There are many articles floating around these days detailing reasons why clergy are leaving the church. In an online discussion of one of them I asked “Are there any studies about why people stay?” Seeing none, I offer my own current perspective. This is not to rebut those who are leaving, though I will probably address similar ideas. Ministry is complex and there are many things that can go wrong. And many ‘right’ things call clergy out of parish ministry to other ventures. I’ve had my own close calls with exiting the pulpit and have felt both internal and external tensions on the ministry. I simply hope to share what is working for me and why I think that is.

What really is the problem?

First, I think I want to add a perspective to what is really ailing the church. I agree when people say it’s ‘systemic.’ Solutions offered that center on appeasing the feelings of dissatisfied clergy are largely misguided, because they aren’t really systemic solutions. These same clergy endured years in rigorous ordination processes. They have completed master degrees in a difficult subject. they have served difficult people in difficult parishes in difficult communities. It’s not that the clergy are weak, immature or misguided. These principled, hard-working clergy are simply deciding that the grind is not worth it. Taking a family-systems approach, I believe the deep stresses within the ranks of the clergy are symptoms of larger problems. If this were a family, we would address the whole family to alleviate the ‘problem’. Every member of the family would be examined and addressed. Roles would be scrutinized and the ‘solution’ would be spread throughout the family. Most of the time, we tell clergy to get therapy and practice better self-care. This does little to address the roots of the issues. Are clergy the only players in this system? What would it mean to shift the solution to the entire church system?

While I think church issues are systemic in nature, I believe the issues are also cultural. There are major cultural shifts happening that are putting pressure on our society as a whole. There is a tremendous loss of confidence in the institutions that operate our society. Ask your local teacher if they are burned out, distrusted, sick of culture wars or adequately compensated. Even before COVID, our nation was suffering from a nursing shortage. Staffing at our local hospitals is fairly grim (pdf fact sheet) across the nation. Nurses have developed a work-around to institutional shenanigans…the travel nurse has figured out how to serve, get paid better and be freer. Is respect for policing at an all-time high or an all-time low? What about your local climatologist? Your public librarian? Your local health department official? Do you even trust your next-door neighbor? It seems like every ‘helping’ profession is enduring hardships of burnout, distress and unhappiness. Clergy are no different. I hope by taking this larger view of society, we can develop better solutions for clergy.

Distrust in institutions is a major cultural factor. It goes well-beyond the church, but certainly incorporates it. Personally, I suspect this is a deliberate, for-profit strategy to isolate people, make them more unhappy and consume various appeasements. Think of it this way: 10 years ago, the vast majority of us trusted our local health officials. But when COVID hit, major distrust was deliberately sown against epidemiologists, local health department officials, scientists, researchers, academics, etc. It was not the first time people distrusted an expert, but we saw the divide-and-control tactic on a societal scale at a very opportune and destructive moment. Let’s not dismiss this injustice on top of a monumental, global death event. Now there seems to be a similar, deliberate, for-profit effort to dismantle or undermine public education. There are similar examples in the fields of media, policing, etc. These cultural shifts are being borne on society as a whole, and helping professions are bearing a considerable burden.

The Church is not immune to these societal forces. We are a microcosm of our larger society. We feel these forces from both within and outside the institution. Firstly, we have our own iniquities. From fence-sitting on matters of race, privilege and class to ourselves being agents of division, from closing our mega-stadiums while hurricanes sweep people away to being impotent on matters as crucial as affordable housing, there are plenty of ways our sins and imperfections have fueled the larger cultural flames. We bear responsibility for our contributions to these larger cultural matters.

I write this in such epic tones to illustrate a point about clergy leaving the church: it’s a symptom of a much larger problem. Some of the issue is within our beloved congregations. Some of it is within our denominational structures. But some of it is the state of the world itself. I think a healthy analysis is necessary to understanding the real depth and breadth of the problem in the church. While we bear much responsibility for our own misdeeds, it is also true that we have been injured by a sinful world.

So Why Stay?

While I believe that all of the above is true, I also think it is true that this is a season for deep ministry. I originally wrote “an exciting time to be in ministry.” But my colleagues are alerting me that this is not really the case. And it would be arrogant and foolish of me to ignore or dismiss their experiences and concerns. It’s not necessarily a time for really popular, earth-shattering ministry. But I see a lot of hopeful things on the horizon. I believe there is important work to be done. And I believe the Church is actually well-positioned for this work. I also couch my hope in the history, tradition and practices of our faith.

