DALLAS (BP)--At the midpoint for the 2008 Compensation Survey for Southern Baptist churches, more than 6,000 ministers and staff members have completed the online questionnaire.

That includes more than 2,500 senior pastors, about 2,300 ministerial staff members and more than 2,100 office or custodial staff members. Southern Baptist church ministers and employees can complete the survey through April 15, online at www.LifeWay.com/compensationsurvey.

The survey provides church administrators, personnel and finance committees and minister search teams a benchmark of comparable salaries across the Southern Baptist Convention. When it was last completed in 2006, 17,000 individuals representing 7,000 churches in every state convention had participated.

As of March 10, the top five responding states (represented by total number of respondents) were:

-- Georgia (948 respondents)

-- North Carolina (859 respondents)

-- Arkansas (791 respondents)

-- Oklahoma (635 respondents)

-- Kentucky (517 respondents)

Answers to the survey are kept confidential and are not reported individually. The survey takes, on average, less than 10 minutes to complete. In addition to salary and benefit information, participants in the survey will need to provide their church's average weekly worship or Bible study attendance, resident membership and annual budget.

The survey is conducted through the joint efforts of Baptist state conventions, LifeWay Christian Resources and GuideStone Financial Resources. LifeWay and GuideStone are pooling resources to conduct the survey, compile the data and make available an online reporting tool for users to access results. The survey results will be released in time for the Southern Baptist Convention's annual meeting in June.

"Both GuideStone and LifeWay have a mission supporting the churches of our Southern Baptist Convention," said O.S. Hawkins, GuideStone's president and chief executive officer. "The 2008 Compensation Survey for churches is another avenue by which we can all work together to serve our churches with information to help them adequately compensate their ministers and employees."

Southern Baptist church ministers and employees may complete the survey through April 15 at www.LifeWay.com/compensationsurvey. A paper copy of the survey may be obtained by contacting GuideStone Financial Resources at 1-888-98-GUIDE (1-888-984-8433) or by calling state convention offices.

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