Pastor Job Overview

A pastor’s job is to lead religious services and prayers and to lead religious organizations and direct their day-to-day operations. They teach and mentor congregants and perform rituals such as marriage.

Assistant pastors help lead services, administer sacraments, recruit new members and teach.

Music pastors direct the choir, church band and soloists and possibly provide accompaniment.

Pastor jobs in churches are typically filled by the denomination, which may refer to its pastors as priests, ministers or preachers. The pastor typically selects someone to fill the music pastor job.

Pastor Job Types

Not all pastors work in churches. Some work in the community.

Chaplains give spiritual support to patients in medical facilities, servicepersons in the military and inmates in correctional facilities.

Pastoral counselors combine spiritual and psychological counseling. Many pastoral counselors are also licensed mental health professionals. Pastoral counselors work in institutions, at counseling organizations and as private practitioners.

Pastor Education and Certification

To work as a pastor for a mainline Christian church or to get a chaplain’s job, you’ll need a master of divinity degree. If you want to combine ministry with a second specialty, seek a master of arts degree from a seminary. Lay pastor work typically requires a two-year master of theological studies degree or certificate.

The master of theology program is a one-year capstone degree that prepares students for ordination or a PhD program.

Graduate-level pastor education also includes the doctor of ministry, an advanced degree for those with a BA or master’s who will work as a pastor or have a secondary specialty such as youth ministry or urban ministry. Those who want to teach or do research would opt for a PhD.

A number of denominations offer pastoral counseling certifications as do some nonsectarian organizations.

Pastor Job Market

Pastor employment will grow 18 percent between 2010 and 2020, about average for all jobs, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports.

Religious organizations fill about 12 percent of pastor jobs, but hospitals, nursing homes and home-health companies also hire clergy for pastor jobs. State and federal governments offer pastor careers as well, BLS says.

Pastor Salaries

The median pastor salary was $44,140 in 2011, with the top 10 percent earning $78,420, according to the BLS.