I go back to the first sermon I ever delivered as a student minister. There is a scene in Jeremiah that describes the destruction of Jerusalem (Jeremiah 32:1-15). In the midst of the siege, Jeremiah buys a piece of land. The passage is wrought with nitpicky details about signatures and witnesses and clay jars to preserve the deed. The ultimate line is “For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.” (Jeremiah 32:15). The point was that Jeremiah was wise to invest in a hopeful outcome while utter calamity was all around him. So, my hope is as one holding the deed believing that God will renew the Church and fashion us into a more Christ-like entity. Our faith story informs my perspective on these current trials.

I look at some of the shiftings within the church, and I see room being created for refreshing ministry. While much of the talk of disaffiliations is about losses to the institutional numbers, I am really looking forward to a season in ministry when I don’t have to apologize for loving my LGBTQ+ neighbors as myself. I’ll have to admit, I have held back at times to avoid conflict, mainly within the local congregation, but also within the regional community. (Avoiding conflict is one of my superpowers…I mean issues.) I went back and read an old blog post of mine about how brave I was for publicly mourning the murder of a trans woman. The church of the future will better honor the image of God that lives in our trans siblings. It won’t even be a debate, much less a controversy. I look forward to ministry that is truly multi-ethnic, where staid, old Methodism takes on a more authentic pentecostal mentality. I look forward to ministry that heals the wounds of the world. The church still captures my imagination for what could be in our world.

I think of the kingdom of God as being like a giant, never-ending Lego castle, where the work of ministry is merely stacking little yellow Lego bricks on top of another. The joy is not in the completion of the castle. That joy is ultimately God’s privilege. The joy for me is in joining each brick to the larger structure. Which brings me to an understanding of culture that I find helpful and animating for ministry.

Culture is Granular

The cultural problem I describe at the beginning of this piece feels colossal and overwhelming. All cultural problems are like that. The lesson of history is that overwhelming, cultural matters require a myriad of efforts on many fronts. The Civil Rights Movement moved on street protests, voting drives, athletic accomplishments, artistic endeavors, student uprisings, grandmas walking their kids through picket lines at school, etc., etc., etc. In that sense, Dr. King’s greatest act wasn’t speaking at the Lincoln Memorial. And John Lewis’s greatest act wasn’t crossing the Edmund Pettis Bridge. Their greatest acts were enlivening thousands of smaller, localized acts that ultimately turned a protest into a movement. Each act, big and small, moved the culture toward equality. No one individual works on the ‘culture’ as a whole. Culture is granular, an accumulation of small acts, with the occasional big push. There are certainly big players, but history is full of small players who made large impacts by joining their local efforts to a larger effort.

In the church, this understanding of culture as granular helps me see the effect of my work and shapes how I do it. For this, I want to tell you about Ruth* (name changed, but still a real person). Ruth has been a lifelong Christian, working through youth programs to help her community. She has a high school education and loves the outdoors. She and her husband were longtime fixtures in the community. After his passing, several stories came to light of him shaming people due to their sexuality. He bullied a member for having a gay sibling, to the point she left the congregation. He chased off a youth for coming out as a lesbian. As the congregation began working through matters of sexuality in the denomination, Ruth had to work through these matters without “Pete’s” influence. Many conversations transpired about what would happen to the church if we were to “let in the gays”. Would the church become like a gay bar? Would we be endorsing sin? To Ruth’s credit, she asked sincere questions asked from her experience, understanding and faith. She asked many of them in private to her pastor whom she trusted. The world was shifting for her and she wanted to understand it. I could sense true longing and struggle with the issue and her love for Pete.

