clergy

The untraditional associate pastor

It’s been a little over four years since I wrote, The Work of the Associate Pastor (Judson Press) and a lot has changed. As church budgets get smaller and the pews reveal increasingly empty space, many church leaders cannot fathom having an associate pastor on a church staff. A Hartford Institute for Religion Research study found that from 2010 to 2015, part-time clergy jumped from 29% to 38%. If it’s hard enough to staff one pastoral position, how could a church even think about two?

The answer is: it’s time to consider another model of associate pastor. Continue Reading…

Churches

10 most helpful comments as a pastor

Several weeks ago, I published “10 most painful comments as a pastor” and said I would follow up with “10 most helpful comments as a pastor.” After 10 years of full-time ordained ministry, I can say that I’ve been encouraged by some incredible people.

With pastor appreciation month coming up here in October, it’s important to realize that clergy need lifting up. As people who work serving others, the calling pastoral ministry requires long hours, late nights, and weekends. It can be exhausting work. As I wrote in my book, The Work of the Associate Pastor, clergy need to be affirmed and thanked for their service. Helpful comments or information on behalf of lay people are found from a source of love and not from frustration:

Leadership

The future of ministry is not in seminary

That’s right. The future of ministry is not going to be found in the traditional 90 credit seminary degree but in modified virtual centers of learning.

Why?

As I explained in my book, The Work of the Associate Pastor, churches must find alternative avenues for finding ministers other than the traditional college and seminary educated pastor. The full-time professional clergy person is becoming a difficult sustainable goal to achieve for many churches. The Atlantic highlighted the state of middle class clergy carrying a seminary degree: high debt, low wages, vanishing churches, and part-time pastor positions.

The traditional mainline church track for full-time pastors followed like this: 4-years of college, 3-years of graduate seminary education, and ordination. This process launched a generation of pastors into their ministry in the 1950’s, 60’s, and 70’s. The traditional 90-credit seminary degree, the master of divinity, became the mark of an intellectual, professional, and full-time pastor. Churches had the people and money to support such a model. The pastor typical could raise a family and even buy a house (if one was not provided).

Those days are gone.

Now, because of cost of graduate education, seminary graduates are saddled with debt. In the $40,000 to $60,000 range (on top of college debt). The pace of the rise of the cost of education has exceeded the rate of inflation: to the tune of 500% since 1985. Usually, when a professional incurs such a debt, their boss gives them a raise because of their higher degree. Not the case with pastors. Many pastors have the same credit hours as school administrators, but paid much less.

With this current reality of shrinking churches, downsized church budgets, less full-time pastor positions, and need for a generation of clergy to lead churches into a new culture, a shorter more focused distance modified seminary degree is needed. A distance modified 45-credit degree could shake up this bleak future for pastors and churches. Seminaries like Northern and Palmer are introducing these types of programs.

Here’s what the 45-credit “seminary” degree could look like:

Ash Wednesday, Lent

Pastors need Lent too

Just as we had finished imposing ashes on the foreheads of worshipers to begin Lent, my friend and fellow pastor David Bennett turned to me and said, “Alan, remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.” And with those words, David marked me with the sign of the cross with ashes. And that is when it hit me: It’s Lent. Forty plus days of Lenten lunches, Wednesday Bible studies, prayer services, extra time needed to plan extra sermons, meetings, and everything that comes with an already very full plate of ministry. Another year. Another Lent. Will I survive?

On Ash Wednesday, pastors get their hands dirty to impart ashes on the foreheads of parishioners with the words, “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” Millions of Christians attending services will hear those familiar words and then go home without realizing what is about to take place for their clergy. Ash Wednesday not only marks the beginning of Lent, but also the beginning of a trying time for pastors.

During Lent the church calendar fills up and the pastor’s daily agenda quickly gets full. Pastors and ministry leaders try hard to plan and lead meaningful spiritual encounters. Lent is a time of reflection and examination of our faith. People tend to start visiting their pastors with challenges, problems, concerns, and other needs. Somehow it seems people become more needy during Lent. I mean that in the best possible way. Pastors are called to serve and help people. We are glad to fulfill our calling. However, during Lent, pastors often find that demand for their service increases. People go into the hospital, someone dies, another has a crisis, and a transient is in the pastor’s looking for money but you are late for a meeting. Most pastors know the increased flow of need is coming, but that does not mean your pastor is ready for it. Continue Reading…

Christianity

Pope Francis is good for Christianity

As Pope Francis visits the United States, Catholics are full of excitement as the Holy Father visits in Washington, Philadelphia, and New York. It is very clear that his leadership will set a very different tone for the Catholic Church. Pope Francis even known to engage in some selfies on social media and his American visit is no different.

At a time when priest scandals, closing churches, and aging membership threaten the growth of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis started his tenure on a positive note. Francis reminded Catholics that Jesus, not the pope, is at the center of the Church. He added that the center should focus on “poor, and for the poor.” Even the selection of his namesake, Francis of Assisi, invokes compassion, peace, and uplifting the poor.

