JPC SURVEY: PASTORS REFLECT ON 2020, PROJECT INTO 2021
INTRODUCTION
During December, Journey asked pastors, their spouses, and ministers who work with pastors to reflect and project: reflect on the health and strength of the church and pastors in 2020; project the health and strength of each in 2021.
We asked respondents to consider the American Evangelical church as a whole rather than their own local churches or international denominations.
In today’s article, we present the results of part one of our survey in which we ask pastors to reflect on the strength and health of the church and pastors in 2020.
In two weeks, we will present the results of part two of our survey in which we ask pastors to project ahead into 2021 on the health and strength of the church and pastors.
We conclude both articles with observations on the results, observations offered by leaders within the Journey Pastoral Coaching community.
CHURCH & PASTOR AT THE END OF 2020 –
PART ONE
We asked ministers and spouses to look back over the year 2020 and answer how true each statement is, in their opinion, for the church.
An answer of 1 indicates the respondent believes the statement to be completely false;
An answer of 10 indicating the respondent believes the statement to be completely true.
Answers for all respondents were then totaled, and the average determined. The average for each question is presented below.
1. Today, at the end of 2020 . . .
The church is strong in faith. 6.52
The church is strong in love. 6.52
The church is strong in joy. 5.73
The church is worshipping God in spirit and in truth. 6.11
The church is focused on the Gospel. 5.06
The church is focused on discipleship. 5.12
The church is focused on believers as ministers to each other. 5.38
The church is focused on the Great Commission, locally and around the world. 5.80
The church is strong in doctrine. 6.01
The church is looking for the coming of the Lord. 5.94
The church is strong in unity. 5.44
The church is encouraged. 5.40
THE CHURCH & PASTOR AT THE END OF 2020 –
PART TWO
In part two of our survey respondents were again asked to measure the church and pastor on a scale of 1 to 10. All responses were totaled and the average determined. The average for each question is presented below.
1. Are Christians attending church or being the church (discipleship, ministry, relationships, faith community, etc)? An answer of 1 means 100% only attending services; an answer of 10 means 100% being the church in faith and in practice. 4.91
2. How stressed are pastors at the end of 2020? An answer of 1 means not at all stressed; an answer of 10 means burned out from stress. 8.12
3. How healthy are the spiritual practices of pastors at the end of 2020? An answer of 1 means completely unhealthy; an answer of 10 means completely healthy. 5.99
4. How spiritually strong are pastors at the end of 2020? An answer of 1 means they could not be any weaker; an answer of 10 means they could not be any stronger. 6.33
5. How emotionally strong are pastors at the end of 2020? An answer of 1 means they could not be any weaker; an answer of 10 means they could not be any stronger. 5.42
6. At the end of 2020, how encouraged are pastors about 2021? An answer of 1 means they could not be any weaker; an answer of 10 means they could not be any stronger. 5.77
OBSERVATIONS OF JOURNEY LEADERS
After compiling the results of our survey, we forwarded them to several key leaders in Journey and asked for their observations. No further instructions or limits were given them. They were free to comment on any section or all sections of the survey. Here’s what they had to say about the results above. All responses are anonymous.
COMMENTS ON PART ONE OF THE LOOK BACK AT 2020:
The strength-scores in part one say pastors are a little more positive than negative about the strength of the church in 2020. But the scores also say they are not satisfied with the strength of the church in critical areas: numbers range from 5.06 to 6.52. Hardly stellar.
The highest strength scores are in faith and love. But these numbers aren’t very high. And what does it mean when faith and love are high, but the emphasis on Jesus is so low? I don’t know. I think this might be why the encouragement level is so low: the faith and love of the church are emotionally-based rather than Jesus-based – we feel the limits of our faith and love because they are self-generated rather than founded in strong relationship and discipleship in Jesus.
For the first section on the church, pastors seem either cautiously optimistic or evenly split as most of the numbers are right around the middle with nothing even getting to 7.
It was eye-opening to see that the church’s greatest weakness is its emphasis on the Gospel – 5.06 out of 10! This is not encouraging because this factor affects all other factors; the Gospel is central to everything the church is because the Gospel is the good news of JESUS. A low score on our emphasis on Jesus can’t be good.
COMMENTS ON PART TWO OF THE LOOK BACK AT 2020:
Church leaders are convinced people are attending church instead of being the church. This seems to tie into the church’s low score in Part One on its emphasis on believers as ministers: if churches aren’t emphasizing this doctrine, believers won’t learn it and live it. Pastors, time to teach everyone’s equipping and responsibility as ministers of the Gospels! Pastors, time to teach body ministry!
The stress factor for pastors is no surprise. I’m surprised it’s not even higher.
For the second section, I’m focusing on the only answers of the survey that are below 5 (4.91 – Are Christians attending church or being the church) and above 7 (8.12 – How stressed are pastors). For me, that signals that we should pay special attention to there being a problem with church members not getting in the game as they should and that Pastoral vocation may be coming into a time of widespread burnout.
It looks like pastors need to turn it up in our spiritual practices: we only earned a 5.99 out of 10. AND, we are alarmingly weak emotionally (5.42), the natural consequence of inadequate spiritual practices. It’s time to turn our man caves back into studies and prayer closets. It’s time to turn off the phones and screens and get back into the Word and prayer like the Acts 6 pastors said we should. If we don’t, our low encouragement about 2021 (5.77) will only get lower as we get into 2021.
Not a commercial, but I think these numbers demonstrate how important it is for pastors to have mentors and to walk with other pastors. A lot of pastors are walking alone and dying. We talk ministry with other pastors in our area but don’t talk about our lives in Jesus. Coaching makes me do that, and I’m so thankful for that.
GENERAL COMMENTS ON THE RESULTS OF OUR LOOK BACK AT 2020:
What seems most obvious and alarming to me is that the church seems to be way off mission in terms of evangelism and discipleship. Most of the numbers for 2020 are right in the median, hovering around 5 and 6. This is discouraging to me because we should be red-hot about these two things. This lack of focus on the most important things is telling though. If we are not focused on evangelism and discipleship, it seems that we’re chasing something that hasn’t been ordained by God. No wonder the numbers of hope and joy, of strength and health, are low. We are distracted and weak, not actually walking with Jesus, simply going through religious motions.
This is a call for churches and pastors, an encouraging call, to walk with Jesus and invite others to join us. To be intentional about telling others about Jesus and teaching them what it means to follow him. The fact that only 2% of Christian Millennials have a classical Christian worldview is startling! That statistic helps me make sense of how many families in my generation live, even though they say they are Christian. No wonder so many people and families are lost and suffering—they want to follow Jesus, but they don’t know-how. They want the promised land but are stuck and bound in the chains of Egypt. We MUST teach people how to follow Jesus. We must!
WRAP-UP
In two weeks, we’ll post the results of the second half of our survey where we project ahead into 2021, asking pastors what they church and ministry will look like – how strong the church and pastors will be – in the year to come.
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