The Future of Pastoral Ministry
This completes a recent series, with previous posts HERE and HERE.
Recently, I have been writing on the shifts taking place in ministerial education and in the availability of pastors across the Church of God. These are trends we cannot ignore. The failure to develop and retain pastors is already impacting our congregations. More will be in jeopardy if this does not change.
I do not want to pretend that I have all the answers to these problems that are the result of a convergence of several factors we have failed to address for years. Fixing this is not going to be easy or accomplished in the short term. Instead, we must adopt a longer-term outlook that enables us to examine our deeply held notions about what the local church should look like.
What follows then is not a detailed proposal; rather considerations essential to solving this challenge for our future. The two most important are: 1) adopting fresh approaches to ministerial preparation; and 2) adapting to changes to congregational life itself.
Rethinking Pastoral Development
Late-Start Pastors. I previously highlighted the stark reality that our Church of God universities are seeing fewer traditional college enrollees (i.e. high school graduates) entering into ministerial programs. This is some hope, however, in an opposite trend: adults at later stages in their life and career development sensing the call to vocational ministry. I do not have the hard data on this, but I have seen it first-hand in my previous work as a Regional Pastor, and more recently as a Leadership Focus coach. Although the number of those entering ministry later in life is not making up for the overall shortfall of pastors, there are other positive aspects to this development. Most notably, older adults may have more life-experience and maturity for leading a church than a typical man or woman in their early to mid-twenties.
More Flexible and Hands-on Education. With the trend toward older entrants into pastoral ministry, it will be more important than ever for our universities and the School of Theology to offer ministry education options that are readily accessible, without unrealistic on-site residency requirements. We are already seeing distance/online options for study, but this will need to be expanded and perhaps modified to encourage those entering vocational ministry later in life. We already see many of these new pastors resisting formal education in lieu of less structured options or believing that Leadership Focus is a sufficient alternative (which it is not).
One promising new development, which has emerged in recent years within the Church of God, is Trellis, a comprehensive pastoral development system. Their internship program gives ministerial students a richer experience than what takes place in a traditional college setting. Candidates are placed in a congregation where they gain experience and mentorship, all the while working on their ministry degree and credentials. This can be an attractive option for those in the younger generations who are considering vocational ministry but may be otherwise hesitant. Trellis also offers a shorter residency program for older candidates, but I question how many of this demographic are open to the necessary time and relocation.
The Changing Shape of Congregations
While we must find better ways to prepare ministers for service, there is also the need for taking an honest, closer look at congregational life itself in the next few decades. Many of our attempts to address the shortage of ministers assume that local churches will continue to be much the same as they are and have been in the past fifty years. I, for one, believe this is a faulty assumption.
It is evident to many observers that church life in North America is undergoing massive change that will impact the future religious and spiritual landscape. Yet, many are not aware of, or are in denial of these shifts. For example, there is still the common assumption in the Church of God that every congregation should have their own professional pastor, ideally full-time. In addition, most of our congregations still hold deeply to the goal of having their own property and building, and of church life centered on a public Sunday morning gathering with conventional patterns of worship and preaching. Certainly, many Church of God congregations are currently able to sustain all these forms, but that is becoming increasingly difficult for a growing number.
We regularly forget that churches looked much different in the first century than what we have today. If we could travel back in a time machine we would find the Early Church expressions strange to our expectations. There were congregations that reflected Jewish synagogues and Greco-Roman households (oikoi) of the time. Leadership was significantly different as well, hardly similar to the modern pastoral role we assume today.
The church, under the direction and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, can and should innovate to meet the unique challenges of its location, time and surrounding culture. We tend to understand this missiologically when we take the Gospel globally, but we have trouble living this out within our own context.
It’s impossible to predict the future with any real certainty, but trends point to a mixture of large megachurches and a new breed of very small churches across the United States and Canada. There is evidence that conventional small and medium-sized congregations will struggle the most in the coming years since they are highly dependent on paid staff and maintaining property, and at the same time are unable to match all that the large attractional churches offer. In addition, most of these existing congregations are not agile enough to pivot to more sustainable and culturally relevant ministry models.
Two specific developments worthy of greater attention and experimentation are:
1. Co-Vocational Ministry. We are already aware of the increase in pastors who are bi-vocational, meaning that they must find additional work to meet their financial needs. A future strategy could be to have ministers prepare intentionally for another career that is much more closely aligned and even tied in with the mission of the congregation.
2. Missional Communities. There is an exciting spread of missionally-focused and discipleship oriented microchurches taking place, especially in areas where conventional churches are struggling to gain traction. These fresh expressions typically have distributed leadership roles, and limited overhead. This emerging form is a particular interest of mine, as I lead an organization that networks and equips such communities within the Church of God.
Congregational life will likely undergo massive disruption in the coming 10-20 years. While we may grieve the loss of forms with which we are familiar and comfortable, this may also be a tremendous opportunity for us to have greater Kingdom effectiveness. It can be an occasion to consider new models of leadership, requiring us to change the ways we train and equip those leaders. Of course, we do not yet know what this will look like exactly, but we must be open to new expressions as they emerge, and be prepared to adjust our systems, including credentialing, as we allow God to work through us.
I have also been excited by the Trellis innovation in preparation for ministry. However, it is more geared to preparing high school students called to ministry than second career folks. The time requirements are simply too much for someone who needs to support a family as well. It also should be noted that the Internship program is an undergraduate program. The shorter, Residency program is not simply for older students. It is a graduate level program, and if an older person, or second career person, doesn't have the requisite undergraduate degree, they aren't eligible. However, in my working with Trellis this past year, I have found them to be incredibly flexible and innovative. I know they are working on shorter, certificate based training opportunities that may not provide college credit, but will likely go a long way to train pastors somewhat like what our seminary is doing with their hispanic certificate program.
You have a lot of experience with the micro church or house church movement. What are your thoughts on the necessary preparation for leadership in that environment?
Thank you for your excellent coverage of issues confronting the Church of God. I like the model of small neighborhood house churches with no paid staff, no facility overhead, and every dollar that comes in going back into the neighborhood.