Baptist churches often are like mules – “they are
strong, but they don’t reproduce,” theology
professor Curtis Freeman contends.
Freeman is among a growing number of religious
leaders who say churches are doing too little to
encourage young people to enter the ministry.
Answering God’s call: A shortage of church leaders
could be looming – and key observers insist the
answer is for churches to encourage young people to
consider the ministry as a vocation
Baptist churches often are like mules – “they are
strong, but they don’t reproduce,” theology
professor Curtis Freeman contends.
Freeman is among a growing number of religious
leaders who say churches are doing too little to
encourage young people to enter the ministry.
That deficit could result in a shortage of pastors
and other church leaders nationwide, warns Freeman,
who heads the Baptist House of Studies at Duke
University.
Nearly 30 percent of Southern Baptist ministers are
older than 55, while only 10 percent are younger
than 35 he notes.
That means that for each person entering the
ministry, three are preparing to retire.
Compounding the problem is a trend in which only
one-third of today’s seminarians say they expect to
serve a local church. More are opting for
non-pastoral roles in parachurch ministries,
missions, social ministry and chaplaincy.
Ministerial scandals of recent years, two decades of
bickering among Baptists, low pay and diminishing
status for ministers in society all contribute to
dulling the call to local-church ministry, Freeman
suggests.
“So, why would you want a job that can’t support a
family, won’t get respect, makes unrealistic demands
and goes against the basic beliefs of society?” he
asks. “I can’t think of a good reason unless the
Almighty Master of the universe calls you by name
and leads you there.”
While God calls one to pastoral ministry, Freeman
faults churches and pastors for a failure to help
students amplify and interpret their calling to the
ministry.
“I don’t think God ever stopped calling men and
women,” he says. “We just stopped nurturing and
cultivating it.”
Seminaries and theology schools are acutely aware of
this problem, but experts say academia alone cannot
solve it.
Seminaries can educate students sent to them, but
they are not effective at recruiting people for
ministry, says Dan Aleshire, executive director of
the Association of Theological Schools in the United
States and Canada.
“They’re very good at educating people who have
experienced a call,” he says. “They’re not very good
at helping people on the street discern whether they
have a call.”
Aleshire says the recruiting of future ministers
begins with the local church. “The church has got to
help them with thinking about seminary and choosing
vocational ministry.”
One way to do that is mentoring.
Men and women who have been called into vocational
ministry almost uniformly point to certain
individuals who helped them hear and interpret that
call.
The Baptist General Convention of Texas and Baylor
University recently asked pastors, “Who was the
single most influential person used by God in (your)
call experience?”
More than 80 percent of those surveyed could name a
specific individual who played that role, while
about one in five said they were influenced most by
personal devotions and not any one person.
The most-frequently cited influence was a pastor.
Nearly 40 percent of those surveyed cited their own
pastor was the single most influential person in
helping them hear and understand God’s call.
Fifteen percent cited family members as the primary
influence. Other individuals also were named – such
as youth ministers, Sunday school teachers, church
staff members, friends, missionaries and campus
ministers.
But asked to describe other people who had been
helpful to them in discerning a call to ministry, 78
percent cited a pastor as a positive influence.
Experts say such church relationships cannot be
overestimated in nurturing the ministerial call.
Aleshire says research shows that certain
congregations account for a disproportional number
of candidates for ministry. “Those congregations
tend to be vital, effective environments with
longer-term pastorates,” he says.
In effect, they provide healthy role models for
ministry.
The point is not lost on David Ivie, a student at
Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian University.
The ministry is a second career for Ivie – and he
says lessons he learned in business also apply to
churches.
“When I was a restaurant manager, I noticed the
stores that were led by fun, challenging and
positive leadership were also the ones that had the
largest number of staff trying to get into
management,” he says.
“The most important thing pastors can do to raise
awareness is to provide a positive example for
others to follow.”
Ivie says he found that same kind of influence in
his pastor, George Mason, at Wilshire Baptist Church
in Dallas.
Mason says healthy churches should be more
intentional in calling out and preparing ministers.
For his efforts, in addition to regularly inviting
youth and young adults to consider if they are
called, he has led his church to start a
pastoral-residency program.
Mason says the two-year program could be to
ministers what hospital residencies are to
physicians. Residents receive intensive mentoring
and opportunities to preach and teach and are fully
engaged in the ministries of the church.
The Wilshire program also includes internship
options for college students and seminarians. Some
use the opportunity to “try out” ministry as a
vocation in their process of testing what they
perceive to be a calling from God.
