Thoughts on Ministry

It has been raining all morning, but it was truly pouring at 6am this morning when Samuel woke up with a soaked-through diaper, diaper cover, pajamas and blanket.  So David and I worked quickly to dry and re-cover everything and then we sat in the dark in Samuel's room while he nursed and cuddled himself back to sleep, and we had a conversation about where, exactly, we were going with the whole ministry thing.

It's remarkably hard in a denomination that doesn't 'place' its pastors to not be disheartened by the 'job hunt'.  Part of you can feel very abandoned by everyone, especially when you look around at how many of us unemployed ministry couples there are, and how few jobs.  Some of the couples I know have taken themselves out of the race, so to speak, by working through a district to church plant.  Although this gives the rest of us a bit of a fighting chance, there is still not enough work, and too many workers.  I just counted to see how many Wesleyan churches exist in Canada, and the numbers aren't encouraging: we have 107 churches in Canada, spread over 7 provinces and 2 districts.  Of those 107, maybe, if we're very, very fortunate, 40 or so will be looking for a new pastor of some sort this coming season.  Maybe.  Now, the vast majority of positions will be filled by a pastor leaving one church and joining another, which just re-arranges the gaps a bit, but let's say, just for the number's sake, that there are 40 openings this year.

10 of those openings will be for senior positions, which we won't be able to compete for.  So that brings us to 30.  At least 10 of those postions will be for worship leaders or accountants or something that we don't have the skill set for.  Now our numbers are cut to 20.  Those 20 positions will be like water to a thirsty traveller.  There are many, MANY more than 20 of us needing a job.  Many.  And the pool keeps getting bigger and bigger every year as more pastoral graduates come into the hiring circle from the Bible colleges.  Some job seekers will go on the missions field, or take work with a travelling evangelist or perhaps they'll try for a job in a sister denomination.  Some of them, many of them, will make ends meet like we do, with dead-end jobs that pay the bills.  At least two 'ministry' families I know, while waiting for a job to appear, are working at McDonald's.

When we do get a job offer, it will almost certainly be bi-vocational.  David will work at a church for an 'advertised' number of hours, which is almost certain to be drastically less than his actual hours, and then he'll work another job after work, probably at another dead-end place like the gas station, all over again.  A pastor friend of ours recently took his first job, as a part-time youth minister in a small-town church.  The hours of the job are 24 a week, but he works almost full-time and is expected to be on call for the youth day or night.  This will last for years, maybe, until he proves himself willing to do anything and be anything to anyone while racking up incredible mileage on the car and doing the back-breaking work of whatever a parish dogs-body does.  After that, if we're very lucky, David will get a full-time job as an assistant, or maybe a senior pastor at a small rural church.  He'll work for peanuts, because they all do. 

I don't say all of this to complain.  Ministry isn't something you go into because you want to make millions or live a luxurious lifestyle.  It requires hard work and dedication, much like any job done well.  On the other hand, this sort of slog, this kind of painful, uninspiring life is not a draw to anyone.  What healthy young person wants to do this?  What will I tell my son if he announces that he wants to join the pastorate?  What will I say?  And what kind of life can this denomination be offering its followers and its pastors if they say "Come, we will train you and tell you wonderful stories about how much good you can do in the world and how great everything will be and then, once you graduate, we will leave you high and dry.  You will not be able to have a family or children easily because you won't be able to afford them.  If you're single, we have nothing to help you with to live a healthy life or find a spouse, providing you can find a normal person who wants to spend their lives in the same predicament you are in, and your job?  Well, we can't promise you a thing.  We can't promise you a single, solitary thing.  You're on your own."

Believe it or not, I don't say this because I'm disappointed, although I am.  I also am not saying this because I feel hopeless, because I don't.  I feel abandoned by the church, though.  I feel as though this is the worst possible way to treat the men and women who you claim are your leaders.  As though they are commodities.  And I can't believe that the church is agast at the shortage of leaders!  Why, who on earth, other than someone crazy or completely convinced of God's call on their life, would ever take this job in a million years?  I'm not in the least surprised at the lack of enrollment in the Bible colleges, because who would consider a job in the ministry?

I remember reading once that before the middle of the last century, lower-middle class Catholic communities often considered the priesthood as a perfectly viable career choice for subsequent sons.  Naturally, some of your sons would join the family business or apprentice themselves to a trade, but for the academically-minded, with no real educational options because of limited funds, the priesthood provided an invaluable opportunity to join a community, acquire an education far beyond what your family could otherwise afford, and have a safe job prospect until retirement, and then a safe, loving elderly period where you would be well cared-for.  I imagine the same was somewhat true for daughters entering religious communities.  Education, happiness, communal living...no fear of being a 'lonely spinster', of not being useful or being forced into factory work because that was all you could get.

I think that to some extent the denominations that have worked in a similar way have always been the most effective at recruiting new blood.  Who wants to join a group that promises you nothing?  That says, effectively, that you're on your own, we can't help you.  We won't help you.

Thoughts?