Many Pastors See Bump in 2018 Giving but Black Pastors More Likely to Report Decline, Study Says

While some 42 percent of pastors in general are reporting a bump in giving to their churches over 2017, an equal amount of African American pastors say giving has gone down for them over the same period, a new survey from Lifeway Research says.

“The increases in offerings so many churches are experiencing coincide with what most economists refer to as ‘full employment,’ as well as increased wage growth in 2018,” Scott McConnell, executive director of LifeWay Research said in a recent statement. “Inflation has allowed Social Security recipients—likely some of the most faithful donors in many churches—to receive cost of living increases above 2 percent for two years in a row.”

According to the study, which surveyed a random sample of 1,000 Protestant pastors from Aug. 29 to Sept. 11, 2018, about 8 in 10 Protestant pastors, 79 percent, reported that total offerings at their church this year are at or above last year’s levels. Only about 15 percent of pastors reported that giving was down.

When those general numbers were broken down by factors such as church size, the pastor’s race, and denomination, a different picture…