While most church secretaries and administrative assistants love their job, they feel underpaid and think the need for more income or simply retiring would be the chief reasons they would leave their church position. Neither income nor retirement, however, is the main reason church secretaries or administrative assistants quit.

Incompatible working relationships affect more church office workers than either income or retirement when it comes to making a decision to quit. This was true when I first began researching this issue in 1993, and it still remains true today. Here are factors that affect the decision to resign from the church:

1. Incompatible work relationships. Few secretaries expect poor working relationships to exist at the church. Yet, for over one-third of all secretaries who quit their job, relationship problems contributed to the decision to leave.

2. Need for more income. Clearly, income affects the decision of many church secretaries to change jobs. Plus it cuts across all ...