Go visit around the churches in your area. If the article below is to be believed you would encounter more gray hair (and presumably experience and wisdom) in pulpits than the high and tight or undercut tonsorial looks (along with youth and inexperience). You would find more senior pastors who are on Medicare than Obamacare and more pastors who are seeing life’s sunset days rather than the bright days of life’s prime. The full time churches would have more senior pastors who are over 65 than under 40.
I’m feeling a little old myself. Here’s a link to a story on the research:
American pastors are older, and getting older, than ever
In the past quarter century American pastors:
- have moved from a median age of 44 to 54.
- have tripled in the over 65 age group, from 6 to almost 18 percent.
One can round up the usual suspects as the cause of this and the article suggests some causes. We baby boomers are getting older and our oversized population bubble, those born in the years 1946-1964, is steadily aging. We filled church nurseries in the 1950s. I recall First Baptist in my town swarming with babies, toddlers, and children in those years. Colleges experienced a boom in enrollment in the 1960s. Now, one cannot escape the marketing of retirement homes, medications, and things that appeal to seniors. There is not much new or unexpected relative to clergy aging but I appreciate any article that finds a riveting headline like the one above: more over 65 than under 40 is striking.
A few questions relative to Southern Baptists and our mix of clergy ages:
- Our seminaries enroll thousands. Exactly what are these people doing post seminary? We are investing tens of millions annually in them. Is it true that most have no interest in senior pastor positions? Is it worth the investment by our churches to churn out grads who dabble in ministry for a few years before moving on to something else? Just asking.
- Health insurance through Medicare is much more favorable than Obamacare or other alternatives the 64 and under folks. Is the differential in costs not sufficient for many pastors to retire? There are many smaller churches with unfilled pastorates in my area that would be well-served by a part-time retiree. I am told that economics is forcing many senior pastors to keep a full time church well beyond retirement age.
- What exactly is the mix of ages for Southern Baptist senior pastors? I don’t know. The survey above is for all Protestant pastors.
- We have yet to have a post-boomer as SBC president although J. D. Greear came very close last year.
- Several entity heads are post-boomers.
- Is our clergy age mix, particularly senior pastors, a healthy one? I’m thinking it’s not.
- If your aging church is looking for someone under 40 as your next pastor and you want someone with a senior pastor track record, good luck.
I was in an ordination council yesterday for two individuals under 30. Both were well qualified. One is likely to find a career as a senior pastor, one probably not. The observation made by the council, composed entirely of active or retired senior pastors, among which I was the oldest and the average age was about 55 was that these two guys will face a lot of different challenges in their ministerial future that we do or did.
Great article.
Good observations.
The market takes care of this, I think.
When I helped plant a church with my pastor friend 24 years ago, we did so for several reasons. Calling, of course, was the main one.
He was 29 and I was 31. He looked at the prospects of becoming a Senior Pastor in our area. He had the skills to do that, but the prospects were not attractive. The congregations would not have liked his emphasis in many ways, his style (particularly music), and he would have constantly been thought of as a guy who would be a great pastor one day. That is, not received in a prophetic way.
So, we launched with 10 adults, $25,000.
It was a hard but rewarding road.
I wonder how many of the SBC churches in the survey would really be willing to hire a young guy. Their gray pastor probably matches their gray pews. And I wonder how many young guys would want to take on a church like that. It might be more appealing to take a secular job, but help start a church or work in a ministry that is vibrant.
The pastor of our church is over 65 and has no plans to retire any time soon. I believe one reason for the high number of older pastors is low retirement savings. Three years ago I spoke with the Guidestone representative for Tennessee. He told me the average SBC pastor in Tennessee has $100,000 in his retirement account when he retires. At a 4% return that is $4,000 per year. Dr. Vaughn Walker, Professor of Black Church Studies at Southern Seminary, told me that many African-American pastors have no retirement plan. So, it seems many pastors are forced to continue in ministry for financial reasons.
Based on conversations I have had, many of the SBC churches in my area view the pastorate with a business mentality: you start as the music or youth guy somewhere and work your way into a senior pastor role. They expect candidates to have experience at smaller churches first, but sometimes that smaller church pays less for a senior pastor than the part-time youth role. The expectations are often that you are married with kids as well. Working your way up the career ladder does not look like a good prospect when you are trying to afford raising your family.
