At gatherings of pastor meetings one will often hear it said, "Seminary didn't prepare me for this." It's usually said out of frustration at the growing number of challenges church leaders face today. Although some claim much higher numbers, actual research indicates that about 250 pastors leave the ministry each month for reasons other than death or retirement. For many of these pastors, the demands and the ever-changing face of ministry made them decide to make a career move. Other data indicates that 29% of pastors considered leaving the ministry in the past year. Some of that may be due to the challenges they faced dealing with Covid, but for many, that challenge was just one more on top of the many other challenges they faced.
It's been said, "What got you here won't get you there." That's certainly true of ministry. Think of all the churches that once saw large crowds, growing ministries and successful programs that are now struggling and even facing closing their doors. They thought they could just continue doing what they had always done and continue to see the same results. Even some larger churches that have known tremendous growth over the past decade are now beginning to sense that things are not well and their effective ministries are no longer providing the results they once did.
Those pastors who pointed at their seminary education were right: seminary did not prepare them for ministry today. Seminary taught them how to preach, how to manage the church structures they were in, how to provide pastoral care and to be the theological and church history experts in their churches. All necessary things to know and sufficient for churches during Christendom, but we now live in a post-Christian world, and it is in this world that we are called to do ministry. The things we learned previously will not be sufficient in this new world. New skills are needed. New ways of understanding ministry must be learned.
One of the problems is that there are no experts to teach us. We are in a completely new, uncharted territory when it comes to doing ministry. I've written before about how the church is in a time of transition, and no one knows what it's going to look like on the other side. So what do we do?
We explore. This is a time when bold leadership is needed that seeks creative ways to do ministry in our world as it exists today, not as we remember it. We take chances and try new things. Each church and its leadership must look for ways to do ministry in the communities in which they were placed by God. We recognize that we are now missionaries called to reach a pagan world. Our churches are not merely places in which to meet but are mission stations where people worship God and then are taught how to do ministry as missionaries.
Some church leaders and the churches they lead will be unable to adapt to this new way of thinking. They will be convinced that if they just try harder doing the things they've always done that things will improve. They won't. What got you here won't get you there. What you learned in seminary will not be sufficient for ministry in the 21st century. We face too many new challenges that our education and past success did not prepare us to address.
I challenge you to begin to look at ministry with fresh eyes. Ask God to help you with that. Are there new ways of doing ministry that will be more effective? How can you lead your congregation to explore those new ways? What needs to be transformed for your congregation to become willing to take the necessary risks these times require? As a leader, are you willing be transformed first before asking your church to be transformed?
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