| Why So Many
Vacant Pulpits? A Look At The Numbers1
by Jack Marcum, Research Services
Conventional wisdom in the Presbyterian Church
(U.S.A.) holds that there is currently a shortage of ministers—how
else to explain the growing number of congregations without
pastors? There is some truth in this viewpoint, but only some;
the full story is more complex. As I will describe in this essay,
the situation is less a shortage of ministers than a coming
together of related trends that result in a growing number of
very small congregations with limited financial resources at
the same time that dual careers and other personal considerations
have made ministers without calls more selective in their searches.
The Problem
That the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and its predecessor denominations
have experienced annual net membership losses since 1965 is
well known, but less attention has focused on the trend in numbers
of congregations. As it happens, congregations have dropped
in number as well, but at a much slower pace. Membership dropped
from 3,131,228 in 1983 to 2,451,969 in 2002, a net loss of 679,259,
or almost 22 percent. Congregations dropped from 11,662 to 11,097,
a net loss of 565, or almost 5 percent. As a result, mean congregational
size fell from 268 members to 221.
Part of that trend is a large increase in the number of very
small congregations, defined here as those with 100 or fewer
members (see Figure 1).
There were 4,171 of these congregations in 1984, but 5,004 in
2002—a gain of 20 percent. As a result, 45 percent of all congregations
at the end of 2002 qualified as very small.
Very small congregations not only have relatively fewer members,
they also typically have fewer other resources, including financial
ones; median contributions in 2002 for these congregations was
only $44,678. Not surprisingly, then, many very small congregations
have difficulty finding the funds to call a full-time, installed
pastor (see Figure 2).
This circumstance is not new, although the proportion of very
small congregations without a pastor in 2002, 64 percent, has risen
from the 56 percent found in 1991.
It's clear that much of the growth in the number of vacant
pulpits owes to net membership loss and how that loss has played
out in the increased numbers of very small congregations. But
how much? One way to estimate the effect is to calculate the
number of pastors we’d expect to have in 2002 assuming
that the distribution of pastors among congregations of various
sizes had shifted to its 2002 pattern but the distribution of
congregations by size had stayed the same since 1991. When we
do that calculation, we find an expected number of 7,462 congregations
with pastors in 2002, instead of the actual 7,069.2
By that reckoning, a large part (72 percent) of the drop in
congregations with installed pastors over the last decade is
due to the increase in the number of very small congregations.
The remainder of the increase in vacant pulpits, then, is the
result of a lessened ability of congregations of all sizes to
call a pastor. Why this change has occurred is not clear. A
variety of factors are possible, from fewer congregations conducting
national searches to prospective ministers being more selective
in what calls to consider. This latter possibility has a lot
of anecdotal support, no doubt because of constraints seen among
professional couples generally as dual-career marriages have
become more common. The Presbyterian Panel found that 79 percent of
married pastors had an employed spouse in 2002, compared to
69 percent a dozen years earlier. Also, in mid-2003, of the 1,371 people
looking for calls through the PC(USA)’s centralized search
database, only 39 percent were open to a call in any part of the country.
In fact, 14 percent limited their search to a single state, and 34 percent
to five or fewer states. Unfortunately, no trend data are available
in the pattern of geographical restrictions.
Congregations may also have increasing difficulty calling a
pastor if the number of ministers or candidates available to
consider calls drops, but there is no evidence of such a trend.
In fact, the number of ministers without a current call has
actually risen by 25 percent since 1987, from 1,981 to 2,467 (see
Figure 3). Ministers without a call now comprise 18 percent
of all active ministers, up from 13 percent in 1987. There may be a
shortage of pastors, but there is clearly no shortage of ministers.
Future Prospects
The number of active ministers has dropped by an annual average
of 134 since the total peaked at 15,726 in 1988. No evidence
suggests that this trend will change in the near term. The number
of ordinations of ministers has remained remarkably stable for
many years, only slightly below that of retirements (see
Figure 4). Other components of change, such as the number
of ministers removed from office and the number received from
other denominations, have fluctuated from year to year but none
have shown a consistent upward or downward trend. In fact, the
overall annual rate of net decline in active ministers has dropped
from 1.2 percent for the period 1988 to 1995 to 0.6 percent for the period
1995 to 2002. A linear extrapolation of the last 14 years projects
the number of active ministers at 11,050 in 2022.
At the same time, there is no indication that the trend of
net membership losses—losses that have driven increases
in the number of very small congregations—will end or
even slow. The net membership loss for 2002, 41,812, is at 1.7 percent,
the largest single-year percentage drop since 1981. The pattern
of change in the number of congregations with 100 or fewer members
has been remarkably consistent, and were it to continue, by
2022 there would be 5,848 such congregations, up 17 percent in a period
when the total number of congregations is projected to decline
by 5 percent (to 10,530). Very small congregations would then comprise
56 percent of the total, up from 45 percent in 2002.
By this projection, congregations with 101 or more members
would total 4,682 in 2002. Based on the current number of installed
pastors in congregations of this size (6,840, an average of
1.13 pastors per congregation), we would expect these congregations
to have 5,284 installed pastors in 2022. The independent linear
projection of ministers for 2022, presented above, is 11,050.
That would mean 47 percent of all active ministers (5,248/11,050) in
2022 would serve congregations of 100 or more members, about
the same percentage, 49 percent, as today.
In short, were current trends to continue, the pastoral needs
of mid-size and larger congregations should be adequately met.
Of course, there is no certainty that current trends will continue,
and in fact two changes already underway—in the mean age
at ordination and the relative numbers of ministers nearing
retirement—will likely increase the annual rate of decline
in the number of active ministers.
Still, a worst-case, back-of-the-envelope projection taking
into account these factors forecasts 9,106 ministers in 2022,
or a net loss of around 97 per year more than the linear extrapolation
of the number of active ministers for 2022 of (as noted above)
11,050. So while sizable, the increase in retirements and the
shortening of career lengths from older ages at ordination will
not in themselves lead to a shortage of ministers. A total of
9,106 ministers is still well above the number of installed
pastors—5,284—that congregations of more than 100
members are expected to have in 2022.
Conclusion
While the decline in the number of active ministers over the
last 15 years is likely to continue and may well accelerate,
there will be no shortage of ministers for mid-sized and larger
congregations. Facing a smaller but still sizable pool of ministers,
there may be longer searches or more vacancies at out-of-the-way
locations, especially if further research clarifies the constraining
role of dual-career marriages.
The situation among very small congregations is more dire.
Their ability to attract full-time installed pastors, already
weak, will grow weaker as they increasingly must compete with
larger congregations (and each other) for pastors from the shrinking
pool of ministers. Any general effort to increase the number
of ministers will have only marginal effects on these congregations,
since the reasons, such as inadequate budgets, that keep most
of their pulpits vacant will not be changed by recruitment of
more candidates for ministry.
Instead, Presbyterians need to confront the effects of decades
of net membership loss. Thinking that we can lessen the numbers
of pastor-less congregations by recruiting more candidates to
our seminaries ignores the reasons behind the growing number
of very small congregations. The problem is not so much a shortage
of ministers but a shortage of members. Until we come to terms
with that reality and begin to reach out to more unchurched
persons, efforts to increase the number of ministers will focus
on symptoms rather than the underlying problem.
1 This essay is based on collaborative
research conducted with Lucy Rupe, whose many insights inform
the analysis presented and the conclusions reached. I am deeply
indebted to her for these contributions.
2 A more detailed description of this analysis is available
upon request. |