I went to Boyce, the undergrad at SBTS just a few years ago. Only a hand full of my friends are actually in active ministry right now. Many are in secular vocations. One is a Methodist minister. A large group has simply plugged into the community of Louisville and are content. I’m not sure what the answers are, but it seems that we have a poor farm system in the SBC.
On another note, I wonder if the dismal number of millenials and gen-x attending church decreases the pool of young ministers who are available as well.
” I’m not sure what the answers are, but it seems that we have a poor farm system in the SBC.”
I appreciate your observations. We have the components of a good farm system; an abundance of churches, various networking systems available, along with subsidized educational opportunities. Seems to me that autonomy works against us in this. No minister, prospective minister, or church is required to do anything.
William,
That is a good point regarding autonomy. If the system is to work, everyone has to work with the system. If graduates are not looking for churches, if DOMs aren’t helping churches find ministers, if churches refuse to higher younger or if ministers think part-time work is too small for them, we will see issues.
NAMB has been specific in saying that one of their goals is a “farm system” for church planters. Seems like it’s been successful.
Also, many churches have zero conversations about pastoral succession and are very poor at leadership development. I have found that Senior Pastors can be leery of being open handed with their leadership and teaching opportunities.
When their is a lack of intention to develop leaders from within the local church, the church suffers from DNA and vision whiplash every time they select a new pastor.
What if the church leadership could have open and honest conversations about the next 5 years without being scared of losing ones position or influence.
I began looking for a pastorate when I was in my mid- to late 20’s. I am currently 34 and pastoring in Missouri. What I quickly found out was that almost every church that could pay and support a family wanted you to already have had a position as a Senior Pastor in another church. Sometimes they would also say that you had to be a t least 30 to apply.
As I interviewed at several churches a common question was how can I as a younger minster minster to the Seniors who are many years older to them. The Seniors wanted a pastor who they could relate to and that meant the pastor had to be older.
It was a frustrating process and it took over a year after Seminary to finally find a church that was willing to hire me.
By the way I had several years experience working in Youth Ministry and in the private sector. It wasn’t always an issue of experience.
After discussing issues in seminary I heard many students say “I want to church plant or go on the mission field because I do not want to deal with the bagage of the established church” Bad experiences in the local church have caused many to say I will minister else where as well.
Based on my (limited) experience it seems that supply far outweighs the demand in terms of pastoral candidates vs churches that can support a full-time pastor. It took me about three years to find my current church after coming home from the mission field.
I do believe that pastors who can’t afford to retire is a common thing unfortunately.
I’m a 37 year old pastor in Missouri, and it took me almost two years to find this church. Everyone wanted 5 years of experience or ten years of experience. It’s a wonder any of us young guys ever get any experience. I guarantee most young seminary graduates don’t want to have anything to do with the established church and who can blame them. Thing is, lots of young seminary graduates are planting churches which, in 30-40 years will become the established church. I’m thinking some of this is just cyclical.
This is interesting. I have more questions than I do answers.
Certainly economics pays a significant role. For older pastors it may be that they are pastoring a church in their retirement. I know of more than one church in my area that benefits from paying a retired pastor less because he is drawing Social Security. That economic reason is beneficial for both church and retired pastor.
But I wonder also how many of those pastors are second-career pastors. If a pastor entered into the ministry in his 50s, he may not be ready to retire from it in his 60s.
I wonder also the desire for many congregations to have an older senior pastor who promises to keep the hymnals in the pews and the drums out of the worship center. A dying sister church near my home has recently called a new pastor, a friend of mine, who has been an itinerant evangelist for the past several years. He’s a relatively younger fellow, and the search committee bucked the trend turning down all applicants, many older, who promised to maintain the status quo in favor of this young man who told them up front the kinds of changes he saw that the church needs, and his interest in making those changes. If a church is to grow spiritually as well as numerically, it needs to go through certain kinds of changes.
I agree with earlier comments that many older pastors continue because they can’t afford retirement and that some churches are unwilling to hire younger pastors who have limited experience.