That approach is just what is needed to restore
appeal to a career in the ministry, maintains Royce
Rose, who serves as director of theological
education for the Baptist General Convention of
Texas.
He says churches must engage in a more specific
mentoring and encouraging. “Pastors and other
ministers must be with people of all ages as they
struggle with vocational calling,” Rose says.
“Ministers need to involve potential ministry
candidates in an intentional mentoring process.
There need to be opportunities for people to try out
their gifts in ministry situations where there is
little risk and no long-term commitment that will
‘guilt’ them into service.”
Rose says a side benefit of such an emphasis is that
it helps other church members sort out their own
calling, even if it is not to vocational ministry.
“Some people enter a ministry vocation because God
is calling them to commitment, and they don’t know
how to define that call in any way but to enter
vocational ministry,” he notes.
However, getting a student to respond to a call and
even enroll in seminary is just a first step and is
no guarantee he or she will end up on a local church
staff. By various accounts, only 30 percent to 50
percent of seminary graduates wind up ministering in
a local church.
Bill Tillman is a professor at Hardin-Simmons
University’s Logdson School of Theology. He has been
tracking this trend for 15 years. Each year, he asks
his students about their career plans. Of the
several hundred who have passed through his classes,
roughly half said they preferred to serve in a
church.
And even that 50 percent will not all be pastors,
Tillman says. The number also includes non-pastoral
roles, such as ministers of education and other
church staff.
In a survey two years ago of students at 11
universities, about 70 percent of undergraduates who
said they were called to vocational ministry planned
to go on to a seminary. About the same amount said
they want to work in ministry full-time, rather than
part-time or in a bivocational setting.
Topping the list of how they hoped to minister, 20
percent said they planned to be missionaries,
followed by 18 percent who were looking toward youth
ministry. Pastor came in third – at 15 percent.
Some use such data to sound an alarm about an
impending shortage of pastors, but Tillman says he
is encouraged that so many young people are at least
choosing some form of ministry as a career.
“Trends regarding calling reflect the definite
movement of God among us,” Tillman says. “In other
words, there is a need for both more
preacher-pastors and for more who will do other
kinds of vocational ministry.”
Aleshire says simply comparing the percentage of
seminarians now preparing for local-church
ministries with statistics from 30 years ago is
misleading because there are many more opportunities
today.
“Ministry is so much more widely distributed today,”
he explains. “Think of all the parachurch
organizations that 35 years ago weren’t there for
ministerial employment.”
Many people today view ministries that aren’t
parish-oriented as “a normal part of ministry in
communities,” Aleshire notes. “If you look at the
data 50 years ago, virtually all were going to
local-church ministry of one kind or another. Now,
the program options have diversified and ministry
opportunities have diversified.”
Another bright spot for churches is an increase
during the last two decades in the number of people
choosing ministry as a second career. Statistics
show that older students are more likely to go on to
minister in a local church.
An Auburn Seminary study found just one in five
seminarians today came there straight out of
college. The average first-year seminarian has been
out of college 10 years.
However, a downside to the trend is that older
students as a group do not fare as well academically
and in ministry experience as those fresh out of
college.
The Auburn study said those who commit to a career
in ministry early in life often are more involved in
church leadership as young people gear their
undergraduate studies to help prepare them for
seminary.
But older students also bring strengths that balance
those disadvantages. “Older students, for instance,
bring with them to theological study much stronger
commitment to ordained ministry and much more
interest in serving congregations,” the Auburn study
concludes.
Two-thirds of older students plan to be ordained,
compared to just more than half of the younger ones,
the study found. Four in 10 second-career
seminarians say congregational ministry is their
first choice, compared to 30 percent of younger
students.
While second-career seminarians might be an answer
to prayer for some congregations, some schools are
reporting a slight reversal in the trend. More young
adults are going to seminary as a first-career
choice, although second-career students still
account for more than half of seminary enrollment
nationwide.
It is too early to tell why the trend is changing or
if it will last, but observers have begun to
speculate.
One explanation is economic, Aleshire suggests.
“We know that when the job market tightens, graduate
enrollments tend to increase,” he points out. “If
you can’t get a job out of college, going on to do
more school is an acceptable thing.”
Another possibility could be that the increased emphasis on ministry as a desirable
vocation is starting to pay off, Aleshire adds. “What’s been happening
is sort of a recovery of a sense of mission and recovery of a sense that this
is important work,” he says. (ABP)