Pope Francis has been known to pay for his own room, rejected lavish apparel, and referred to himself more as a bishop and less as Pope. He’s traveling in a tiny Fiat for this visit. Though these are small things, this type of behavior reflects a Pope that is humble and connected with the average person. Francis is doing more work among Christians in general, not just Catholics. The sex abuse scandals not only eroded the trust of faithful Catholics, but also with the general population. Public polls show that lawyers and bankers are more trusted than clergy. The perception among the “nones”, who make up 20% of Americans, is that churches and organized Christianity is not worthy of their attention.

Pope Francis continues to set a new tone for 1.2 billion Catholics. The tone is not centered in doctrine, Church law, or hierarchy but on bringing unity to the Church and caring for the least of these. The LA Times interviewed one of the faithful and compared the last pope and current pope:

blog

Be informed, not ignorant on Baltimore

Baltimore is a great city. It is home to the sports teams I follow, universities, churches, an inner harbor, and more importantly where people live. My mother was born and raised in Baltimore. I was born outside Baltimore in Maryland and lived there for about 20 years. As a former Marylander, I’m shocked at the reporting in Baltimore that I’ve seen.

The scenes and pictures of Baltimore rioting over the death of Freddie Gray by police is inescapable. Facebook, Twitter, TV, and the internet are all reporting using words like “thugs”, “vandals” or “rioters”. However, media talking heads are blaming, criticizing, and pointing fingers. As usual, the media are driving a very specific narrative and image: inner city [racial] chaos.

An example of this is on Fox News

Another protester told Vittert he’s upset about all the police brutality, but it was drowned out by more indiscernible shouting. The audio feed briefly cut out, but one f-bomb was picked up on the air. Kelly immediately said, “This is ridiculous. This is how folks want to be heard? They want to shout down the reporter? They want to endanger him?”

One person equals “This is how folks want to be heard”? One story, one person does not equal the whole story. However, that is the picture that many in the media want to paint. Geraldo Rivera told a ~~vandal~~ protester who was blocking the news camera, “You blocking my camera… You’re making a fool of yourself!” to which someone replied, “We don’t want your false coverage!”

With cities like Ferguson, Cleveland, Brooklyn, and Baltimore protesting what residents feel as injustice, the media captures the worst of the worst. Riots in other cities, for other reasons, are often reported differently by some news outlets. It seems that scenes of violence fill the airwaves more than the scenes of peaceful protests. What about the scenes of people trying to help? Perhaps one of the most powerful and important news worthy events that are occurring in Baltimore is what the clergy are doing. Hundreds of clergy marched in Baltimore to promote peace. WBAL in Baltimore reported first hand what occurred on April 27:

blog

Why pastors need pastors

Much of what we pastors do is to minister, care, support, and uplift the people in our congregations and community. We go through college and graduate school (seminary) and learn the basics of sociology, psychology, and therapy. We pastors walk with people through depression, grief, and death.

Through all those hours, days, weeks, and years of care-giving, what happens when we pastors need a pastor? Who will be the care-giver to the care-giver? Who will be the pastor to a pastor?

I recently posted an Baptist News Global article, written by Jeff Brumbly, on Facebook with some startling statistics for pastors:

Church Leadership

Do you have church money anxiety?

In congregational life, there are always those who give more /worry more/spend more time on the money than others. In systems theory this is called overfunctioning. Members who are overfunctioning with financial aspects of the church always think if others gave more or were more responsible, the church wouldn’t have this problem.

Yet there’s a balance between those who overfunction and those who underfunction in terms of financial responsibility. It takes both to keep this dynamic going. Often key church leaders carry the anxiety for church finances.

Who is staying awake at night? Typically, it’s the pastor, although sometimes lay leaders are more worried than the clergy. I talked recently with a church treasurer who was losing sleep night after night over whether there would be enough church money in the account to pay the bills. In this situation, the potential shortfall did not belong to the treasurer but to the church. It wasn’t his responsibility—or not his alone. Yet he was the one who was holding all the anxiety for it.

Leadership

The case for the 45 credit seminary degree

The Atlantic ran a disturbing article on the state of middle class clergy carrying a seminary degree: high debt, low wages, vanishing churches, and part-time pastor positions. The piece profiles Justin Barringer, a recent seminary grad who like many before him graduated the call to pastoral ministry. His story is not unlike thousands of other ministers:

Justin Barringer would seem to have the perfect résumé. He’s a seminary grad, an author and book editor, and a former missionary to China and Greece. But despite applying to nearly a hundred jobs over the course of two years, Barringer, who lives in Lexington, Kentucky, could not secure a full-time, salaried church position.

