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Why Young Pastors Leave the Ministry
Orginally published on Tuesday, November 01, 2005 at 8:00 AM
by Todd Rhoades
This post comes from the NakedReligion blog… I find the ten reasons that he came up with to be quite intriguing. See what you think…
There is an epidemic occurring right under the nose of church middle judicatories and no one seems to notice. Young pastors (less than five years in the ministry) are leaving in droves. The Lilly Foundation has poured millions of dollars into ?Sustaining Pastoral Ministry? initiatives and it?s too soon to tell whether or not their approach is working. Aside from the obvious reasons pastors leave the ministry (sexual impropriety, financial mismanagement, and marital dissolution) here are the top ten reasons why young pastors call it quits:
1. The discontinuity between what they imagined ministry to be and what it actually is is too great.
2. A life without weekends sucks.
3. The pay is too low (most pastors in my denomination make less money than a school teacher with five years experience).
4. They are tired of driving ten year old cars while their congregations trade in their cars every two years.
5. Many young pastors are called into difficult congregations that chew pastors up and spit them out because experienced pastors know better.
6. Even though the search committee told them they wanted to reach young people, they didn?t really mean it.
7. When the pastor asked the search committee if they were an ?emergent church?, the members of the search committee thought he said ?divergent church? and agreed.
8. Nobody told the young pastor that cleaning the toilets was part of the job description.
9. The young pastor?s student loans came due and the amount of money he/she owes on a monthly basis exceeds his/her income.
10. Working at McDonalds has alot less stress.
Why do you think young pastors are leaving in the ministry in droves?
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Hi... I'm Todd Rhoades. I'm a Christ-follower, husband, father and I love to connect leaders with other leaders. Hopefully you'll find something here at MMI you like and will return often. If you want, you can find out more about me or follow my every step on Twitter.
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Post Your Comments:Jon,
Thank you so much for responding. Just wanted to let you know that there are people here in the USA praying for your country and ministry there.
May God bless you indeed,
Camey
Well, well. Young ministers leaving the ministry. Maybe its the way we call them...we don’t look inside the church for new associates or pastors but go to a seminary or Bible college and seek a stranger to the local church.
Seeking someone called within a congregation can save a lot of heartache. The relationships are there. The senior pastor can mentor the new associate. I know of some mega-churches that are doing just that. They have had problems with “outsiders” from good seminaries who were not prepared.
I was a “young man” of 39 when I was ordained. I entered with the following expectations:
1. The pay is low so be prepared to be bivocational. The Lord will provide.
2. The church is filled with imperfect people and I’m an imperfect pastor. Deal with it.
3. Pick a day off during the week and stick with it.
4. Love God’s people inspite of themselves.
5. Make friends of the congregation. Invite them over for dinner. Get involved in their lives. Show up at the ball games of their children, at the hospital at births, send cards at special days.
6. Love God.
7. Have outside interests and make time for the family.
8. Expect tough times. Study the prophets and what they went through.
9. Find a senior pastor in another church and ask, “Will you be my mentor?”
10. After 3 years, find a new starting off pastor and ask, “Do you need a mentor?”
This should help.
I believe one of the biggest reasons why young pastors leave their role is because God never originally called them to be pastors. This may seem like an unfair comment, but I have seen it with my own eyes. I worked for a Christian Street Ministry where most of the employee’s used to be pastors. I asked many of them why they aren’t pastoring a church. Most who were honest would say it was there decision to go to Bible School to become a pastor and just figured God would honor it. It’s the same as most Christians today. Instead of doing what God wants us to do, we go and do what we want to do, and as long as it’s good, we believe God will honor it. I believe most young Christians who attend Bible College to become a Pastor were not called by God to be so. I’ve watched many young pastors get stressed out, or continually ask for vacation time because they say they are burning out. When we feel like we are burning out, that’s when to recognize that we are running on our own power(limited) rather than the power of the Holy Spirit(unlimited).
Pastoring a church comes with great responsibility, and most young pastors don’t quite understand that to the full extent. We should always keep our pastors in constant prayer. Believe this, our pastors are constantly under pressure and temptation. The devil would love nothing better than to get inside the head of a pastor, and that’s why we need to always remember our pastors in our prayers. Always remember that our pastors are flesh and blood and are prone to sin like anyone else. They should be treated with the same love and understanding as God shows us. If they are called or not, it’s God’s ultimate decision if they continue to pastor or not.
Remember, we are all called to preach the message of Jesus Christ, but only some will be called to be pastors, teachers, and so on.
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