Meinzer said there may be an incongruity between what some seminaries are preparing students for and the reality of pastoring a small rural church, or two or three churches, rather than one large one.
Still, the need for trained pastors and leaders remains, said Lee Hinson-Hasty, senior director for theological funds development at the Presbyterian Foundation, which supports students and seminaries.
Finding those leaders, he said, requires keeping an eye out for them in places like local congregations, campus ministries or denominational camps and conference centers.
“It doesn’t take long to find these people, but most of them are never asked. That’s what’s so sad.”
Former Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Bishop R. Guy Erwin, now a seminary head, sees part of his current job as helping future clergy adjust to an environment in which there aren’t as many self-sustaining parishes as there once were.
“The problem is not that we have a shortage of pastors,” said Erwin, who currently serves as president of United Lutheran Seminary, a dual-campus school in Philadelphia and Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. “We have a shortage of congregations that can pay a full-time pastor the way they used to.”
Part of the problem facing many denominations, said Darryl Stephens, director of the Pennsylvania Academy of Ministry at Lancaster Theological Seminary and author of “Bivocational and Beyond: Educating for Thriving Multivocational Ministry,” is that there is effectively a “two-tiered system” of ministry.
Most American congregants attend large churches (approximately 7 in 10), in which the minister has extensive educational experience, while the many much smaller churches (also 7 in 10) that have an equal need for clergy likely can’t afford to pay them full-time, said Stephens.
In the Methodist Church, alternative methods of training parish leaders that don’t rely on the Master of Divinity credential are already a reality on the ground. Elaine Heath, former dean of Duke Divinity School, is co-founder of Neighborhood Seminary — a program that offers educational opportunities for lay people.
Heath, a veteran of the older educational model, says she is a fan of Path One, the United Methodist Church’s church planting program, where bivocational pastors and other nontraditional leaders often have opportunities to minister.
“There is a lot of effort and emphasis on equipping people to do alternative forms of new faith communities that are localized, often led by laypeople,” she said.
While mainline denominations assess how to cope with declining enrollments and experiment with different models of parish leadership, some researchers are urging more attention to the students and clergy out there already.
Steven Sandage, a university scholar and research director at the Danielsen Institute at Boston University, has done extensive studies on clergy mental health. He’s concerned about how to support pastoral leaders once they graduate.
“They face even more distress and trauma than they did in seminary,” he said. “I see some seminaries and some religious bodies that seem to be in denial about those realities.”
Still, leaders like Perry are hopeful about the future.
“We’ve got some scrappy little churches that are out there being salt and light in some very inspiring ways,” she said. “I think bishops are in touch with that, and increasingly, with the importance of elevating the ministry of all the baptized, and strong, well-trained, locally formed leaders. It’s an enormous opportunity.”
This article originally appeared here.
