My job now involves helping churches find pastors and helping pastors find
churches. It’s not always pretty. According to this morning’s stats for my own denomination:
- There are 2312 professionals (2250 clergy and 62 lay professionals) seeking relocation; 377 of them are seeking their first call
- There are 502 positions in the system; 145 of them are available for persons seeking their first call.
So, did you get that? 2312 looking for positions and 502 positions available – including positions like “Director of Music” and “Church Business Administrator.” Those 502 openings are not solely clergy positions.
Is this about our weak economy? Sort of. Some churches that used to have one or more Associate Pastors have had to downsize their staffs which means that many positions which would have been open no longer exist.
But more likely, those positions don’t exist because church membership is down across the country. As we all know by now, our membership is older and many/most 20-somethings do not join churches – even if they are connected with congregations spiritually.
So, I start my day wondering:
- Do we discourage people – especially second career people, and most especially second career people over the age of, say, 45 from entering seminary and hoping to be called to serve the institutional church?
- Do we encourage dying congregations to give up the ghost which would financially encourage new church plants that don’t look like the church plants of the 20th Century?
I ask these questions less with fear and trembling than with a renewed acknowledgement that the Spirit of God will guide us – if we will just pay attention.
A Church for Starving Artists 
Please don’t discourage people who are obviously gifted and called to ministry -no matter their age, gender, ethnicity or any other differences – from pursuing and living out that call. Do help them have a realistic perspective of the landscape – including the reality that many churches that aren’t ready to close will need ministers who either can minister bi-vocationally OR live on small salaries. Perhaps some dying congregations need to learn how to gracefully and graciously let go – but there is a distinct difference between dying and old or weak. All denominations need to figure out how to reinvigorate weaker, stagnant or dying churches without throwing money at them! Do encourage small churches who are geographically close to consider sharing associate ministers – perhaps for Christian Education, ministry with children or youth, ministry with senior adults, etc. Encourage some older congregations to be nesting spots for new congregations and ministries. Be creative. Encourage God’s people to think differently. We can’t go back – going forward with hope is the Church’s only option.
LikeLike
Thanks for a troubling and thought provoking insight. It does make me wonder about a lot of things. I also wonder if you would say most most especially 2nd career women over the age of 45?
LikeLike
Jan, can you clarify your comment about second career pastors?
I am a second career pastor, graduated in 2007, and was in the call process for 2 1/2 years before receiving a call. The stats have not changed since I began the search.
What I learned during those 2 1/2 years. Creativity in a PIF is not well accepted (and by extension more than likely not in the potential church). Women are still not seen as an equal. Single women have an additional challenge.
I was able to “follow” (via websites) many of the congregations I had contacted and/or interviewed with. They were all open to first call pastors and ended up hiring a pastor with 4 or more years experience. In many of those cases the pastor was a young man with a family.
Thank you for your presence in the Chicago presbytery and in being the church in the 21st century.
LikeLike
I wonder whether considering dual-career pastors (1/2 time positions or unpaid positions), allowing people to be ordained without a call, and focusing on non-traditional roles for people who are ordained would be relevant elements. I could imagine a role for ordained clergy in palliative care/hospice settings, as counselors under some circumstances, providing spiritual direction etc. Do you have to lead a church to be ordained as a minister of the word (or whatever the new fangled terms are).
LikeLike
Hi Purple. Re: 2nd career clergy
I have a friend – second career female – who entered seminary in her late 60s, ran up lots of debt, went through all the preparatory hoops, but has not yet been called to a church. She graduated 6 years ago which makes her on the cusp of 70. She will, most likely, never be ordained, although I trust that God can do anything. It’s just not likely. This is not to say – necessarily – that she should not have taken the plunge. It’s just that we who care for her and have supported her did not serve her well. She was not told the statistics about job to candidate ratio. She was not counseled re: how to pay for seminary. If we had been honest with her and ourselves years ago, we would have counseled her against going to seminary.
