Faith & Leadership: New pastors, small churches
A PC(USA) program called For Such a Time as This matches new seminary graduates with small churches. For some pastors it means moving from Seattle or Los Angeles to the Dakotas. For the congregations, it means welcoming a leader -- often for the first time in years.
February 15, 2011 | The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), like many denominations, has two challenges: thousands of small churches in need of pastors and hundreds of new seminary graduates in need of a first call.
The solution seems simple: Connect the graduates with churches. And that indeed is the aim of the denomination’s new pastoral residency program designed to serve small congregations and develop missional pastors. ...
... The need is great in the PC(USA). Half of the denomination’s more than 10,000 congregations have 100 or fewer members. ...
... The PC(USA) faces the same dilemma as other mainline denominations: Most seminarians come from suburban and urban settings, grew up in larger churches and expect that they will serve in a similar church.
This is a nationwide trend. The National Congregations Study found that the median congregation has only 75 regularly participating people and an annual budget of approximately $90,000. Ninety percent of all congregations have 350 or fewer people. But even though there are relatively few large churches, they contain most of the churchgoers. So the average person is in a congregation with 400 people and a budget of $280,000.
But larger churches want experienced ministers, leaving many graduates with student-loan debt unable to find work in a church that can afford to pay them an adequate salary. A recent survey of PC (USA) ministry vacancies, for example, found 128 churches that would accept people new to the ministry, while there were 385 graduates seeking their first call.
Meanwhile, small churches in rural areas often lack both the appeal and the funds to attract ministers at any level of experience. ...
... Marilyn Johns, coordinator of For Such a Time as This, said the commitment by the new ministers -- they agree to serve a minimum of two years -- and the challenge to small congregations to meet a minimum salary create a mutual bond.
“It really is a step in faith for everybody,” she said. “The church is investing a lot of money and the pastors are investing their life for the next two years.” ...
... The mutual risk also underscores a defining element of the program. It’s not about charity. It’s about opportunity. New pastors get a chance to acquire experience. Small churches get a chance to see if they have the resolve to be viable and then perhaps vibrant centers of faith.
“Because we’re not giving [the churches] a ton of money, we’re not really saving anybody,” Johns said. “We’re giving them a chance for two years.” If it doesn’t work out, she added, “then churches will face some hard decisions.” ...
... Smith said the project didn’t discover a way to end the struggles of small churches, but he said the young ministers who participated found their vocations strengthened by the experience.
“We didn’t come up with an answer,” Smith said, “but one of the things the young clergy said of the First Parish Project was that it saved their ministry.”
For Myers, For Such a Time as This offers a similar invigorating effect by putting ministers in a new environment.
“A lot of people raised in large churches haven’t experienced these kinds of communities, and once they do, they find they fall in love with it. We think that pattern will follow. We’re hoping some of these people will settle into rural ministry,” she said. ...
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