Why Can’t We Find Pastors…or Anyone Else?

If you talk to anyone involved in church life they will all lament the same problem – churches can’t find pastors. This problem is the same across every denomination, every size church and every style of church in every part of the country. Personnel committees can’t find qualified pastors, children or student ministers, discipleship leaders or worship leaders. Ask any state denominational leader and they will bemoan hundreds of churches in their areas without pastors. 

The simple answer is there aren’t that many qualified pastors or ministry leaders to find. They simply aren’t there. As time goes by, pastors are moving more and more into the realm of being an endangered species. For every pastor who takes their first church, four pastors retire. The math doesn’t add up anymore. 

Why?

First, there is less of everyone these days. Hospitals can’t find doctors and nurses. School systems can’t find teachers and mills can’t find workers. Every builder I know is looking for workers and a lot of restaurants have to keep sections closed off because they can’t find enough servers. 

Second, churches aren’t encouraging young people to give their lives to full time ministry. There’s no longer the urgency from pulpits to bring young men and women into the redemptive work of God through the preaching and teaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Parents used to want their children to be called into the ministry. Now, not so much. If God calls their children, parents will reluctantly support their children’s choices, but most parents will still wish their children would become lawyers, doctors, teachers, accountants or run a nice non-profit. They really don’t want their children to work for the church. They especially don’t want their children to be pastors of local churches. 

Why is that?

For one thing, there are enough horror stories out there about how churches have treated pastors that no one wants the job. There are so many dysfunctional and unhealthy congregations that many qualified and willing young people have decided to take other career paths. The jokes are relentless. We’ve all heard the one about the job description released by the pastor search committee that said the church was looking for a pastor who was under forty years old but had twenty years of experience. The new pastor will love senior adults and spend all their time with young people. Their sermons will be twenty minutes long, but filled with wisdom that will last a lifetime. The new pastor will part their hair down the middle and his hair will be black on one side and brown on the other. Good luck  finding that one…

The expectations from congregations for pastors is impossible. Most of our potential pastors are finding other ways to serve Christ. 

Of course, the other side of the coin is true as well. Too many pastors have blemished the holy calling by immoral, angry, immature, selfish and hateful behavior. There are few pastors that any young person would see and say, “I want to grow up to be like them. I want to do what my pastor does.” 

When I was little, my family attended a small mill village Baptist church in Huntsville, Alabama. Our pastor, Brother G.D. Barrett was a magician with words. He could take you on a guided tour of hell and your clothes would smell like smoke. I was mesmerized by his ability with words. I wanted to be able to do what he did. He made me want to learn how to preach. He was one of my childhood heroes. Sadly, we don’t have many heroes in our pulpits anymore. 

So, what do we do? First, we churches have to decide what they want their pastors to be. Most churches expect too much from their pastors. Few people are gifted as preachers, managers, therapists and community organizers, but most churches expect their pastors to be all of these and more. Churches should prioritize the preaching and teaching of the Scriptures and give their pastors the needed time to study and reflect. The pastor is called to lead and teach the church, not be the church. 

Many thought leaders now claim the job of being the President of the United States is too big for any one person to fill. I don’t know about being president, but I do know about being a pastor. I was blessed to be able to serve a great church, but even with that, I couldn’t get it all done. No pastor at any church can. 

The church has to be the church. Congregations have to understand we can’t hire any one person to BE the church. No one is that good. 

Second, we have to help those called to the ministry that they are responding to a call, not starting a career. The two are not the same. Paul made tents. A lot of pastors were farmers, fishermen and teachers. Being bi-vocational is a historically and biblically significant way of living and serving the local church. 

We can’t find pastors these days because the pastors we’re looking for don’t exist. We’d do better to get back to the basics of finding someone who loves Jesus and loves His word and then filling in the gifts of the laity around them. There are no good pastors at bad churches and there are no good churches with bad pastors. Congregations and leaders depend on each other. They thrive together or not at all. 

This essay was first posted in Scot McKnight’s newsletter.