Professionalization and pastors. . .

It was said of the seminary graduates of my day that a first call lasted about 22 months.  I do not know if this was statistically correct or merely anecdotal.  It probably does not matter.  In the end I stayed a very long time in comparison to that mark -- nearly 13 years!  Indeed, I probably would still be there if a few things in the community surrounding the congregation had gone differently.  In the end, it was not the people who drove us away and, despite a rocky start, they were the hardest part of leaving to take my second call where I stayed for 32 years.  I always said I had only a couple of moves in me and experience proved that prediction to be fairly accurate. 

I will say, however, that even though pastors seem to be staying longer, very long tenures in the same place are not always seem as healthy by denominational officials and some within the congregations themselves.  Without exact numbers, I would not venture to give an average tenure or an average number of moves in any pastor's household today.  What I will say is that along with the culture, other things have changed which affect how long a pastor stays in one place.  Not all of these are good, right, or salutary for the Church (or for congregations and their pastors).

I read recently where, of the 221 who graduated from Yale College (when it was a divinity school too) between the years of 1745 and 1775 and went into the ministry, 71 percent remained in the church to which they were first called until their deaths. On the other hand, only 4 percent held four or more pastorates.  Without Lutheran seminaries in the US to compare this to, I will have to assume that the numbers would hold for us as well.  But not today.  One pastor's obituary I read in my own denomination's journal included no less than 9 congregations over his nearly 40 years of service.  There are probably those who have been in more.  We seem to be at a point where we affirm longer pastorates as good but are not sure either the pastors or the congregations want this to happen.  Let me suggest one reason.

Though many will dispute me, the problem can be laid in part on the rise of the professional clergyman. It has to do with uniformity in seminary and degree programs (which is not all bad) but it also has to do with the professionalization of the ministry.  The increasing professionalization of the pastor's vocation has directly paralleled his impermanence in the parish.  Could it be that professionalization might shoulder part of the blame for shorter pastoral tenures and for the expectation of them?  By the way, the same thing has happened to the lawyer and doctor in town as well.  They have seen their own vocation professionalized to the point where relationship is less than expertise in their field.  That might touch on some of the pastoral tenure problem (unless you think shorter tenures are a good thing for pastors or for congregations).

It was once thought that any pastor could be the pastor of any congregation.  Now the skill sets of pastors are honed toward more specific circumstances and those skill sets become as much of a driving force about where and how long a pastor is called along with some rather new factors (real estate and the wife's job among them).  Along with this, the tenure of the predecessor has become a powerful factor in the decision of the pastor to accept a call and how long he stays.  I will say without a doubt that many congregations and pastors now view a long pastorate (32 years?!) as problem for their future and for finding another pastor.  Pastoral longevity is now a complaint rather than a blessing -- at least in the minds of some.  After all, when pastors stay too long and become entrenched in the minds and lives of their people, it is hard for some to find room for the new guy and the old ways become so entrenched that they are just as difficult to change.

That is part of the problem.  We are enamored with change.  We think that change or die is a legitimate slogan for the churches today and a pastor who sticks around too long can be an impediment to the kind of change that we think we need.  But this is part of the very problem.  Change has become so rapid and the status quo so brief all around us that churches have bought into the false idea that this love of change is sustainable over the long haul.  We all know that it is not.  People need a break and they need stability -- in people like pastors, doctors, and lawyers just like in other aspects of their lives.  Professionals have a need to make changes to justify who they are and why they are here but such changes can often create their own difficulties for a congregation.  Furthermore, there is a big difference between needed change due to dysfunction or error and change that is less urgently warranted.  

Pastoral searches are not easy on congregations and they are certainly not easy on pastors and their families either.  Having gone through countless interviews over the years and having served as a Circuit Visitor assisting congregations in their calling process, I can vouch for how unsettling this can be in the life of a congregation already struggling.  Corporate headhunting has replaced the calling process and it has created its own problem both for the calling and keeping of a pastor.  It is often seen simply as a job and the process of getting or getting rid of a pastor as just another management change.  If we are honest we know that this is not the case.  Pastors are more like the head of a family than a corporate CEO but as long as we push the professionalization of this vocation and treat it as a corporate office, that is exactly what it will become.  So those are my random thoughts for today.  Chew them up and see what they taste like in your experience.