Pastors face unique challenges in their role and often feel overwhelmed, but few decide to step away from the pulpit and pursue another career.
Only around 1 in 100 pastors leave the ministry each year, according to a Lifeway Research study of evangelical and Black Protestant pastors. The percentage of pastors who leave for reasons other than retirement or death has remained statistically unchanged over the past decade: 1.3% in 2015, 1.5% in 2021 and 1.2% in 2025.
“The rate of pastors departing the pastorate is steady and quite low given the demands of the role,” said Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research. “Many of those leaving the pastorate feel they are moving at God’s direction to another role of ministry. However, it’s easy for those outside and those inside the church to fixate on those who leave because of conflict, burnout or moral failure. Speculation always overstates these cases, yet these are the outcomes churches can seek to prevent.”
The 2025 study, sponsored by Houston’s First Baptist Church and Richard Dockins, an occupational medicine physician concerned about pastoral attrition, surveyed more than 1,500 pastors serving in evangelical or Black Protestant churches. The median pastoral tenure at one church is eight years.
Around 3 in 5 pastors (58%) started their role at their church in the last 10 years. Only 15% say their ministry at their current church stretches back at least 25 years. Additionally, half of pastors (52%) are serving at their first church, while 48% have served a previous church in that role.
Among those churches that existed and had a pastor 10 years ago, 44% still have the same pastor today. Around 1 in 5 (21%) say the previous pastor retired, while 16% are pastoring another church and 7% died.
In the past decade, 7% of pastors left and began working in another ministry role other than pastor, 3% work in a non-ministry role and 2% are involved in something that is not ministry-related and are not retirement age. These groups that leave the pastorate before retirement reveal a current annual attrition rate of 1.2% among evangelical and Black Protestant pastors. This means that in any given year since 2015, slightly more than 1 in 100 pastors walked away from the pulpit.
When the current pastors were asked why the former pastor left the ministry, the most common reasons were a change in calling (37%), conflict in a church (23%) and burnout (22%). Others left because of a poor fit with a church (17%) or family issues (12%). Few were forced to step away because of an illness (5%) or personal finances (3%). Another 4% left because they weren’t prepared for the job. Of the 1.2% of pastors who leave the ministry each year, 7% are forced out due to moral or ethical issues.
“Today’s pastors don’t always know all the reasons their predecessors left their church, but the number of pastors describing the previous pastor at their church leaving because of burnout has doubled over the last 10 years (22% v. 10%),” said McConnell.
Pastoral Changes
Among the current pastors who previously served at another church, most left their previous congregation of their own volition. Half (50%) say they left because they took the church as far as they could. Three in 10 (31%) felt their family needed a change. A quarter (25%) left due to conflict in the church, while 21% walked away because the church did not embrace their approach to ministry.
