Don’t be surprised if your pastor is thinking about resigning. According to sociologist John Koval of Notre Dame, one in four Catholic priests and one in eight Protestant clergymen are doing just that. Koval says that the major reasons are the need for more money and the seeming ineffectiveness of the work of the church. In a study by the National Council of Churches, 84 per cent of the ministers responding to the questionnaire felt they were underpaid compared with other professionals of equal education.
Bob Dale, pastoral-ministries consultant for the Southern Baptist Sunday School Board, sees the dropout problem as an inability to meet certain crises that occur at various periods of the pastor’s life. Dale says that the first crisis comes three to five years after seminary when a healthy dose of reality shatters many seminary-days ideals. The second occurs at age forty when the pastor realizes he has not reached the goals he set for himself. The third crisis comes when he looks ahead to the insecurity of retirement years.
Dale’s observations are valid, but the crises he describes are not unique to ministers. More revealing is the 1970 study by the United Church of Christ of 276 active UCC pastors and 241 former pastors. The study called Ex-Pastors: Why Men Leave the Parish Ministry (Pilgrim) pointed out three major trouble areas: (1) conflict with the congregation (such as unwarranted criticism), too high an expectation for minister and family in their personal lives, apathy and lack of cooperation on the part of church leaders; (2) distortion of the role of pastor (too much time spent in administration and in smoothing the easily ruffled feathers of the church members, too little time for study and personal contact); (3) personal problems (such as a sense of personal and professional inadequacy, insufficient training, family problems). This study did not find salary a major factor in pastoral dropout.
What I have learned from my own experience with pastors who have left the ministry follows closely the UCC findings and prompts me to raise the question of what the churches might do to reduce the exodus.
Of prime importance is a unified leadership in the local church, leaders courageous enough to deal with dissent firmly and in love. A pastor who feels he has the love and support of the rest of the leaders is more likely to remain at his post and work out problems than a pastor who does not have this reassurance.
It is not enough for church leaders and a prospective pastor to talk and agree about the philosophy of the ministry and the doctrine of ecclesiology. I have seen lay leaders bend under dissent and accommodate their views of the ministry and the church to the dissenters. The pastor is then faced with the choice of standing alone in the face of dissent or going along with the rest of the leaders and accommodating his convictions too. If he stands alone, he appears to be rigid. If he bends, he feels he has forsaken his calling to proclaim the truth.
I hasten to point out that the idea of taking “an uncompromising stand” has been used by pastors to justify unjustifiable behavior. I go into this at length in You Can Change Your Personality (Zondervan) and warn of the dangers of maladaptive “top dog” behavior on the part of pastors. Here I wish to address lay leaders whose pastors have adaptive rather than maladaptive personalities: are they courageous enough to stand with the pastor on the philosophy of the ministry spelled out when they began working together?
It was this quality in the lay leaders of my first pastorate that formed an everlasting bond of love and kept me at the church for seven years. And it was found not only in the lay leaders but also in the district superintendent. They were persons of conviction and character who on the one hand stood against dissent and on the other hand dealt with a young pastor’s peccadillos.
Apathy and lack of cooperation are other problems that pastors face. In fairness, the pastor must realize that his job and church responsibilities are one (which can be both bane and blessing). Even the cultivation of his family life is in a sense a job requirement: if he is to lead the church he must lead his family. The amount of time and energy lay persons have to give to the church is usually limited by job and family responsibilities. I frankly do not know how some lay persons are able to give as much time and energy as they do to the local assembly.
Pastors frustrated over the slower pace of their lay leaders might explore additional ministries such as police or hospital chaplaincies. Pastors with a gift for writing might turn their sermons into pamphlets and books. Some pastors find great fulfillment in teaching at local Christian schools and even in secular institutions.
Such ministries help the pastor cope with the feeling of a distorted pastoral role—too much time working at administration and smoothing ruffled feathers, not enough time exercising his spiritual gifts. Opportunities that might not exist in his church simply because the congregation is near the saturation point do exist in the community at large.
Even though intellectually we know better, we expect the pastor to have fewer problems—or at least be able to cope with them better—than the average Christian. First Timothy 3 gives some justification for that feeling. These expectations, however, do tend to make the pastor feel trapped. He may, as the UCC study found, worry about such matters as personal and professional inadequacy, insufficient training, and family problems. But because of his position he doesn’t feel that he can talk to just anybody about his problems. And he may think that his feelings could not be understood by someone who has never been in the pastoral ministry.
