A Little Over $100,000 a Month and a Room in the Manse: Jamaica’s Churches Are Running Out of Pastors

• A 25-year-old Moravian pastor serves three rural churches and lives in a manse
• The Jamaica Baptist Union has 341 churches but only 108 ministers
• Anglican priests’ stipends average $50,000 to $70,000 a month, plus housing allowances
• Seminary enrolments are low, and the Catholic Church is ordaining priests from Africa

At 25, Andrew Walters spends his Sundays racing between three Moravian churches in rural Westmoreland, often losing up to two hours to unreliable public transport. He graduated as valedictorian of Jamaica Theological Seminary in May 2024, was assigned his circuit in August and began in September. He earns a little over $100,000 a month and lodges at a manse at one of his churches. “I am feeling a form of burnout,” he told the Sunday Gleaner in a report published in February 2025.

Walters is one face of a shortage. Moravian Church president Rev Barrington Daley said 23 full-time ministers serve 63 Moravian churches. The Jamaica Baptist Union has 341 churches and 108 ministers, and 50 of its churches have no pastor. At Llandewey Baptist in St Thomas, only two of 13 benches were occupied the day the paper visited; the circuit has shared a visiting assistant pastor since 2023. The Anglican Church, with 300 congregations and more than 17,000 members, has 51 full-time priests and 46 supplementary or retired priests, most over 50.

Anglican Bishop of Kingston Garth Minott said priests receive allowances covering housing, utilities and travel, plus tuition help for their children, but stipends average $50,000 to $70,000 a month. Catholic Archbishop Kenneth Richards said 86 priests serve the Catholic dioceses and that most of the eight priests ordained in the last three years came from Africa. The Seventh-day Adventists, the largest denomination with about 360,000 members, said their 728 churches are served by 250 pastors, each assigned up to four churches, with trained lay leaders filling gaps.

Enrolment in pastoral training is low. Jamaica Theological Seminary has 90 students across five-year programmes, the United Theological College of the West Indies has 19 in pastoral training, while Bethel Bible College has grown to 97. “The church is the centre of social and spiritual life, and just life in a community,” said Rev Dr Glenroy Lalor. “When it dies, it’s the death of the community and the death of a country.”

Housing sits at the centre of the pay package. With cash stipends this low, the manse and housing allowance are what make ministry possible for young clergy, which makes church-owned residences one of the most important assets a denomination has for recruiting and keeping pastors. The figures also show the imbalance between buildings and people: hundreds of church properties that need care, and far fewer full-time ministers to run them. How denominations use and maintain their manses may shape whether rural pulpits are filled.

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