Other things transpired at the same time. Firstly, our denominational controversies prompted conversation within the congregation. These were both formal and informal conversations. Next, was the aforementioned murder of a trans teen. It was a galvanizing moment for the community, and Ruth was paying attention. It was clear to her that the teen was simply a victim, and Ruth genuinely grieved the teen’s death. We also had a congregational conversation with our local PFLAG chapter. They were excellent in describing the issues LGBTQ+ people face from the perspective of parents and friends. Ruth was a loving mother to lots of people throughout her life. Seeing the matter from a parental perspective genuinely pricked Ruth’s heart. Finally, our church council adopted a statement of inclusion which was the result of months of conversation within the leadership of the church. People Ruth trusted had wrestled as well. That buoyed her confidence in the church’s position. In all of these matters, it became clear to Ruth that she was not going to lose “her church”. If anything, others were going to join this beautiful family which helped her grieve her beloved Pete.

Years later, that congregation is now part of the Reconciling Ministries Network. It’s notable that RMN designation happened after I left. There were challenges within the congregation that I don’t think I was equipped to face. But my successor was able to overcome those obstacles. I take satisfaction in knowing that I moved the congregation in the right direction and that many conversations with Ruth and several others in the church were part of the effort. This is what I mean by cultural shifts being granular in nature.

Right Here, Right Now

I want to say also that I am buoyed by my current appointment. There are enough interesting challenges that vivify my ministry here. It’s not that all things are peachy keen. We really struggled the first year just figuring out how to come out of COVID and come together safely. In the two years I have been here, I have been free enough to do ministry to which I feel called and equipped: cultivating partnerships throughout the community for collaborative ministry. On top of that, a new aspect of ministry was awaiting me: supporting Latinx/Hispanic Ministries in our area. I had done cross-cultural ministry before and found that it really opens up my faith in a compelling way. So I have been open to what I am learning from my Latinx ministry colleagues. I am finding that the accumulation of past ministry experiences has culminated in the ministry that’s before me. It’s nice to know that those experiences have not been in vein. On the contrary, I am able to read the circumstances more accurately and move more assuredly. With the granular understanding of the Kingdom of God and an approach informed by my faith, I have at least been fruitful.

Early on in my time here, I sought out some coaching to work through some conundrums in my appointment. In that coaching, I was encouraged to find a metaphor for my season in ministry. I entered this appointment on the back half of the COVID-19 pandemic. My first year was characterized by dealing with rolling closures due to COVID-19 and the struggle to re-open. That had a two-fold effect: our older population was intermittently blocked and our Latinx ministry was almost completely closed. Through the coaching, I landed on the metaphor of the loving gardener from Luke 13. My job was to figure out if there was any fruit-bearing life left in this congregation. As a metaphor, it was animating for me. I began buying up houseplants and literally trying my hand at not killing them. Professionally, I went back to exploring the faith with the congregation. We were fortunate to be celebrating our 150th anniversary, which led me to exploring the history of the congregation. Our Church Council eventually adopted a Vision that was multi-faceted. It was mission-minded with an acknowledgement of our need to heal as a congregation and as a community. In these efforts, I found wisdom, resources and ample need for what we can offer. I think the metaphor of the loving gardener has given me wisdom for patience as things emerged ever so slowly out of the pandemic. It allowed me to see the congregation and the community as living organisms that require care to thrive. And it’s given me an angle to the work at hand.

Lately, I have shifted from the loving gardener metaphor a bit. I am feeling animated now by the idea of being fruitful with our talents. I have at least a working understanding of our main assets: our property, our funding and our people. I have also a working understanding of the needs of our community: a need for childcare, a need for affordable housing, a need for supporting our agricultural community, a need for supporting our senior community, a need for continuing to come together as a community. Now I am seeing the fruits of some of the root work. Having made connections in the community and having surveyed the gifts of the congregation, we are putting these together. We have established a disaster relief center. We have taken on a Safe Parking program. We hosted a winter time day-shelter and then helped them move to a more permanent location. And now we are in partnership to develop something exciting for children or youth. All of this is to say that fruitful ministry can happen.

I share these local successes with the caveat that these conditions may not exist in other appointments. This is my eighth church in 17 years and there are certainly places where I was not allowed this kind of ministry. In some settings< I merely lacked the skills and experiences that I now have. The various articles describing why clergy leaving detail local settings that are full of stress with little avenue for creative ministry and little support for the serving clergy. While I have stress, I also have creative outlets for ministry that is fulfilling. This goes back to the earlier point that the clergy are symptom-bearers of a larger problem. Sometimes it is the congregation: their ethos, the stresses they feel, their view of the role of the pastor and lack of creative purpose for ministry. Reading through these challenges and taking my own into account, I can only conclude that I am very lucky.

