at the mosques (but the Nation of Islam), the Catholic and Orthodox churches, an Orthodox shul or Chabad, the Hindu community temple, BAPS, ISSO, or the Vedanta Society. Where women may preach but not pastor, they can still be associate pastors. Where a temple is kept by nuns (the Chinese Buddhist temple's abbess, Jain Vishva Bharati's samanis), every candidate is a woman.
• Spouses. Candidates are married or not as the tradition has it: never where clergy must be celibate, nine in ten where marriage is expected (many Baptist and independent churches, an Orthodox shul, the W. Deen Mohammed community and the Nation of Islam, the Indo-Caribbean mandir's pandit, a Tenrikyo minister), seven in ten otherwise. Salvation Army officers, an ARC church's lead pastor, and a Chabad house's shluchim always serve as a married couple; where couples may serve together (the United Methodists, ELCA, Presbyterians, and others; Chinmaya Mission; Konko and Tenrikyo), about one married candidate in seven comes as a couple.
• Rank. Where the tradition has a credential ladder (licensed, then ordained; lieutenant, captain, major; in a Jodo Shinshu temple tokudo, kyoshi, kaikyoshi; in Zen shuso, osho, roshi; in a Theravada temple samanera, bhikkhu, thera, mahathera; in a Tibetan center getsul, gelong, geshe; at a Chinese Buddhist temple the novice, the bhikshu or bhikshuni, the senior Dharma master; at a shrine chokkai, gonseikai, seikai, meikai; in Tenrikyo yoboku, minister, head minister; at a Daoist priest's own temple the Zhengyi registers), each candidate holds a rank by their skill. Synagogues, mosques, Hindu temples, gurdwaras, and Jain centers have no ladder.

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What they're paid

• The wider body's scale. Catholic, Ukrainian Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Adventist, and Salvation Army clergy, and the Ahmadi missionary, are paid what the scale sets for their rank, not what they ask.
• The parsonage. Where the congregation houses its leader (a Catholic rectory, a Methodist parsonage, a gurdwara's or a Hindu temple's rooms for its granthi or priests, a shrine priest's house, a Konko or Tenrikyo church where the minister's family lives, an ISKCON or Vedanta ashram), candidates ask 12% less, and the house costs $900 a month to keep up (three quarters of that for a celibate priest, monk, or swami). Where your tradition leaves it to you (the Episcopal and Missouri Synod churches, an Orthodox shul, the Buddhist Churches of America, the Tibetan center, and others), the Staff screen has a Housing setting: Parsonage or Allowance.
• Dues and tithes they pay upward. A pastor who owes the wider body ministers' dues (Assemblies of God $600 a year, United Pentecostal $900) or a ministers' tithe (a tenth of pay: Church of God, IPHC) asks for it on top of their salary.
• A minimum. A full-time Presbyterian pastor is never paid under $50,000, a United Methodist one under $48,000.
• Paid from above. Where the tithe goes up to the conference (Adventists) or the wider body funds the congregation (Salvation Army, the Ahmadi chapters, the Self-Realization Fellowship's temples), the wider body pays the clergy and the congregation pays nothing for them.

Shared leaders and part-time ones

Where a tradition shares small congregations' leaders (Catholic, Ukrainian Catholic, United Methodist, AME, Missouri Synod, Adventist; the Buddhist Churches of America's ministers; Chinmaya Mission's acharyas), a full-time leader of a congregation below the tradition's full-time attendance (60 unless it says otherwise) serves another too. You pay half their salary and have half their care, and they lead only the first service each week: those at your later services miss them a little (−0.03). It's looked at again each July, so growing past the line brings them back to you. Where the wider body sends leaders and doesn't share them, a small congregation is sent a part-time one.

