"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."
What would you say? And then, of course, the obvious next step -- what changes could we make systemically that might change this?
Posted by hessma at November 5, 2005 07:26 AMRe #5: One of our lay ministry mentors noted that it's just madness to match freshly minted pastors with troubled congregations in the hopes that their youth/idealism/"new ideas" will somehow turn the place around. His suggestion was that new pastors be steered toward the sorts of healthy congregations that pretty much run themselves, and utilize veteran pastors with a proven track record in helping struggling congregations.
Posted by: LutheranChik at November 25, 2005 09:49 PM