Are More Pastors Becoming “Done” With Church?: NOTE: I fully expect some pastors to say, they werent called anyway. If youre one of those, then it could be say you are part of the problem , not the solution. A true shepherd will leave the 99 to get the 1. Unfortunately, many pastors shun the 1 to protect the 99. At Calvary Chapel San Clemente, we want to be an avenue of grace for those who have been hurt by church models that are abusive, exclusive and hurtful. We believe that Jesus loves every person and desires to conform us into His image by the grace of God through the power of the Holy Spirit. by Craig Cable If you’re like many others in paid ministry, you may be wondering what kind of future you’ll have if trends continue. According to various surveys, 1,500 pastors will leave ministry entirely due to burnout or contention within their churches each month. And half of the pastors who stay say they’d leave ministry if they could find another job. Why is this exodus happening? And what long-term impact will this have on the future of the church? As the National Director of Lifetree Cafe, I have the wonderful privilege of working closely with hundreds of pastors from various denominations from all around the country. While my conversations with them never start off this way, they frequently evolve into impromptu counseling sessions where fears and frustrations are openly shared and, yes, even tears shed. Their willingness to be honest and vulnerable always surprises me, but I’m so grateful they trust me to lend a compassionate ear and offer an encouraging word. It’s taken me a while to realize this, but I’ve now come to believe that God has placed me in this position to minister to my friends in ministry. Over the last several years, my conversations have ranged the gamut of issues, from frustrations over dwindling funds and growing budget limitations to lack of vision and willingness to change by other stakeholders within their church. If I had to narrow it down to one word to describe how they’re feeling, the word would be “stuck.” They’re stuck, and everyone else in the church is stuck with them. They know changes are needed, but they can’t seem to get people unstuck enough to want or reach for better. A recent blog post on HolySoup by Thom Schultz titled “The Rise of the Dones” shook up the blogosphere when it created a safe outlet for people who self-identified with the term “done” when it came to describing their relationship with the local church. They were most definitely done with church but by no means done with God. In fact, many of the comments described how they were doing more in ministry now that they were unencumbered by the bureaucratic red tape and “death by committee” approaches to making decisions. The response from this article was so great that we immediately created a new website called TheDones to provide a safe place where people could find support as well as community. Two things surprised me about the hundreds of comments shared on Thom’s blog as well as many of the other sites that picked it up: 1) How many of the contributors had previously served as ministry leaders and 2) how defensive people currently in ministry were in response to those who have left the church. The level of accusations launched at the Dones was a little shocking, but it also seemed to validate many of the issues that drove these people out of the church in the first place. In the groundbreaking new study titled Church Refugees, which Group will be releasing in May 2015, sociologists Josh Packard and Ashleigh Hope reveal insights gleaned from over 100 in-depth interviews with people who say they are done with church. This book asserts that the Dones are leaving to do more…not less. They’re not burned out; they’re frustrated, and they feel held back. When I asked Josh if there were any common themes shared by the people he interviewed (many of whom who were former ministers or seminarians), he offered these four perspectives alluding to why they left. They wanted community…and received only judgment. They wanted to affect the life of the church…and found only bureaucracy. They wanted a conversation…and got only lectures. They wanted meaningful engagement with the world…and got only moral prescription My first impression after hearing that was a sense of loss for the church, that we would lose some of our best and brightest leaders as a result of problems that we could have overcome. But upon further contemplation, I realized that these people weren’t lost to the abyss but rather scattered into the wind like seeds being sown by a divine farmer. Many of these seeds were finding their way to fertile soil where they were creating new life and new opportunities to grow something beautiful. This epiphany was made all the more evident when I received a call a few days later from a dear old friend who at one time oversaw one of the first Lifetree Café ministries to open in the country. During our conversation, he shared that he had read the blog post and visited our TheDones website and wanted to confess to me that he was a Done. He was no longer serving as an associate pastor and was not even attending church. He shared some of the reasons why he left, and they completely aligned with many of the comments that I had previously read on the blog. And just like the others, he was still on fire for Jesus. He had started a men’s group that was meeting in a local coffeehouse where they read the Bible together, they prayed together, and they simply did life together. As he went on to share some of the stories of how these men’s lives were being impacted by his ministry, I recognized that his tone and excitement level was very different than when I knew him as a pastor on staff at his previous church. There was a sense of renewed enthusiasm and genuine satisfaction with the difference he was making. He was having fun! That’s when I realized that my friend had never stopped being a pastor. Maybe he’d finally become a pastor. And maybe this was the ministry that God had prepared him for all along. If you’re reading this article, there’s a good chance that you’re in a leadership position within your church. It’s important for you to know that the culture of your church matters. If it creates opportunities for people to grow in relationship with each other as well as with Jesus. If it doesn’t stifle creativity but rather encourages and celebrates it. If it seeks out meaningful ways to engage the community and truly welcomes people as they are…your leaders and the people in your church will likely thrive and grow long into the future. If by chance that’s not your church, it’s never been a better time for a fresh start and a first step toward preparing the soil for wonderful things to come. I’d encourage you to visit BecomeAThrivingChurch to learn more about our approach and ways we can help your church thrive and grow. If you’re reading this and you’re a Done, please know that you’re not alone. God is doing amazing things outside of the four walls of the church, and I look forward to hearing all about those divinely inspired seeds that you’ve been busy planting.
Posted on: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 19:31:34 +0000
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