After a decade-long clergy shortage in America’s pulpits, Christian denominations are now experiencing a clergy glut — with some denominations reporting two ministers for every vacant pulpit.
“We have a serious surplus of ministers and candidates seeking calls,” said Marcia Myers, director of the vocation office for the Presbyterian Church (USA), which has four ministers for every opening.
The cause of the sudden turnaround: blame the bad economy.
According to PC(USA) data, there are 532 vacancies for 2,271 ministers seeking positions. The Assemblies of God, United Methodist Church, Church of the Nazarene and other Protestant denominations also report significant surpluses.
Cash-strapped parishioners — who were already aging and shrinking in number — have given less to their churches, resulting in staff cuts. Meanwhile, older clergy who saw their retirement funds evaporate are delaying retirement, leaving fewer positions available to younger ministers.
So, how come everybody complains about a lack of dynamic, qualified, young ministers while this article says there is a glut of ministers. I think it may be due to the influx of second career ministers, particularly women, who find that being a minister/priest has higher status than being a social worker.
Also, the United Methodists are rapidly moving to end guaranteed appointments. This should result in an even more pronounced leftist tilt to the denomination, since bishops will be able to appoint only those whose views (almost uniformly socialist in the U.S.) match their own. I predict the UMC’s decline will accelerate to TEC levels within a few years.
there’s a glut because no one wants to sit in the pews; those that show up to the new gay church want to tell others how to live, not be told how to live.
“In fact, there are indications that both the shortage and the glut are caused by the same factor — the difficulty of staffing small, struggling congregations.”
Its easy to forget that the ministry is not a job, its a calling. In an increasingly secular world, the Lord is most likely to call those who are willing to evangelise, and/or to plant new churches.
It is still hard to find good clergy to serve small rural churches. Most new clergy come from suburban parishes and want to serve in familiar places. Bishops and Commissions on Ministry have generally failed the church.
I don’t think it would be a problem finding clergy to staff struggling parishes, if TEC did not insist on a residential seminary education funded by student loans. There are plenty of retirees, reasonably wealthy mid career folks etc. who would be glad to study three years at an online Anglican seminary in order to serve as a tentmaker priest in a rural parish with an ASA of 12.
This approach is used by other Anglican denominations who have fully online seminaries leading to an M.Div. or an M.Theo (or both).
These include
Trinity Theological College/ University of Melbourne in Australia (which is a solid member of the Anglican Communion)
https://www.trinitycollege.vic.edu.au/
and Cranmer House http://www.cranmerhouse.org/
(which belongs to the “Reformed Episcopal Church”
If you didn’t have student loans, then folks could be “tentmakers” serving rural parishes for free as a ministry. I think that there are a number of folks who would be willing to do this in most small towns.
But if you insist that would be priests give up their day jobs and transplant their families 300 miles away to live on loans for 3 years, emerging 100 in debt (minimum) well, they will need to pay those loans back. This means that such priests will need a full time, paid clergy position. By definition, this excludes that struggling rural parish who is desperate for a priest.
I do understand the business of formation, however I also do feel that a competant bishop should be able to attach a novice student or deacon to a competant priest and engage in formation using an apprenticeship model.
I think “Clueless,” in contradiction to the sobriquet, makes a lot of sense.
I’m currently in the last weeks of an M.Div. at Seattle University (which is, yes, a very liberal school, but that’s beside the point for the moment.) There are a lot of Episcopalians here working their way through the ordination process (not me — I’m not going for a collar.) The majority of them are middle-aged, in many cases starting a second career. Most of them have families and houses. In many cases, the expense of school is partly or wholly defrayed by a working spouse; in other cases (me, for example) the student works full-time and goes to school part-time and thus avoids or at least takes the edge off the student loan debt.
The diocese allows that people on ordination track can do most of their degree at Seattle U, which is an ecumenical seminary — but you have to do at least one full-time resident year at CDSP. That is, to say the least, challenging for someone with a family and a mortgage and a spouse with a career or a career of their own.
And yet, it is — as “Clueless” points out — precisely these people who get through school without accumulating punishing debt, who have working spouses or careers of their own, who would be able to be priests in those tiny parishes that can’t afford to pay anything remotely resembling a living wage.
Interesting way to solve a clergy shortage – shrink as a denomination!
RE: “Interesting way to solve a clergy shortage – shrink as a denomination!”
Yeh — that’s the real story here. In my own diocese we now have many parishes who simply cannot afford a priest, because they have plummeted downward so rapidly over the past oh, say . . . [drum roll] . . . seven years.