From officiating at a wedding ceremony to eulogizing at a funeral, it’s clear that the job of a clergy member is complex but crucial. Whether you’re a priest, minister, vicar, rabbi, or bishop, it’s typically your job to provide religious and spiritual guidance to members of your congregation. While you will most likely rely on the authority of a particular religious text””the Bible, the Koran, or the Torah, for example””you will encounter challenging spiritual questions and earthly events that require your own interpretation of those texts and rely on your own knowledge, understanding, and faith experiences. Much of your work can be administrative””managing the day-to-day operations and staff of a religious center or place of worship””and very time consuming. It can also be highly social, whether you’re visiting congregation members in the hospital, attending a community event, or counseling a couple on the brink of divorce. It will be your responsibility to grow your congregation, find reliable lay leaders to run workshops or handle finances, and even oversee the repair of old lighting fixtures and damaged organ pipes. Keep in mind, too, that not all clerics have congregations, but may serve in other capacities….
There would seem to be no shortage of clergy in this country. There were about 670,000 jobs held by clergy in 2008, and the Labor Department expects that number to climb by 13 percent over the next decade or so. Note that opportunities are often the most numerous in smaller congregations, although pay tends to be lower.
Read the rest and check out the whole list at the link.
“the Labor Department expects that number to climb by 13 percent over the next decade or so.”
I’d love to see that analysis explained! Where is the growth expected (what faith traditions, geographical locations, etc.)? What kind of tools do they use to come to this kind of conclusion? Are they the same as predicting the number of, say, auto workers?
Maybe I am old fashioned, but I thought that deciding to become a Christian clergyman was supposed to be ‘answering a calling’ and not ‘seeking a career.’
#2
As chairman of my parish’s Discernment Committee, we certainly are looking for evidence of a call and not just a career move.
Re # 2
That’s a fair point. But recall that most clergy (except Catholics) have to support a family and deal with the same real world concerns that the rest of us do. Money should not be the overriding concern. But it is one that they need to consider.
I have to agree with #4. I grew up in a Methodist minister’s household, and even though my dad was growing 2 churches (one went from about 25 to over 200), I remember us being virtually poor. This was the case despite the fact that he had a master’s degree from Asbury seminary (I am sure he owed them money too).
I know many people that expect clergy to work themselves to death for a wage that most congregation members would never accept. It burns me when people expect their ministers to struggle, scrape, and work overtime for free, when these same people would never allow themselves or their families to live like that. I say kudos to those clergy who refuse to be treated like this, even if it does seem less than humble. I agree clergy shouldn’t be in it for the money, but then again, the good ones are working hard meeting our most important need.
I have loved my job for all of the past 30+ years, never found it boring, and for the past 16+ years have been very well paid. I’m not sure if my kids entirely like being PKs, though they have been well taken-care of, cosseted by my congregations, and basically treated like royalty all their lives. My wife is asking me right now to add that she adores being a clergy wife.
This is a first of some kind for US News. When I was a subscriber to the magazine, I used to note their annual rankings of different things– hospitals, colleges, etc. They would preface their lists with an explanation of the criteria, but it still baffled me how they came up with these rankings. I also remember annual lists of the hot careers to get into. Having kids of my own, I was curious about the prospects for the careers they had set their sights on. If US News ever mentioned clergy before, I didn’t notice. The fact that “clergy” is included in this list doesn’t make the list any less fishy.
Pax,
Chuck Bradshaw