There also seems to be a shrinking number of churches who can afford to hire a full-time pastor. The medium-sized churches are disappearing. This leaves the small and the big churches. The big churches usually hire in-house or from another big church; it’s unusual for the senior pastor of a small church to jump to being the senior pastor of a large one. It’s more common for an associate pastor or other staff member of a large church to ascend to the senior pastorate of his current church or another church of similar size. Thus I think many seminary grads would opt to join a staff in an established congregation or start a church plant in area with potential for rapid growth than take over the pulpit of a church in a rural area or one in need of revitalization. There’s so little potential for upward mobility in the smaller churches, especially the ones outside major metro areas.
Why does a pastor need to retire even if he can well afford to do so? Why should he do that?
CB, I don’t think he necessarily should. I think older pastors are particularly valuable ministers because of their experience. My own church is enriched by the membership of several retired pastors because of their experiences and our younger pastors on staff benefit from their wisdom.
My biggest concern would be if we are hanging on to older pastors at the expense of training up their eventual replacements so that there is a big hole in pastoral leadership when they all finally have to step down. We still have seminaries full of students, but if there isn’t any churches for them to pastor when they graduate, what do they do?
Maybe they go on to other things because they need to feed their families and they never get to apply their training in a way that would make them pastoral material. Is this a problem right now? I don’t know. I don’t have the statistics at hand as to the current trends of the placement of newly graduated seminarians in ministerial positions versus those who go into some non-ministerial careers.
Another possibility is that maybe this is why we hear about many younger seminary graduates doing new church plants that are sapping younger folks from older churches. I truly don’t know if that’s a growing trend that we need to be concerned with, but I know it happens to some degree. I don’t know that there is an easy answer to that if it is a problem, but it’s something worth chewing on if it is.
Let me throw another twist into this thread. is it possible that we are hiring seminary faculty too early in their journey? When I began to study for ministry, I was taught by seasoned veteran, churchmen. I learned things from those experienced scholars that I know for a fact seminarians are not getting today.
That’s a very good thought, CB. I don’t think all seminary professors need to be seasoned pastors, but I can see the value in having men who have the experience of the office training the next generation of pastors. In my own studies at Reformed Baptist Seminary, many of the professors are pastors who took a week or so away from their congregations to deliver lectures to a small group to be recorded for the online classes with the commitment that they will be available for direct contact from the students if they have any questions. Then the seminary requires each student to have a mentor/proctor that is preferably one of his pastors. So the philosophy is that pastors train pastors.
Jim Pemberton,
I agree that not all seminary professor need to be veterans. You are right about that and the disciplines wherein veterans are not necessary are easily identified.
However, the obvious absence of veterans in certain disciplines is a legitimate concern. That has been my personal observation and it is my opinion that lacking in SBC life has been a contributing factor to many problems we now face as a cooperative body of churches.
Often when a person retires they go on to a ‘second career’ based on other interests. Pastors typically do not have those ‘other interests’. So they remain FT pastors if they can. Sure, they could retire and pastor as smaller church as a bivo for much less $$. But the headaches and work load are often not that much less. So why retire when you have nothing else you want to do and you can keep pastoring full-time? Retired pastors that do not preach regularly tend not to be a very happy bunch.
When I graduated SWBTS in 1989 the stats were 50% of those enrolled graduated. 50% of those who graduated served anywhere. Only 50% of those were still in ministry after 5 years. So only 25% of graduates served more than five years in the ministry…And less than 10% of those actually retired from the pastorate! Most left the pastorate along the way to do something else in ministry other than pastor a church. Many were forced to return to secular employment due to forced termination or family issues.
The SBC does a terrible job of preparing seminary grads for pastoral ministry. We have no internship process. Few SBC churches had associates. And we typically do not treat our ‘ministry failures’ with much redemptive grace. MaNY FORCED TO RESIGN BY A MEAN CHURCH WOULD LIKE BACK IN. But once a pastor has a ‘black mark’ it is hard to get a second chance. John Marshall, pastor of one of the largest SBC church is MO shared in a seminar he led of being forced to resign early on in his ministry and how hard it was to fight his way back into the pastorate. ‘Friends’ who saw him as a ‘rising star’ would now not return his phone call! He ended up taking a much smaller church in another state. But his faithfulness to his call, his forgiving spirit and his family support allowed him to persevere and prosper in ministry once again. So it can be done. But not everyone has the spiritual maturity and tenacity to bounce back.
