I am usually slow to use the word “crisis” to describe a situation, but it may well be apt for our day. In addition to the many churches that are in decline, something else that we are observing is a sheer lack of persons to serve as ministers in our churches. Throughout the past decade, the Looking Team at the Siburt Institute has worked with hundreds of churches as they have looked for ministers. We have also served ministers who have asked for help in connecting with churches. 

Through the years, the number of churches and ministers asking for help have been roughly the same. However, through the long months of the pandemic, a change occurred. Now, in a typical month, we will have 15 churches asking for help with possible candidates and maybe one minister requesting assistance. And so, more and more churches are taking longer to find a youth minister or a preacher. 

What are the causes for this?

I think a lot of factors are in play. Let’s get some of them out on the table:

1. Being a minister is not an easy task. If you are a minister in a church of 300, then you have about 300 “bosses,” with each person having a distinct set of expectations for your work. In the past five years, the growing polarization in our culture around various social and political issues infects congregational life in quite a few churches. This makes the work of calling persons to a gospel-centered life more and more challenging. So a lot of ministers, out of frustration and a bone-deep burnout, are walking away from ministry. Nearly every week, I have a conversation with a minister who is exhausted and disappointed—longing for his congregation to “play better in the sandbox” of Christian witness yet languishing in intramural debates that threaten the life and testimony of the congregation to the world.

2. As a person located in a Christian university, I am often asked by church leaders, “why aren’t the schools turning out more ministers?” It is a good question in many ways. I know that theological educators are asking such questions across the country. Yet a profound reality must be acknowledged. One significant reason that colleges and universities are not graduating more ministers is that churches are not sending us students to major in Bible and ministry! Rather, churches are sending students to universities to be doctors, entrepreneurs, engineers, lawyers, teachers, and many other good and useful professions. However—and I believe that you, my reader, might agree—churches are not commonly cultivating the hearts and passions of young people to enter into ministry.

3. The decline of ministerial candidates is likely exacerbated by a factor related to the point above. Can a person make a living wage as a minister today? Although we can find strong examples of ministers being well compensated in larger churches in larger cities, I am well aware that many ministers struggle to be paid even what a local school teacher might make in their own district—and then a church often makes implied (or express) demands that the minister’s spouse also be involved in the church’s ministry!

4. Yet another factor is in play—particularly with mid-career ministers. Ministers are certainly fallible and shared leadership is critically important for healthy congregational life. Yet in many churches, the minister’s voice is often marginalized or excluded in matters of leadership and direction. I often observe a fascinating dynamic. When churches are looking for a minister, they want a minister who is biblically grounded, theologically prepared, wise and relational. Then, having found such a minister, leader groups then distance the minister from the discernment and leadership within the congregation. Good ministers, effective ministers and ministers attuned to the heart of God’s desire for a congregation grow weary of not being fully engaged with matters of leadership. And then, in time, they migrate to work in other forms of ministry (e.g., non-profits, counseling, mission work, etc.) or simply take their wisdom and people skills into other professions altogether.

Other factors are certainly in play. I name these as a way to invite you into active thought about the value and role that ministers play within our congregations. When I see signs of hope in my varied experiences in congregations across the country, I observe these healthy signs that will make a difference:

1. Churches that are actively developing internships and residencies in partnerships with theological schools to train and develop a new generation of ministers. Talk to Dr. Mason Lee at the Graduate School of Theology for ideas!

2. Churches that are creatively utilizing bi-vocational ministers.

3. Churches that actively value their ministers by welcoming their wisdom and utilizing their leadership gifts.

4. Churches that help ministers, in sometimes creative ways, to be compensated appropriately. See our annual Salary Survey.

5. Churches that help create boundaries for ministers in order to keep them from burning out! We have two programs—CMI and MSN—at the Siburt Institute that attend to keep ministers and ministers’ marriages healthy and vibrant.

Do we have a crisis? I believe so. Yet, I also believe that resilient congregations, pursuing God’s purposes in the world, will find healthy and constructive ways to prepare, support, nurture and partner with ministers in the days to come.

Blessings as you practice wise leadership!

Carson