wfn.org | Is United Methodist Church facing clergy shortage?

[NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG]

April 5, 2001 News media contact: Thomas S.
McAnally*(615)742-5470*Nashville, Tenn.     10-21-71B{160}

By Tom McAnally*

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS) - A clergy shortage crisis in the United Methodist
Church?

Not so, says the Rev. Robert Kohler, a church executive who has worked with
ordained clergy issues for more than 20 years.

"People talk about clergy shortage, but I don't see it," says Kohler,
assistant general secretary of the Section on Elders and Local Pastors for
the United Methodist Board of Higher Education and Ministry in Nashville. 

He acknowledges a drop in seminary-trained candidates ordained as elders --
from 820 in 1990 to 621 in 2000 -- but says an increasing number of local
pastors has more than picked up the slack. In 1990, the denomination had
1,413 local pastors; in 2000, it had 2,096.

Local pastors are people who have met educational requirements through the
Course of Study prescribed by the Section of Elders and Local Pastors,
rather than the traditional three-year seminary option. Many are older
individuals who have chosen ministry as a second career.

"Instead of a shortage or crisis, I see a changing profile in pastoral
ministry, with an intentional use of more full- and part-time local pastors
to address the needs for clergy personnel because there are fewer seminary
graduates available, " Kohler says. 

Local pastors are clergy members of the annual conference licensed to
perform ministerial duties in the specific church to which they are assigned
by the district superintendent. They are required to enroll in seminary or
complete the Course of Study.  

Elders have completed seminary requirements, are full members of the annual
conference and are appointed by the bishop. They are ordained and authorized
to exercise the power and privileges of ordination for life throughout the
whole denomination. Elders vote at annual conference clergy executive
sessions; local pastors do not. However, local pastors have a right to vote
in the plenary session of the annual conference on all issues except
constitutional amendments and the election of delegates to general and
jurisdictional conferences.

In the past, three years of seminary education has been considered the norm
for United Methodist clergy, but local pastors have always played an
important role in ministerial supply and demand, Kohler says. Many of the 65
annual (regional) conferences in the United States depend heavily on local
pastors. At least two conferences -- North Alabama and West Virginia - have
as many local pastors as elders with seminary degrees, he says.

To be licensed, a local pastor must complete a course involving concentrated
periods of study, usually during the summer. Only six Course of Study sites
existed in 1970, compared with more than 20 today, according to Kohler.
Since 1990, the number of students enrolled has more than doubled from 1,000
to nearly 2,500.

Church members sometimes consider local pastors to be less educated or
qualified than seminary-trained clergy, but Kohler says local pastors with
multiple degrees are common. Of the 636 local pastors registered for the
candidacy program in 2000, 18 percent are college graduates and 29 percent
have graduate credit or degrees. Nine percent have done seminary work.

More local pastors would go to seminary if they were closer to the schools,
Kohler notes. "Location has more to do with whether a person goes to
seminary than any other single factor."  Because of this, about as many
United Methodist students are attending non-United Methodist seminaries as
are attending the 13 schools related to the denomination, he says. "Older
candidates will not uproot their families and move a great distance to
study."  

While he affirms the role of local pastors, Kohler says his agency has
developed a strategy to deal with the drop in the number of seminary
graduates being ordained. The emphasis seeks to enlist younger people for
ministry, nurture candidates over a long period of time so they are not lost
to ministry, and address the financial issues related to the high cost of
seminary education. 

The strategy carries with it an assumption that it is advantageous and cost
effective for the church to aggressively recruit young people who can serve
long careers, cutting the front-end costs of education, Kohler observes. "We
don't know if it is correct to assume that a pattern of keeping people in
ministry 40 years will ever happen again." On the other hand, if the church
doesn't recruit more young people, more individuals will need to be
recruited and additional money will be needed to train them, he says.

A centerpiece of the board's strategy is "Exploration," a national event to
expose young people to opportunities for ministry, held every other year
since 1990. In the 1960s and 1970s, not much happened in ministerial
recruitment, according to Kohler. "We disengaged from our campus and youth
ministries that were not revived until recent years. Without those
connections, how were we to get to the young people?"   

The Board of Higher Education and Ministry is making a special effort to
track ministerial candidates, all of whom must register with the agency, so
that statistical trends can be watched.  Currently, 1,816 candidates -
elders, deacons and local pastors - are in the program, a number that has
not changed significantly for the past 20 years. The board also is working
to track those who do not finish the program.

Governing members of the board, meeting this fall, will receive a full
report profiling ministerial candidates throughout the church. A preliminary
report shows that the number of candidates under the age of 30 increased
from 20 percent to 30 percent during the 1990-2000 decade. The number of
male candidates for pastoral ministry increased from 65.8 percent to 72.2
percent.  The Course of Study route to ministry is dominated by men, while
seminary enrollments currently reflect an almost even split between men and
women. 

In 1970, the average age of those entering ordained ministry was 30; today
it is over 40. The tenure of clergy has also dropped significantly, from an
average of 40 years to 20 years.  Several annual conferences have expressed
alarm at the number of clergy who are retiring. The Oklahoma Conference
recently announced the employment of a staff member to work on ministerial
recruitment, noting that about 100 of its 555 ordained ministers will reach
the retirement age of 70 within the next 10 years. Kohler says about 25
percent of the clergy retire every 10 years, a percentage that held steady
over the past decade.

Other people across the church share Kohler's concern. The Rev. Karl
Stegall, pastor of First United Methodist Church in Montgomery, Ala.,
bemoans the fact that fewer young people are responding to God's call to
enter church-related vocations. In the March issue of the Alabama Christian
Advocate, he offers at least three reasons for the problem:
	*	A society of materialism and greed, in which young people
embarking upon career choices are asking, "How much does it pay?"
	*	A climate and spirit at the local church level that do not
encourage young people to hear the call of God.
	*	Local churches, districts and annual conferences that no
longer place a strong emphasis on young people answering the call for
full-time Christian service.

He suggests that local churches encourage youth to respond to God's call to
ministry and encourage seminary graduates in their first appointments. He
also challenges local churches to "remember that the bishop and district
superintendents cannot appoint any stronger persons to their respective
churches than the very same churches send into ministry."

"If members of each local church were informed that they could not
anticipate receiving any stronger pastor than the kind that they had sent
into the ministry," Stegall writes, "I am fully confident that each local
church would be more proactive in encouraging young men and women to enter
the ministry."
#  #  #
*McAnally is director of United Methodist News Service, the church's
official news agency, with offices in Nashville, Washington and New York. 

*************************************
United Methodist News Service
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