The Final Tally

The close of 2024 marked the completion of the first year of the new NBUSA ministers’ match program for active minister participants in our Nazarene 403(b) Retirement Savings Plan. Over the past year, I’ve been using this space to provide our readers with updates on our progress, and this article represents the final report in the series. I’m certain there will be future references to this program and its results, but updates will formally be found in our annual report.

I’m pleased that by all reasonable measures the first year of the new program has been a profound success.

(Figure 1) To receive a NBUSA match requires local effort contributions to the minister’s 403(b) account by the minister and/or their local church, and one of our primary goals of the program was to significantly increase this type of activity. The “YTD Ministers Matched” chart demonstrates the progress, by quarter, with the result showing 656 more ministers receiving a match compared to the 2023 level, which is a 54% increase.

(Figure 2) The news gets even better when you consider the average amount contributed by NBUSA to the minister’s 403(b) account grew by $1,104 (184%) over 2023. A local church minister who was eligible to receive a match based on their 2024 local effort activity received an average total of $1,704 contributed to their retirement from NBUSA.

(Figure 3) The combined efforts of the local church minister, their local church, and NBUSA resulted in an average total of $5,766 added to the minister’s 403(b) account for the 2024 program (including the 4th quarter 2024 match made in January 2025.)

The “2024 YTD Avg Total Contributrions Per Minister” chart on the next page demonstrates that, on average, 70.5% came from the local minister/ church and 29.5% came from the NBUSA match.

(Figure 4) To help provide context for what these results could mean to a local church minister, the chart below provides examples of what may be possible.

If the average Nazarene local church minister takes the necessary actions to have $1,442 contributed quarterly to their 403(b) account (which represents one fourth of the annual $5,766 shown in the previous chart), and those funds earn an average long-term investment return of 7% per year, they have the potential to grow those funds to the levels indicated below by the years listed across the bottom.

A Nazarene minister has the potential to have nearly $600,000 accumulated for retirement after 30 years of this level of activity. After 35 years, it could grow to over $860,000 and to more than $1.2 million after 40 years. Keep in mind the assumptions used in the above examples reflect no changes in the quarterly contribution amount. These figures would improve dramatically if the minister were able to incrementally increase their level of contributions annually going forward.

While we are pleased with these results, there are still far too many of our ministers who are eligible to receive an NBUSA match, but they and/or their churches are not engaged in the required local effort activity. Our focus at NBUSA in the near term is to do all we can to engage and assist these ministers and churches to start doing something.

Kevin P. Gilmore serves as executive director of Nazarene Benefits USA for the Church of the Nazarene.