Spouses, ranks, and assisting orders

• A recognized spouse (the First Lady of an AME, COGIC, or National Baptist church; the pastor's wife in the Assemblies, a Southern Baptist, a Calvary Chapel, an Acts 29, or a nondenominational church; the priest's wife in the Orthodox, Coptic, and Ukrainian Catholic churches; the rebbetzin of an Orthodox shul; the priest's or minister's spouse at a Shinto shrine, a Konko church, or a Tenrikyo church) lifts every adult a little after each service (+0.01), where the leader is married.
• A couple serving together (Salvation Army officers, an ARC church's lead pastor and spouse, a Chabad house's rabbi and rebbetzin, and any couple who came together where couples may) care for 75 more people than one could, and so does a married pastor where the spouse leads alongside (Vineyard USA, a charismatic nondenominational church).
• Promotion. Clergy rise a rank after the years it asks, a little more skilled each time (+0.03), and better paid where the wider body sets pay. Where women may not hold the highest office (the Church of God's bishops), a woman stays a rung below it.
• The visiting elder. Where none of your leaders holds a rank that may celebrate the sacraments (an AME licentiate or itinerant deacon), an elder comes for each communion, for $150.
• Assisting orders are nearly free pastoral care: name a deacon, a local elder, a bishop's counselor, or a Shin temple's minister's assistant from the members, or take in a resident monk or nun (at a Theravada, Vietnamese, Tibetan, or Chinese Buddhist temple, BAPS, ISSO, ISKCON, the Vedanta Society, SRF, or Jain Vishva Bharati) on a small stipend, and the leader's reach grows by 30 (40 for the monastic). In a stretched congregation, they're the cheapest help there is.

Overload

Past their capacity (150 people for a full-time leader, 75 for a bivocational one, 100 for an associate, 60 for a lay leader, plus 50 with a secretary, 30 for each assisting order, what each other role adds (a temple manager 30, a negi 40), and half of a shared leader), the preaching's performance is divided by the overload. A leader caring for 300 people preaches at half their skill. A growing congregation needs a secretary, a deacon or a resident monk, a pujari or an assistant granthi, or a second leader before the preaching suffers.

Years of service and training

Staff grow into the job. On each anniversary of their hiring, everyone on the staff is 5 points more skilled (up to 100%) and paid 5% more, so the payroll grows year on year while giving doesn't: a $50,000 leader costs $81,000 after ten years. Where the wider body pays clergy by a scale, a promotion pays the scale or what the years have raised them to, whichever is more.

Train up on the Staff screen adds 20 points of skill at once, for a tenth of their yearly salary, once a year each (not while they're on sabbatical). It's the cheapest way to better preaching: $5,000 takes a $50,000 leader from 60% to 80%, worth +0.03 to everyone at every service.

Strain and sabbaticals

A leader's strain builds month by month: a little anyway, more for each whole load over their capacity and each weekly main service beyond the first (a mosque's daily prayers or a temple's aratis add only a little, shared among all who lead worship, and open hours nothing), and it eases when the load is light. The Staff screen shows it as a bar. Past half, it tells on their work (at full strain they work at 40%), and from 90% they may resign, worn out. A three-month sabbatical clears it, due five years after they came and every five years after. While they're away, a supply leader (the ledger's "Supply pastor", "Supply rabbi", "Supply granthi") fills in for $800 a month, not as well, and the congregation misses them a little (−0.02). Where someone else on the staff leads worship (an associate, a pujari, a negi, a muezzin, a cantor), they keep the services going and no supply leader is needed.

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How long they stay, and who comes next

A congregation with no leader costs everyone 0.1 after every service (except where worship isn't led by clergy, as in an unprogrammed Friends meeting, a Soka Gakkai center, a Jain center, or a Chinese folk temple). Some traditions have a service for when there's no leader, and hold it until one comes: the Catholic Sunday Celebration in the Absence of a Priest, with communion from the tabernacle, or a lay-led service (Episcopal, ACNA, PCA, Christian Reformed, Mennonite, Brethren, Acts 29, and Unitarian Universalist churches; Friends United Meeting falls back on unprogrammed worship). A synagogue holds a lay-led Shabbat service, a mosque's Jumu'ah is led by a member who can give the khutbah (a Shia center's Du'a Kumayl by its members), a Buddhist temple's members lead its practice, a gurdwara's sangat holds its own diwan (any Sikh may read and lead the Ardas), and an SRF temple holds a reading service. The laity leading it costs everyone 0.04, not 0.1. Elsewhere (a Hindu temple, BAPS, ISKCON, Konko, Tenrikyo, the Daoist temple, Yiguandao, and others) the services go on without one, at the full cost. Every tradition: services and what they need says which does what. How long a leader stays is the tradition's tenure:

Any other leader retires after 25 years, 8% a month. The Moves setting on the Staff screen (where the wider body sends your leader on a term or a yearly review) turns its moves off: they stay till they retire.

