Some pastors spend a lot of time counseling members. Others do limited counseling before referring the member to someone they view to be more qualified. But all pastors are counselors.

The tension over salaries is between transparency and misunderstanding. On the one hand, transparency is usually a good default posture. On the other hand, putting detailed staff salaries before all the church members can be a problem for the following reasons:

I recently conducted a social media survey where I asked pastors to share their most common pastoral care challenges. The volume of responses was huge, a very impressive number. But even more impressive were the stories of love and concern these pastors have for their congregations.