Also, it’s worth saying that I have the backing of the conference and the district superintendent. Previous appointments showed them my interests, abilities and instincts for ministry. I have been in systems where none of my good deeds seem to have mattered. I was a pariah for being different. In this conference, my gifts are recognized and I have had three appointments in a row where my instincts for ministry were affirmed and utilized. I hesitate to say I couldn’t have done this anywhere else. What I will say is that the support and the ethos of the conference have been crucial in allowing me to thrive in ministry.

It’s also worth saying that the congregation has allowed me to function. That’s not to say this ministry has been conflict-free. Far from it. There has been more conflict here than in any other appointment save one. One thing that was recognized early was the anxiety we all experienced due to the pandemic. While part of our conflict was related to re-opening, the shared recognition of the basic stress caused has been good. It also commanded a different kind of leadership than I previously preferred.

Shifting Leadership Needs

When I was at the probationary level of my ordination process, our residency provided us with a seminar on church administration. I was NOT looking forward to it. At that point early in ministry, I had some serious failures administratively. The instructor (a skilled and effective pastor) gave us a spectrum of leadership approaches to learn and understand. On that spectrum were the poles of delegating to directing. There are factors that determine which approach is best for any given situation. One of the factors for “directing” (a much more take-charge kind of approach) is the “cost of failure”. When the COVID-19 pandemic was at its peak and churches were suffering severe closures, the time for directing was high. People were stuck and every decision became a life-or-death tug-of-war. It’s not that there was no collaboration…in fact I had a very healthy church council that stepped up amazingly. Even then, I did a lot more speaking and directing. When I moved in 2021, even before my first official day, I had to make a COVID-related decision about worship. I quickly learned that decision-fatigue was a major distress within the church. And for the most part, a clear, decisive word was a welcome relief to the congregation. As time went by, the decision-fatigue was replaced by something more existential: people wanted to know where they fit within the congregation. As the pandemic has waned, I don’t think that the anxiety has ended, but it has shifted to deeper anxieties. I am still feeling this out, but I’m finding that 2 years of directing has run its course.

The shift between directing and delegating is a fluid one. While people appreciated a clear directive during the height of COVID, long-term, faith is a participant’s game. People were willing to wait, hold and defer for a limited time. Now, people want to know what this faith has to say to the post-COVID world. And they want to know their place in the Church. In th emeantime, the institution has changed in substantil ways. Members have left due to COVID-related stresses; members have shifted more permanently toward online worship; those on the margins of the church have walked away altogether; people have aged; and COVID claimed several members lives. The post-COVID church is very different than the pre-COVID church.

All of this is to say what may be obvious: ministry is emotionally charged and complex. It is a logical deduction that clergy are burned out and in need of fundamental changes. I trust that those leaving the ministry have done what we all do: re-evaluate our callings from God. Insofar as those callings have changed, leaving the ministry is the most faithful option. In fact, we know quite well that people who stay in ministry beyond their callings from God are prone to costly mistakes that impact not only them but the church as a whole.

As I sit here having done my own re-evaluation, I still feel the calling. I’ll admit that I feel a bit lonelier, as several clergy colleagues I both liked and admired have gone on to other things. Knowing them, I respect their spirits, their reasons for leaving and their needs for change.

Going Forward?

I have long approached ministry with a sense of gratitude for what the church has done for me. As a lover of the Church, I have concern for its future. These great colleagues leaving the ministry feels like a loss to the Church that I love. I also fear what will happen to the larger society without our ministry.

Nevertheless, I am moving forward with hope for the church. We will be smaller, poorer, more marginalized. Our influence will wane still before it increases again. But we have several biblical teachings that guide us in this next era of the church.