Most seminary graduates were raised in medium to large multi-staff suburban churches that were also fairly progressive, willing to embrace change. But the first church most seminary grads serve is small, rural single staff and VERY set in its ways. The money is not much and there is NO support system for the pastor and especially NOTHING for the wife…Every SBC pastor must make their own. Wives are often miserable with few to no friends feeling judged and criticized by women in he church….No wonder the drop out rate is so high!
Allen, I appreciate your thoughtful response but you have a boatload of broad generalizations and unsupported assertions. One that I would not dispute is your statement, “…we typically do not treat our ‘ministry failures’ with much redemptive grace.”
I have a question regarding seminary training. I have not taken any sampling so I don’t know the answer but here goes: “How many people in the six SBC seminaries (i.e. what percent of students) are going to seminary to learn the Bible in a serious way without any plans on being on the staff or a church or being in the ministry?
Evidently there are many more in seminary than can ever realistically expect to find a job at a church. So doesn’t it make sense for seminaries to focus at least part of their training on people being layman in other fields while still having significant Bible training — such as Hermeneutics, Theology, Greek, Hebrew, Biblical Exposition and Teaching (the whole 9 yards but not including Homiletics). This way people who are engineers, medical doctors, accountants, lawyers, can be more effective Bible teachers in various settings.
I believe most seminaries will accept you even if your undergrad degrees was not in Bible. They will take you into the MDiv program, for example, even if your Bachelor’s degree is in math science or engineering. But I am not aware that this is a “normal” situation at our SBC seminaries.
In my case I entered seminary to work toward an MDiv. My previous degrees were BSEE and MBA. I spent 30 years in Silicon Valley as a Microcode Software Engineer / Manager. I didn’t have the slightest calling or interest in being a pastor. I just wanted to know the Bible.
An associated question is this. For better or worse aren’t some/many/most SBC churches collectively on track to becoming churches that have no hired staff — such as is the case with the Mormons?
Roger Oklahoma City OK
The seminaries have always been grossly inefficient in being seed beds for vocational clergy. The subjective nature of calling may prevent much correction of this. No seminary requires any Bible undergrad degree to my knowledge. The measure for success for our seminaries is enrollment, not effective training of vocational ministers for our churches, the institutions being financially rewarded for the former, not the latter. My views on all this border on the cynical and I admit it. We waste tens of millions on theological education. Seminaries probably track grads as to longevity in church ministry. I d love to see the figures.
“The measure for success for our seminaries is enrollment, not effective training of vocational ministers for our churches, the institutions being financially rewarded for the former, not the latter. My views on all this border on the cynical and I admit it. We waste tens of millions on theological education. Seminaries probably track grads as to longevity in church ministry.”
Amen!
SBC Plodder:
Your comment hits the ball out of the park!! Seminaries [or any school] is only successful if it prepares graduates to actually earn a living upon graduation.
What would a Rhodes Scholarship mean if after you complete your study you couldn’t get, and hold, a decent job? People go to top schools for various reasons. One of the major ones is that once you get your sheepskin you can actually get a job. People wouldn’t cough up the big bucks to go to Stanford if it was the case that only — lets say 30% — of the BSEE graduates actually got jobs in Silicon Valley while the rest were Walmart greeters or worked as 2nd shift managers at Taco Bell.
I think the current situation — that seminaries are pouring out way more grads than could possibly be placed in stable ministry positions — needs to be recognized. I don’t know if the problem is with the schools hyping the value of the training or it is because prospective students are not paying any attention to the real-world environment — or both.
The training may be excellent but it should somehow correlate to preparing a person for his or her life’s work. I really don’t know how long it will be before the de-facto seminary system in the SBC will persist before people finally wake up to the real-world condition. Eventually enrollments will adjust downward due to market forces.
For me personally, the situation with seminary was different. I wanted to learn the Bible. I had absolutely no expectation of doing any kind of paid ministry. That’s because I spent 40 years in Silicon Valley doing microcode / firmware and was in a position to live off of various income streams such as pensions, social security, interest from 401K accounts, and CDs. And also I had no debt or mortgages.
