News Articles by Jon D. Wilke

NASHVILLE (BP) -- "Christmas in Heaven," a song written by two LifeWay Worship songwriters, is on Scotty McCreery's new Christmas CD.       Christmas in Heaven, by Paul Marino and Jeremy Johnson, is one of 11 holiday songs McCreery performs on his second album, "Christmas with Scotty McCreery."

NASHVILLE (BP) -- "Christmas in Heaven," a song written by two LifeWay Worship songwriters, is on Scotty McCreery's new Christmas CD.       Christmas in Heaven, by Paul Marino and Jeremy Johnson, is one of 11 holiday songs McCreery performs on his second album, "Christmas with Scotty McCreery."

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP) -- Compensation for full-time Southern Baptist pastors increased at a rate slightly faster than inflation nationally over the past two years, yet many churches continue to struggle in providing their pastors with adequate medical insurance. These findings are part of the SBC Church Compensation Study, an in-depth survey of 12,168 staff members in Southern Baptist churches. Baptist state conventions along with LifeWay Research and GuideStone Financial Resources conduct this survey every two years. All the data acquired by the study has been compiled into an online tool LifeWay.com/CompensationSurvey Compensation Adjusting for church size (see Methodology below), the average full-time Southern Baptist senior pastor's compensation (salary and housing) rose 5.5 percent between 2010 and 2012. That rate of change was only slightly higher than the 5.1 percent inflation rate for the same two-year period, according to figures supplied by the U.S. Department of Labor's Consumer Price Index. According to Scott McConnell, director of LifeWay Research, "Other surveys by our team [among pastors] have shown that a majority of churches have not experienced growth in giving that would keep pace with these same inflation measures. In these churches, providing cost of living pay increases and covering the rising cost of benefits has required cuts in other budget areas." Overall, the value of the entire pay package (salary, housing and other benefits such as insurance) for the average full-time senior pastor rose by 6.4 percent. For other full-time staff ministers, basic salary and housing compensation decreased 0.7 percent between 2010 and 2012, while salary compensation for full-time office personnel increased 2.8 percent. When it came to determining pastors' compensation rates, education level, tenure at current church and higher weekly attendance resulted in more compensation. In fact, each additional educational degree level adds, on average, $2,878 in compensation. Seminary graduates receive, on average, $7,012 more in total compensation than non-seminary graduates and receive more vacation time. Benefits The survey also revealed that slightly more full-time senior pastors receive medical insurance from their churches today than in 2010, matching results from the 2008 study. ...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP) -- Compensation for full-time Southern Baptist pastors increased at a rate slightly faster than inflation nationally over the past two years, yet many churches continue to struggle in providing their pastors with adequate medical insurance. These findings are part of the SBC Church Compensation Study, an in-depth survey of 12,168 staff members in Southern Baptist churches. Baptist state conventions along with LifeWay Research and GuideStone Financial Resources conduct this survey every two years. All the data acquired by the study has been compiled into an online tool LifeWay.com/CompensationSurvey Compensation Adjusting for church size (see Methodology below), the average full-time Southern Baptist senior pastor's compensation (salary and housing) rose 5.5 percent between 2010 and 2012. That rate of change was only slightly higher than the 5.1 percent inflation rate for the same two-year period, according to figures supplied by the U.S. Department of Labor's Consumer Price Index. According to Scott McConnell, director of LifeWay Research, "Other surveys by our team [among pastors] have shown that a majority of churches have not experienced growth in giving that would keep pace with these same inflation measures. In these churches, providing cost of living pay increases and covering the rising cost of benefits has required cuts in other budget areas." Overall, the value of the entire pay package (salary, housing and other benefits such as insurance) for the average full-time senior pastor rose by 6.4 percent. For other full-time staff ministers, basic salary and housing compensation decreased 0.7 percent between 2010 and 2012, while salary compensation for full-time office personnel increased 2.8 percent. When it came to determining pastors' compensation rates, education level, tenure at current church and higher weekly attendance resulted in more compensation. In fact, each additional educational degree level adds, on average, $2,878 in compensation. Seminary graduates receive, on average, $7,012 more in total compensation than non-seminary graduates and receive more vacation time. Benefits The survey also revealed that slightly more full-time senior pastors receive medical insurance from their churches today than in 2010, matching results from the 2008 study. ...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP) -- When it comes to discipleship, those who regularly attend church struggle with sharing Christ with non-Christians, according to recent study of church going American Protestants.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP) -- When it comes to discipleship, those who regularly attend church struggle with sharing Christ with non-Christians, according to recent study of church going American Protestants.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP) — Customers of LifeWay Christian Resources can purchase the latest Christian book or Bible study, learn about upcoming events or read ministry articles on their mobile devices through the new LifeWay.com mobile site. “This mobile-optimized site was designed to help customers find the information they are looking for when, where and how […]

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP) -- The authors behind the bestselling book "The Vow" are seeing lives changed and marriages healed after B&H Publishing Group released their book the same weekend as a hit Hollywood movie of the same name.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP) -- Nearly 4,000 people attended Vacation Bible School preview events this winter to prepare for "Amazing Wonders Aviation: Encountering God's Awesome Power." This year's VBS theme is drawn from Psalm 147:5.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP) — Dallas mega-church pastor, speaker and author Tony Evans will discuss biblical manhood during a live webcast Wednesday (March 14) in conjunction with the release of a six-week “Kingdom Man” small group Bible study for use with his latest book with the same title. The Kingdom Man study is published by LifeWay […]