When the post falls empty

• The associate succeeds at once where the tradition has the assistant take over (Assemblies of God, the nondenominational church, Calvary Chapel, Vineyard, Acts 29; a Zen center's senior student, a Vietnamese temple's senior monk, a Vedanta Society's assistant swami). An associate there is insurance against a vacancy.
• The family succeeds where the post passes in the family (COGIC, ARC, a charismatic nondenominational church; a Chabad house; the Indo-Caribbean mandir's pandit; a Shinto shrine's priestly family; a Konko or Tenrikyo church, which passes to the minister's child): when the leader retires, a son or daughter takes over at once, skilled halfway between the one retiring and 0.5.
• Sent: a successor comes within two months. One whose obligations leave it no voice with the wider body is sent the weakest of those available.
• Called: the search takes nine months (four longer where clergy are scarce, three shorter where they're plentiful). Where the tradition has an interim (American Baptist, ELCA, Episcopal, Missouri Synod, Presbyterian, Southern Baptist, UCC, Unitarian Universalist; the Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist synagogues), an interim leader (an interim pastor or rabbi) of middling skill serves at the role's lowest pay, and the search runs three months longer.
• Call your own sooner if you can, and no one else is sent. An interim stays until the search would have ended.

Order of hiring

1. A leader, if your congregation calls its own: bivocational below about 75 people, full time above about 150.
2. Someone to lead the music once there's a steady surplus of about $2,500 a month: a choir director or organist (a cantor in a synagogue, the ragi jatha at a gurdwara, an organist at a Shin temple, a service teacher, unpaid, at a Tenrikyo church).
3. Deacons or elders, a bishop's counselors, a muezzin, a resident monk or nun, a minister's assistant, a fortune-slip interpreter, tai chi instructors, Yiguandao's lecturers, where your tradition has them: they cost little or nothing and widen the leader's care.
4. Where families book rites, someone to perform them beside the leader: a pujari, an assistant granthi, a negi, a Daoist priest (Money).
5. A youth director (or an education director, a Qur'an teacher, a Punjabi and kirtan teacher, a school coordinator for Bal Vihar or pathshala, a Dharma School superintendent) if you have young families.
6. A caretaker (a Jain center's pujari, a Chinese temple's temple keeper) for a big or busy building.
7. A secretary (a shrine's miko), an executive director, a temple manager, or an associate before the leader is stretched.

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Volunteers

Lutherans need an acolyte, a lector, and two communion assistants at communion, and hope for a crucifer. Catholics and Episcopalians need altar servers and a lector; the Orthodox, altar servers and a reader. Presbyterian elders and Baptist deacons serve communion. A synagogue's lector is its Torah reader: an Orthodox shul needs its ba'al koreh, a Conservative one hopes for a Torah reader, and a Reform temple can do without. A gurdwara hopes for a sevadar to sit behind the Guru Granth Sahib with the chaur sahib; a Tenrikyo church needs nine instrument players at every service and hopes for six dancers, by the month's rota. Each helper's card on the Volunteers screen says what your tradition asks.

Recruiting

Ask for two more on the Volunteers screen asks the happiest adults in the congregation, who say yes with a chance equal to their satisfaction. You can also ask a particular person from their inspector (Ask: Greeter, Ask: Usher, and so on). Recruit when people are content.

The rota and burnout

• Each volunteer is willing to serve 1 to 4 services a month: one fewer where the tradition asks little commitment of its people, one more where it asks much, two more where it asks everything (the Witnesses), and more again for those in an auxiliary (see The congregation in its community). The rota asks those within their limit first, and asks someone for more only when nobody else is coming.
• Every service beyond their limit adds 0.25 burnout; a month within it takes 0.15 off.
• Burnout costs them up to 0.25 satisfaction a week, and at 0.8 they quit everything, usually unhappy enough to drift away.
• With services twice a week, each role needs twice the volunteers. The Volunteers screen shows each month's shifts against what your people will give.
• Ministry volunteers must be satisfied (0.5 or more), aged 16 to 80, and not already serving at the main services. Fundraisers and door-to-door outreach tire those who run them too.

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