Willie R. Tubbs, FISM News
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An alarming number of preachers have expressed growing concern about their place in the ministry with almost half saying they’ve contemplated leaving the field in the past year.
According to research recently released by the Barna Group, the California research group that specializes in faith-based topics, protestant pastors have expressed a dramatic drop in confidence since 2015.
In the eight years from 2015 to 2022, the number of pastors who expressed being “very satisfied” in their jobs dropped from 72% to 52%. The number of pastors who said they felt “more confident about their calling compared to when they first entered the ministry” dropped from 66% to 35%, and the number of pastors who said they were “very satisfied with their ministry at their current church” dropped from 53% to 38%.
“This research underscores the need for major interventions to support and sustain pastors in their work,” The Baptist Press quoted Barna Group CEO David Kinnaman as saying. “This drop in vocational satisfaction may cause significant problems for churches in the future.”
Barna posits several theories as to what might be at play, but the most popular culprit is the ongoing effects of the nation’s response to COVID-19.
“The COVID-19 pandemic’s effect on how we live our lives continues to unspool,” the researchers wrote. “
The full impact of a crisis of its size probably won’t be truly understood for years or even decades, but we are starting to wrap our heads around some of the ways COVID has shaped new norms. For instance, many people came out of COVID with very different feelings about their jobs than they had going into it. And pastors are no exception.
Similar research conducted by Barna in 2020 showed that the most profound drop in the aforementioned categories occurred in the early phase of COVID-19, but in the intervening two years, the numbers have continued to trend down in the areas of both overall and church-specific satisfaction while pastoral confidence has plateaued at the 35% low mark.
“As pastors feel less satisfied in their jobs and more doubtful of their call to ministry, it seems that the role is now taking a greater toll on church leaders than it used to,” the Baptist Press quoted Barna Vice President of Church Engagement Joe Jensen as saying. “Looking forward, it is important for church congregations to gain a deeper understanding of the challenges their leaders are facing, and then to encourage, support, and care for them more deeply.”
This was the first release in a larger effort by Barna under its Resilient Pastor Initiative, which will feature additional releases through May, each with the aim of providing resources to help pastors overcome whatever issues they might face.