I once heard John Maxwell tell about his minister father who served as a pastor from the 1920's to the 1950's. After retirement he made a list of names of his fellow graduates from seminary in the '20's and what happened to them later. Out of the twenty men who started with him, only two retired as pastors. The majority dropped out of ministry in the first five years.
Sad, when you think about it. The ministry is a career with a very high casualty rate being tough on pastors and families alike. There is a reason we call the ministry "spiritual warfare."
Recently, I did something similar to what Maxwell's father had done. I made a list of twenty names of ministers I have known in my thirty-two years of ministry, who had served for at least five years, and what has happened to them. I admit it was not a scientific list. I just put down the twenty ministers in my church that I had known the best. But I think it is a fair cross-section. Here's what has happened to those twenty
--Six of them are currently out of the ministry. As far as I can remember, none of them left voluntarily. They left because of strife within their church, their family, or both.
--Seven of them transferred out of our denomination. Not one of those six would ever think of returning. Ever. In most of those cases family strife, internal strife, or denomination strife caused the change.
--The other eight are still are serving within the denomination or have already retired.
After looking at the list, It seems that more people are burned in the ministry than are blessed by it. According to one survey, seventy percent of pastors reported that the ministry had had a detrimental effect on their families. The pressures of the ministry are devastating and long term.
--Here are some statistics that appeared in Alan Fading's blog
--Eighty percent of seminary graduates do not stay longer than five years.
--Fifteen percent of foreign missionaries return home after a single year due to burnout and depression. Thirty-two percent of planted churches die within four years.
--The ministry is one of the highest professions for clinical depression.
I admit this may be a subjective judgment, but I cannot help but think that our little denomination is particularly unfavorable for ministerial retention and satisfaction. I have met many former ARP pastors, but I have never met one who wanted to come back in. The main reason they cite for this is a lack of support. There is a general impression among those who have left that they were abandoned. I remember a comment that one former colleague said to me after I had left a church--"What friend got you?"
I take remarks for what they are worth. It is natural for those who have been hurt to make comments which are really just sour grapes. Many of those I have met, even while saying the church abandoned them, will name individuals in the church who helped them. Yet the complaint seems so universal that we must take it seriously. If only one of these hurting pastors is right, then that is one too many.
When a pastor becomes ordained, he is no longer a member of any church, but is now a member of presbytery. Presbytery is now responsible for his spiritual well-being as well as his spiritual discipline. A pastor's spouse may join a church, as may his children, yet everyone knows that if the pastor leaves, or is asked to leave, the family goes with him. The spiritual care of the pastor's family therefore depends upon what presbytery decides to do with the pastor. If the presbytery removes a pastor from his church, they are also de facto removing his wife and children from the church as well. At that point, the entire family is left without the spiritual support of a Christian church. Yet at this time, when the pastor and his family needs help, who stands with him? There will be an expression of concern from the Minister and His Work committee, a few calls of assurance from others that they will be there for them if they think of anything to ask, and if they are not too busy. There will be an offer to have lunch sometime, and lots of people wiling to pray for them, since prayer is cheap and never takes much time, but that's about it.
Pastoral care of pastors is a hit-or-miss proposition. If they have close friends in powerful places, they may receive tremendous support. If they do not, they can be all but ignored.
Let me ask a few more practical questions. Why do we not have a structure in place to help pastors? Why do we not have a structure for helping pastors transition into other careers? Why do we not assign particular churches to look out for displaced pastors and their families? Why do we not have regular debriefings of pastors who are forced to leave churches, to see how we may help them, and more importantly to see what we can learn from them? Why do we not have support groups for pastors and their families? Why do we not have a system of regular pastoral visits of pastors and their families? Why do we not work with pastors in helping them establish and maintain their spiritual disciplines? Why do we not have anyone on a presbytery or synod level who is responsible for the pastoral care of pastors? Why do we continue to solve our pastoral problems by asking the pastor to leave, even when we know it is not the pastor's fault, when we know that the problem is with the church, but it is easier to replace the pastor than fix the church?
The reason is obvious. Pastors are expendable. There is always a line of naïve young men lining up to move into even the most difficult situation, ready to be chewed up and spit out, like their brothers before them.
When I have brought these things up in the past, I have been accused of wanting to have bishops in the church, who would exert power above. That's our problem--we only see the relationship between pastor and presbytery as a power relationship. Having a person responsible for being supportive and friendly seems beyond our grasp.
In John 17, Jesus prays in His high priestly prayer that the Father would make us one with one another as we are one with Him. In John 13 he tells us that loving one another is the mark of being a disciple. So--where is the oneness? Oneness is not something we work to have. It is there already. We are mutually accountable to each other, whether or not we even know each other. If one of us is injured we all suffer.
Sometimes, our little denomination reminds me of a partially dead tree. Here and there we see new, green life, and we rejoice for it. But we also see dead branches, cut off from the rest, rotting and termite riddled, where the life never touches. The whole tree suffers because of it.
It comes down to this--we ministers need to see ourselves as members of each other's families. When one brother stumbles, other brothers need to help him, both officially and unofficially. We do not have to know them well to recognize the organic connection that exists between other members of Christ's Body--in particular members of our own Presbytery. That is the unity we want in our churches. It ought to what we crave between pastors as well.
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