So he splits his time among three jobs, working as a freelance editor, an employee at a nonprofit for the homeless, and a part-time assistant pastor at a United Methodist Church. “I am not mad at the church,” Barringer says. “However, I wish someone had advised me against taking on so much debt in order to be trained for ministry.”

Here is the reality: high debt and scarcity of full-time paying pastor positions.

With this current reality of shrinking churches, downsized church budgets, less full-time pastor positions, and need for a generation of clergy to lead churches into a new culture, a shorter more focused seminary degree is needed. An online distance modified 45-credit degree could shake up this bleak future for pastors and churches. Here’s what the 45-credit seminary degree could look like:

blog, stewardship

Stewardship: Raising more with less stress

Stewardship does not have to be the hardest thing you do at church. Pastors and leaders often lament pledge drives or stewardship campaigns. Fundraising in the church is difficult.

There is an alternative to non-stop fundraising, convincing people to give more – or simply cutting the budget. It’s what you bring to stewardship that you already have and not about learning the latest technique.

Register for this FREE webinar for Monday, May 5th @ 3:30 PM EST and you will be able to:

become more thoughtful about the financial challenges you and you church face
see money – and the process of stewardship– from a different perspective
bring more calm and creativity to recurring and unexpected problems in funding ministry
concentrate on long-term ministry goals and strategic persistence to get financial support for those goals.
focus on yourself and what you can impact directly rather than trying harder to convince others to give more
enjoy the stewardship process rather than dreading it each year

Leading this webinar is Rev. Margaret Marcuson works with churches who want to create a ministry that lasts and clergy who want to have more impact on the people they serve best. She speaks and writes on leadership and works with church leaders nationally as a consultant and coach. Margaret is the author of 111 Tips to Survive Pastoral Ministry, Leaders who Last: Sustaining Yourself and Your Ministry and Money and Your Ministry: Balance the Books While Keeping Your Balance (just released). Margaret is an American Baptist minister and was the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Gardner, Massachusetts, for 13 years. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband, Karl, and belongs to First Baptist Church of Portland.

Spots are limited for this webinar! Sign up today.

Churches

6 restorative practices for well-being

Leaders constantly give of themselves to those who serve. How can they recharge? Where can they find restorative practices for ministry that build up our well-being?

Today I’m attending the Lewis Fellows alumni gathering at Wesley Theological Seminary and we are engaging in reflecting and reviewing our role as young leaders in the church. This morning, Dr. Matt Bloom led us pastors in examining our well-being. Dr. Bloom and his team surveyed over 1,000 pastors in 8 different denominations in an attempt to learn:

The characteristics of clergy well-being.
What factors or impede well-being?
How well-being changes over a life-span.

Dr. Bloom presented the following guidance for “recharging” our batteries for well-being:

blog, Leadership

The Church Draft

As millions of football fans will undoubtedly will be glued to their televisions and social media, they will hunger for the latest information about NFL draft picks. The NFL draft is part pageantry and part celebration for football teams and their fans. Draft day means that a team can have hope for a better season as new athletes come on their roster.

This is also a tense time for football teams. Owners, coaches, agents and managers are all trying to work together to pick the best player. With all those high powered people trying to work together sometimes egos, tempers, and anxiety can play a major role in the team’s success. In order to get the best draft position teams will give away players, negotiate terms, trade draft spots, and participate in a number of complex agreements. The world of the NFL draft is truly a dizzying drama for teams but also there is tremendous opportunity.

In the world of the NFL, resources and money are seemingly endless as players are paid multi-million dollar contracts. For churches, the search for staff and volunteers is a frustrating process. Many churches lack the financial resources for say a full time youth minister or education minister. Often volunteers have to take on that work load without pay. Unlike the NFL, churches do not have ability to search for and pay for staff that could grow their organization.

In the church world of limited resources, what if churches joined together to have a Church Draft?

I live and minister in a small community with five mainline churches within a mile of one another. Our worship is similar and so are our ministries. We pastors get along very well. Back in 2009, we started meeting regularly and formed a clergy organization. We started to dream of the ways in which we could work together. We already had a number of connected ecumenical gatherings, but we wanted to do more.

One day, I jokingly asked if I could steal one of the other pastor’s secretary since we were in search of one. He replied that I would have to trade my choir for her. A few months later we were searching for an office manager. I went back to the same pastor and reminded him of our trade agreement but this time it was for real. I wasn’t going to give up my choir but we negotiated terms to share his staff person for our church office administrator position. BOOM! It worked. Fast forward a few years, and now all of our churches are talking about sharing a community youth minister and are supporting community based youth ministry! And, we continue to negotiate and draft ministry people to work in all of our churches.

In our community, it makes sense to work together and “draft” staff and volunteers. Each individual church may not have the resources, but together we are able to work together as one team and not five teams working against one another. Churches in the 21st century need to think about their staff and volunteers as players in the big game of ministry and not see each other as competitors.

Alan Rudnick is the author of “The Work of the Associate Pastor”, Judson Press.

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