On Small, Powerful Influences

Jesus tells a very tiny parable that has rested quietly in my catalog of teachings for a long time. Only now is it becoming an animating piece of wisdom. “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.” (Matthew 13:33) The church for centuries has enjoyed being the dough of society. We have enjoyed immense privilege and done lots of good. We’ve also committed some grotesque acts, many with obscene levels of immunity. Right now, the reputation of the church in America is at an all-time low. I will be tickled pink if our reputation even begins to recover in my lifetime. For the next era of the church, we may well have to be content with being the yeast of society. This means finding small ways to make major improvements to our world. We have a history of turning small investments into big improvements: beginning HBCU‘s following the Civil War, supporting union workers in early 20th Century cities and now with the reconciling ministries network. These efforts were relegated to either the academic, the mission or the caucus ends of the church. In my mind, that is the essence of the church. But in our official parlance, these are extension ministries or parachurch organizations. My current thinking is that the church from head to toe must embrace the underdog status and be strategic thinkers. We cannot merely preserve what we have. We must allow God to use us differently. Yeast is small, but it is amazingly effective. It gives air, space and yum to the bread. It gives zest to beer! There is plenty of good that the church can do by embracing our yeasty status. I feel the wisdom of the ages alive in this parable. And I am glad that I am part of a tradition that has had this wisdom on tap just when we need it.

The Cost of Failure of the Church

One more teaching informs my ecclesiology at the time being. It has to do with the cleansing of unclean spirits.

“When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it wanders through waterless regions looking for a resting place, but it finds none. Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ When it comes, it finds it empty, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and brings along seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and live there; and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So will it be also with this evil generation.”

Matthew 12:43-45

I am sorry to use such a provocative story. But the hatred I’ve witnessed toward LGBTQ+ people recently clearly qualifies as an unclean spirit in my book. With this is mind, I hold this idea in two directions. 1) What fills the void of leadership when good, loving leaders depart the church? 2) What will fill the void of non-inclusive Christians leaving the United Methodist Church? Both of these recognize the vacuum effect of people leaving the church, but clearly they come from very different perspectives.

One of my sorrows and worries of these clergy departures are the voids they leave behind. Wisdom from Jesus suggests that voids tend to get filled. When I see good-hearted, educated, forward-thinking clergy depart, who or what will fill those pulpits that are now empty? On a larger scale, we have seen what happens to communities when good-hearted, justice-loving churches close. The theologies of blame and vitriol often fill the void. I worry that the exodus of clergy is existing mainly in the mainline denominations, where the systems are a little more complex, a little more set in their ways and little more bent toward preservation. I’m NOT saying that individual clergy who replace resigning clergy are bad, or not cut out for those congregations. I am more worried that the system as a whole cannot replace those departing clergy fast enough. Some of that is our own fault by creating seminaries that have priced out otherwise called people and ordination systems that pride themselves on their rigor and their many hoops. On down the system toward smaller churches in smaller places, the glut of CLMs providing full-time pastoral leadership is evidence that the system is faltering at crucial services. I see conferences having to provide almost heroic levels of training to help these CLMs provide the care they need for their congregations. But this is a band-aid that points to a systemic failure. Ultimately we value highly educated and trained clergy. And yet, we cannot fill voids fast enough. Additionally, clergy leaving the pulpit are also usually leaving their conference leadership positions. One person leaving can actually leave more than one major position to fill. Let this happen enough and the whole system becomes depressed.

The vacuum-effect concerns me in the ways I describe above. At the same time, I’m trying to be strategic and hopeful with another vacuum-effect taking place: that created by the disaffiliation of anti-LGBTQ+ churches from the United Methodist Church.

To be frank, I suspect there is an initial challenge. I think we will be smaller and poorer. But as we may also be freer, we may be more courageous in offering the gospel as we understand it. For every disaffiliating church that leaves, a mission-field opens: those communities that are in need of an inclusive faith community where all are actually welcomed. This kind of vacuum-effect captures my imagination. And I hope that our newer church is more willing to see rural ministry and inclusive ministry as cooperative forces of goodness.

Conclusion

There is no tl;dr version of this post. Sorry. As I have written, I simply needed to get all the angles out in a single place. In fact, as this post has taken almost a month to write (I’m slow, alright?), I merely had to say this is enough, as more and more ideas entered the old perspective. I guess a nerve was struck.

The conclusion I offer is that while there many reasons to leave the ministry, I have found many reasons to stay. The work feels as important as ever. There is new and emerging freedom with which to do the work. There is fertile ground for planting the seeds of the future church. And the skills I’ve developed in practices of ministry feel as relevant as ever in addressing the ills of the world. Much is changing, as it always has. May the Church become ever more faithful to the vision of heaven and earth we have been given through Christ.