For most people they have to have a job that actually pays them something. How else are they going to pay the bills, have health insurance, and actually put food on the table?
Over the long term, say 10 to 30 years how can six, — count ’em 6 — SBC seminaries possibly survive??
If the most evident outcome from going to school is now you have to pay off a fat tuition loan then there is something wrong.
Roger Oklahoma City
Roger, thanks but SBC theological education is a complicated business with quite a number of conundrums. Still, we do divvy up CP dollars on the basis of enrollment. Greater funding comes from tuition paying students who don’t get a refund if they can’t find a job or don’t stay in ministry.
We will have no less than six seminaries no matter what because there are strong constituencies for each.
William is correct. A student can enroll in the Master of Divinity program with any kind of bachelors degree, as long as it is from an accredited institution. In the Master of Divinity program the professors do not assume their students have prior knowledge. In fact, one New Testament professor told me, “I assume they know nothing about the New Testament.” This is one reason why the MDiv program is about 90 semester hours, while a masters degree at a university is about 36. A university requires an applicant for a masters degree in biology to have a bachelors degree in biology. Seminaries make no such requirement. Yes, the seminaries do track how many of their graduates continue in ministry. The accrediting agencies require them to do so. In defense of the seminaries, it is difficult to prepare students for the many different types of churches we see now–small-medium-large, traditional-contemporary, old-new, USA-world. Pastoring a small rural church is a lot different than leading a suburban church church plant. I studied for my MDiv at Southwestern Seminary 1972-75. At the time it seemed to me that the faculty was trying to prepare us to pastor the First Baptist Church in a county seat town.
A friend was “counseled out” of the Presbyterian ministry. The counselor told him that there were enough “older” people feeling the call to ministry to take care of the needs–and those people made better pastors than an “on time” graduate.
I’ve seen many opinions offered and agree with almost all of them, which tells me this is not an issue that can be nailed down.
If a church set in its ways wants an older pastor to basically serve as a chaplain, they’re free to do so.
If a seminary grad has no interest in serving a smaller church, which is still the primary training ground, don’t complain you can’t find a church. There’s a lot you could learn even if the church never changes.
I’m 52 and one of those pastors with very little in retirement, as up until recently no church I served could compensate me to that point. If the Lord tarries and I’m still around I plan on serving as long as I’m able, but I don’t want to do it out of financial need. I started late in the ministry, but doing so for financial need would seem to be entirely the wrong reason. I’d rather work at Walmart than serve when I no longer have the passion to do so.
From what many of you grizzly vets are saying our seminaries need some restructuring to identify those who are truly called to pastoral ministry. Seems most want to plant a church these days to avoid the traditional church. The fail rate is still pretty high in that regard I believe. How is that a workable formula?
Insurance is a huge deal, for both the church and pastor. How much would it cost a church to insure a pastor with a stay at home wife and three kids? 15K or more? Just for me it’s as much as my house payment and I’m on my wife’s group plan. In a smaller church you’re talking about 30-40% of you’re package just there.
Many other things cited. This is why bivo will become more and more prevalent. Benefits matter and more and more churches are simply being priced out of the market, and you really can’t live without them anymore.
These may indeed be questions with few answers, but at the seminary level, where we do have some control, would seem the place to begin.
First, the question about our investment into seminaries when many grads are “dabbling” in ministry is a good question. I don’t think the answer is to stop supporting our seminaries. And I think it needs to be considered that there are many worthwhile pursuits, besides that of head pastor, that comes through seminary training: bible translation, missionaries, and those who study to one day teach, for instance. The kingdom of Christ is added to by those who serve faithfully in these ways too.
Secondly, the comment about the ordination that you attended for two guys under 30 stating that “One is likely to find a career as a senior pastor, one probably not.”, just seems like you’re throwing one guy under the bus. And I imagine it wouldn’t take much for those who know you to figure out which two men you’re talking about. Maybe I’m reading it wrong. (I did read it over and over again.) But the comment doesn’t seem to add to the article if it isn’t outright malicious. Just a thought. Thanks for the article.