Large metropolitan areas have outstanding pastors, Christian leaders, and professional counselors who can offer the troubled pastor confidential help. Pastors who are not near large cities probably do not have such resources. They are likely to be unwilling to go to their denominational leaders because of a feeling that it might jeopardize their present or future ministry.
Many professional counselors and counseling agencies offer intensive counseling over a day or two or more or over a weekend for persons who must travel a long way to reach them. The setting I favor for out-of-town clients is a weekend retreat where my wife and I are able to live and play with a couple as well as counsel with them.
Feelings of professional inadequacy are often relieved by further education. Most professions require continuing education, and many churches are open to the idea of the pastor’s improving his knowledge and skills. A church might even be willing to give its pastor substantial time and money for further education in exchange for a time commitment of service in the church. The church certainly stands to gain by having its pastor feel fulfilled and updated in his profession.
Related to the feeling of inadequacy is the feeling of low professional worth. In days gone by, the pastor was an influential, highly respected member of the community. Nowadays the specialist is preempting his position. Nationally known writers and lecturers are often given the place of prominence and respect (though many of them are well known not for the effectiveness of their ministry at home but rather for their flair for writing and lecturing). Counselors and psychologists are often viewed as the people to see when you have real problems. This move toward “professionalism” has been encouraged by a decline in pastoral effectiveness. But that decline is due not so much to a lack of training or gifts as to the pastor’s lack of freedom to minister and develop his skills. He is continually having to overcome the organizational inertia of the local church and the petty prejudices of the congregation. He must wait for yet another committee meeting or feasibility study before he can make a move. Creativity and the exercise of spiritual gifts are impeded by a hundred different lay ideas of what the pastoral ministry ought to be. I’m not suggesting that the congregation be expected to go along with just anything its pastor decides to do. Certainly there must be an agreement on the philosophy of the ministry and the doctrine of the church. But once those fundamental points have been established, the pastor must have freedom to minister.
Men who have left the pastoral ministry and have gone into alternative ministries say this again and again: there is more freedom to minister outside the local church. This does not mean that organization and administration are not required outside the church. But as one former pastor put it, “organization exists to serve a meaningful purpose and is not perpetuated only because it has always been that way. Likewise, administration is not hamstrung by little minds who don’t know what we’re really trying to do. My organization would fold up if I ran it the way many churches are run.”
Freedom in the ministry was very important to the Apostle Paul (First Corinthians 9). While defending the propriety of a paid ministry, he chose to refuse pay in order to be free to minister. I’m not suggesting that we change to an unpaid ministry, that all paid clergy give up salaried positions to “sew tents” while they minister. I think this would be a serious setback for the local church. But I do believe that the local churches must take a hard look at what they are doing to hasten the exodus from the pastorate.
The matter was stated clearly by a former pastor now heading a Christian organization serving the local churches. When he was asked if he would ever return to the pastorate, he replied, “I doubt it. Right now I’m getting all the fulfillment that I ever had as a pastor without any of the liabilities. I’m preaching or teaching practically every Sunday and am enjoying opportunities to counsel troubled Christians. On the other hand, I don’t have to worry that something I say is going to be taken badly by a disgruntled soul who will be on the phone Monday morning. I don’t mean that I have the liberty to be irresponsible. But I don’t feel that my ministry and family are continually under the scrutiny of people who really don’t understand the unique pressures of the pastorate. There’s a lot of just plain thoughtlessness—like some of the ladies of the church comparing my wife to the former pastor’s wife, who was much more active in the church. You can imagine why my wife felt that she was a millstone around my neck when I was in the pastorate.”
When asked if he was bitter, he said, “No, not at all. The hard times in the pastorate were a growth experience for me and my family. I’m just a little sad, not for myself but for the congregation I left. I don’t think that my resignation made them stop and look at themselves and say, ‘Is there anything we have done or left undone that might have been a cause of his resignation?’ I feel that my exodus from the pastorate was viewed as evidence that I really have problems and just am not suited for the pastorate.
“I don’t think that the dropout problem has been aired adequately. Usually it’s a very quiet matter when a pastor drops out, and the implication is only that another pastor has failed. When are the churches going to ask themselves where they failed? If it’s true that one out of eight clergymen is thinking of resigning, that would mean 25,000 out of the nation’s total of 200,000. If those 25,000 resigned all at once, maybe the churches would admit that they have a serious problem on their hands. I want to see more of the burden of responsibility put back on the churches. Yes, the individual pastor has a responsibility to make his relationship to the church work. But the churches have a responsibility to him. I think that it’s time that they take that responsibility seriously.”
