Recovering Lost Voices:
What we can learn from pastors who have left parish ministry
A review of Pastors in Transition, Dean Hoge and Jacqueline Wenger
When mid-career pastors think back on their graduating class at seminary, many realize that few of their classmates who started in local church ministry still remain there.
Pastors, of course, leave the parish for many reasons—good, bad, and in-between. But their departures, more often than not, are real losses to the church. Once these pastors leave, their voices are rarely heard again.
Pastors in Transition, a new book by Dean Hoge and Jacqueline Wenger, recovers the voices of pastors who have left parish ministry. Offering a comprehensive, nuanced examination of Protestant parish clergy “leavers,” the book lets ex-pastors explain why they left and suggest what the church could have done to make a difference in sustaining their call. The book and its underlying research were funded by the Pulpit & Pew research project at Duke Divinity School, which was underwritten by a grant from Lilly Endowment Inc.
In their study, Hoge and Wenger, colleagues at the Catholic University of America, obtained the cooperation of five denominations: the United Methodist Church, the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, the Assemblies of God, and the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. The researchers tabulated over 900 written questionnaires from former pastors, conducted 90 telephone interviews with members of this group, and held focus group discussions with judicatory leaders for their perspective on clergy “leavers.”
The book begins with a helpful discussion of the contemporary setting for ministry, including changes in both U.S. Protestant church culture and those who attend seminary (e.g., trends toward more women and more second-career persons). Hoge and Wenger emphasize that ministry is not more difficult today than in past generations. It is simply different, they contend, and the church faces challenges in helping leaders adapt to a fast-changing context.
Many of the former parish pastors Hoge and Wenger studied said they left because they were simply called by God to a different type of ministry than parish ministry. Other ex-pastors, however, left on bitter terms, even against their will. A long middle section of Pastors in Transition looks at ex-pastors according to their motivations for leaving. Some are “pulled” elsewhere, drawn by such factors as a preference for another kind of ministry or a need to care for children or other family members. Others, however, are “pushed” from church ministry, leaving because of conflict in the congregation or with the denominational hierarchy, burn-out or discouragement, and sexual misconduct.
The authors weigh each of the “push” and “pull” factors cited by the pastors in terms of its relative significance in the decision to leave church ministry. In addition, they trace how the factors work differently among the five denominations, between men and women, and between senior and associate pastors. Their most important finding is that pastors who were pushed out of the local church were more likely to cite professional and institutional problems, especially conflict with denominational officials, than personal problems as the reason they left.
Although attrition among Protestant parish ministers would seem a fairly straightforward issue, it is surprisingly hard for scholars to get a handle on. For one thing, it is a sensitive, even painful subject for discussion in the church. Denominational officials and former pastors were somewhat reluctant to share their experiences. Also, as the authors admit, pastors often leave for a combination of overlapping reasons, which can confound any analysis of the causes. Many ex-pastors said they felt themselves both pulled and pushed.
Pastors in Transition is easily accessible for non-academic, even non-clergy readers. It is light on numbers and statistical jargon, and is enlivened by stories and verbatim observations from interviews. The book affords a rare and worthwhile opportunity to hear the voices of former pastors, many of whom, even when they were at fault in the circumstances of their leaving the parish, have had a searing spiritual experience and gained significant insight.
Reading the book, I was struck by how the views of former pastors diverged so sharply from those of judicatory officials. The fact of this divergence was no surprise; each group has grounds to blame its troubles on the other. But the ways in which the two groups take different views of the same issue, are worth examining.
Pastors want autonomy. (As the authors point out in an early chapter, recent research on secular professions identifies autonomy as a major source of job satisfaction, even greater than financial rewards.) But judicatory officials want greater supervisory power. Pastors sometimes yearn to feel that they have options. Judicatory officials stress the need for a strong, clear sense of call. There is no easy answer to this basic divergence; it simply seems to point to the need for discernment and discussion around the meaning of call.
Everyone interviewed in the book agrees that congregational conflict is nearly universal in the modern church. Judicatories sympathize that many local churches are unrealistic in their expectations from their pastor or have unspoken expectations that the pastor must discover. However, clergy look at this situation and see dysfunctional congregations, while denominational officials tend to see incompetent pastors. The lesson is that managing conflict is a key characteristic of pastoral competence. Many in the book argue that seminaries, denominations, and other sustaining agencies must focus more on giving pastors skills and practice in leading change.
The study participants agreed that peer support is vital in pastoral ministry, and isolation is often a warning sign of a pastor who is struggling. However, denominational officials observed that pastors do not always avail themselves of existing support systems. Yet, it may not be enough to merely provide clergy with a venue for peer interaction as needed. Denominations must work to make such venues hospitable and to foster a positive sense of fellowship and common mission. And pastors must be on guard against high self-expectations and a resulting reluctance to seek support when it is available.
The book ends on a hopeful and constructive note, with the former pastors discussing the aspects of ministry that they most miss. (About a third of the ex-pastors surveyed would like to return, albeit with certain conditions, to congregational ministry.) And the final chapter offers some specific recommendations to the church, including:
- Seminaries should do more to prepare their students for the practical aspects of ministry (including methods of pastoral self-care).
- Improve the call process. Help congregations to be realistic and open about their expectations of their leaders.
- Provide support for pastors in conflict or crisis, including relief from workloads.
Pastors in Transition costs $21 in paperback and is available for order at Eerdmans.
John James was the project coordinator for Pulpit & Pew: Research on Pastoral Leadership and now serves as project coordinator for the project’s successor, Pulpit & Pew: the Duke Center for Excellence in Ministry.
