Evangelicals Now have published two articles on ministry pathways and training recently. There’s this one by Clive Bowsher, Provost at Union School of Theology and this one by Carrie Sandom of the Proclamation Trust. Each article offers some helpful thoughts and reflection but also there are questions I would like to ask and challenges to raise.
The first challenge I would like to raise is to do with whether or not people are identifying the right problems. Yes, there are problems with ministry pathways and training. We live in a finite and fallen world so we don’t have to pretend that things are fine and rosy. However, Sandom writes:
“The fall in number of men and women coming forward for training means many denominations (not just the Church of England) are facing a recruitment crisis, especially as the baby boomer generation retires in the next five to ten years. Many churches have been advertising for assistant pastors, associate vicars, women’s workers, student workers, youth workers and children’s workers for well over a year, without success.”
Sandom’s assumption is that claims of a shortage of people coming forward are correct. This is something that has been repeated publicly by a number of people, especially those in the training sector but I keep looking for hard evidence for this, so far without success. My own research suggests that things are a little more complex. There was a fall in recent years to the number of people going to traditional seminaries. There are also churches that struggle to recruit and take a long time to fill posts. However, it is worth observing the following.
- There are still many people seeking to serve in Gospel ministry but not going through the traditional colleges. Ministry and training patterns are changing
- There will be peaks and troughs in the numbers coming forward and specific events will affect that causing deeper troughs and higher spikes. We need to be cautious about drawing conclusions in the immediate aftermath of the COVID pandemic. We are still a little way off knowing whether there were temporary disruptions or long term trends developing.
- There was a specific wave or spike of training through traditional institutions which I don’t have data for but I suspect we can trace its beginnings to the mid noughties and possibly peaking around about 2017. This means that we should not be surprised to see numbers going down from a peak. It also means that those training were millennials and Gen X, not baby boomers. In fact, when I trained as the wave of trainees was growing, a lot of students were younger than me. This means that the big wave of retirees is potentially another 20 years away.
- There are links between supply and demand in terms of things balancing out. So, for example, a consequence of a glut of trainees is that it is difficult then for churches to find capacity to take people on, especially if they desire assistant pastorship roles.
My observation would be that there have often been churches that have at different times found it difficult to fill roles whilst other churches have a lot of applications for one post. I also think that there are things churches themselves need to address when struggling to fill a role. These include things like expectation setting, clarity of the type of role and person they are looking for, as Sanderson observes, there are living costs. There were two churches that wanted to talk to me about coming to them a few years back and in both cases, the cost of housing would have been a challenge. If either position had been right, we would have found a way of course.
Sandom offers some helpful suggestions around practical things including housing and cost of living. She also is right to say that churches need to be seeking to raise up people from within and for existing leaders to be on the lookout. She says:
Recruiting from within: raising up your own ministry staff is a long-term strategy but many would argue this is what the New Testament always envisaged. Senior ministers should always be on the look-out for those within their congregations who could be set apart for word ministry – not just as preachers but also as women’s workers, student workers, youth workers and children’s workers. It is unreasonable to expect others to provide these if churches are not willing to feed the supply themselves. There are various training pathways available (online, in-person, day as well as residential) but being rooted in the local church is absolutely key.
I would push back on two points here. First, I wonder if the old Proc Trust/conservative evangelical language of “set apart for ‘word ministry’” is helpful It sets a perception of what full time Christian work is about and like as well as the necessary training. I am also less and less convinced that we are wise to be looking our initially for people who have specific leadership potential for roles. Rather, I think we do better to be equipping everyone in the church but then allowing them to develop In their gifts. I have written more about this elsewhere.
However, a time comes when we should be setting people aside to be elders or for other aspects of church/gospel work whether paid or unpaid. Whilst conservative evangelicals have been in my opinion too quick to watch and train those they see as having “potential”, I think ironically that we’ve also been too laid back at the other end of things. We’ve tended to leave it with people to decide if they have an inner calling. We need to be more directive in terms of saying to people “we would like to consider you joining the eldership” or “could you do such and such a role” or even “we want to fund you through some further theological training.”
Bowsher’s article helpfully challenges some big perceptions about theological training, particularly that it is the work of seminaries to train workers. I have a lot of time both for Union and for Crosslands and the work they’ve done to make theological training more accessible through learning communities and online provision. Bowsher is right that there needs to be a partnership and primarily it is the local church that is responsible (a helpful theme in both articles). I have personally mentored a Union Learning Community an dI think that the helpful thing here was having a local church pastor helping the students to integrate and apply their learning.
Where Union struggled when I was a mentor was that their learning community programme catered for graduates. It was a 2 year programme but pitched academically around about 3rd year of a degree. At the time I got the impression that those involved were prioritising getting people to a point where they could pursue the MTh qualification. What this meant was that whilst it catered for some, it didn’t cater for those without any academic background. I’m not sure that adding another Masters programme will help with this.
And this is where I think both articles reflect a remaining issue. The focus still seems to be very much on “what do we do for middle class Christians to solve middle class problems for middle class churches”? There still is lacking a missional zeal to reach and disciple working class communities.
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If you are particularly interested in what we can do practically to train pastors and planters for urban gospel ministry, especially if you are looking to be trained and equipped yourself, I would love to hear from you.
Faithroots 