The bigger problem is that I could share a dozen stories like this of second career pastors/hope-to-be-pastors who have never found calls. I’m so, so glad that you did. There are many reasons why people are called or not to specific congregations. Some churches want pulpit candy. Some want someone who “looks” like a pastor (so not you or me.) BBT once wrote something about how our very beings – which we cannot change without denying who we are – either “fit” or don’t in terms of what a congregation needs. Example: I would love to be a new church development pastor that meets in a bar in a cool neighborhood, but I am not the person that church should call. I don’t look like most people in that neighborhood. I can support them better being the IAEPM of Chicago Presbytery. 🙂
LikeLike
Hi Amanda Re: Dual Career.
Amen sister. There is a Tent-Making event sponsored by the PCUSA coming up that sounds interesting:
Click to access TT_Summer2011.pdf
More of us will be serving more than one ministry – and I interpret ministry as something that happens beyond the parameters of traditional ecclesiastical work. Also, a person can be ordained in the PCUSA as a specialized minister who works in a hospital, school, counseling office, etc.
LikeLike
Thanks Jan for your clarifying thoughts. Being honest about the landscape of the horizon is essential.
Working to address the ways our call system is broken is essential.
Working to help churches understand what the pastor of the 21st century “does” is essential. (and for that matter working with pastors to help them understand what the pastor of the 21st century “is”)
Working to help churches do the hard work of self-reflection in the call process, in their health as a faith community is essential.
Working to address the astronomical cost of seminary is essential.
Working with congregations to understand that “if we just get the right person…all will be well and we can coast” is detrimental…is essential.
Working to help all teaching elders develop the ability to do self-reflection is essential.
Working to help churches, teaching elders, presbyteries, and ruling elders continually shift and evolve is essential.
Working with presbyteries to broaden their scope of what validated ministry can be is essential.
Working with churches to do the hard work of self-reflection (do we really just want a hospice chaplain?, well, of course we are friendly, if those young families just showed a little commitment, what are we willing to “give up” in order to embody Jesus’ radical hospitality.
LikeLike
Amen, my friend, Purple.
LikeLike
Jesus didn’t seem to have a problem calling and working with second career people.
LikeLike
I’m interested in what the number of people searching suggests. Are there some Presbyterian pastors who always have a PIF out there, just in case? I’ve heard this about pastors in my denomination, but it applies more to men than women. The trope is that men are always looking, while women will not look unless they really feel called to leave. I’m not saying this is true, or that I like the sound of it, but I wonder how many of those PIFs represent fishing expeditions?
LikeLike
Songbird: I think you’re right about guys who have a PIF out there just in case. In fact I remember a male colleague advising me early on that this was a good idea – to have a current PIF in the pipeline in case “the perfect church” comes up. Most of the people whose names I see out there, though, seem to be authentically looking to move/find a first call. I’m also seeing that people might have a PIF ready but they don’t send it to the denomination. They just send it directly to the search committee.
LikeLike
Debra – I don’t think we have a problem calling and working with second career people either. I do believe, though, that we need to be honest and real with all who seek this vocation in terms of the uncertainties of professional ministry. All of us are called to ministry. Not all of us have to go to seminary to do our ministry. My hope is that we don’t squander the gifts people have by spending precious time jumping through the hoops of ordination when ordination’s not necessary.
LikeLike
Jan, my comment was more a reminder to myself than anything else. It sounded a little snarky when I returned to read other responses. It made me pause and reflect a bit further upon this difficult issue.
Ordination is one of the church ‘things’ I wrestle with on occasion. When I was working as a singer (my second career), I had similar struggles. The folks who end up being able to support themselves with their artistic gifts are few and far between. Most (including me) spend at least as much money as they make on coaches, lessons, equipment, music, and, and and… It makes no sense. But I loved that time of my life and I knew I was doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing and I knew that I was doing ministry. Instead of inviting people to reconsider jumping through the hoops of ordination, we might instead ask the hoop-holders to consider replacing those hoops with something else. And I do believe it will be essential, as Purple mentioned, for denominations to expand their understanding of validated ministries.
LikeLike