I received the following two horror story phone calls in one week.  

Call #1: A Young Staff Pastor in Shock.

Without warning, he had been fired by his senior pastor the day before. No notice or signs. None. No indications that anything was wrong. From the day he was hired, no one, not his pastor or anyone in church leadership, ever let him know anything was wrong. From day one of his service at the church until yesterday, everything was fine.  Two days ago, he and his senior pastor were even making plans for the future. Two days ago. But yesterday, only six months after hiring him, his pastor called him into the office and fired him. 

Why?  “You’re not a good fit,” he was told. Asked what that meant, the pastor would go no further: “You’re just not working out.” The day before, this young pastor was working out just fine – by all indications – but overnight, something apparently changed. 

I instinctively knew this lead pastor did not have a real relationship with this staff pastor – how do you work with a person every day for six months, never tell him there is a problem, and then suddenly fire him because he’s not working out? Give me a break. Better yet, give this staff pastor a break. Leadership like this is only possible if there is no relationship between lead pastor and staff member. Well, there is one more possibility, but we won’t go there. 

Experience told me this pastor did nothing to mentor and help this young minister grow. How do you do ministry together for 6 months and never teach him, correct him, and train him? How do you never once give him counsel on growing his person and ministry? No training, no mentorship, no instruction, no correction: “Just do your job.”  Until the day he is fired.

I asked the young minister about his relationship with his pastor and their day-to-day, week-to-week interactions: Did his pastor communicate job responsibilities to him, evaluate his performance, and give feedback? Had they discussed needed adjustments in the young minister’s life or ministry? Did he and his pastor meet every week? Did his pastor mentor or coach him? Was there a time when he and his pastor met to talk about life in ministry? Did he and his pastor ever have lunch together or just go out for coffee? As his pastor was about sixty years of age and a member of the district/state’s presbytery board, surely he was careful to walk with his only staff pastor. Surely. 

Call #2: A Young Staff Pastor Ready to Walk Away

He had spent more than five years on staff at a church – more than five years as a youth pastor when most youth pastors don’t last half as long. 

Why did he call me, a pastoral coach?

First, because we’ve known each other for almost ten years and he knows I’m a pastoral coach. He thought he’d take a chance and see if I could give him some time. 

And because for the past five years, he has felt alone and isolated. His lead pastor has no time to mentor him or even to meet with him about the issues this young pastor encounters as he carries out his ministry. When this young pastor asks his pastor for time together, the pastor can’t be bothered: he’s too busy with ministry. Oh, did I mention that this lead pastor is a certified pastoral coach? His state denominational office trained him and now recommends him to others as a coach? One wonders if he has time for those who can pay him, but not for the young minister he works with every day? 

Exhausted, this young minister told me that he wondered if he was cut out for the ministry. Ever since arriving at this church, his sense of growth as a pastor has been at a standstill. He doesn’t know what his pastor expects of him. He couldn’t even define his role at the church for me except to say that his pastor tells him what to do and he’s expected to do it: ministry is a never-ending to-do list. Every day his pastor pulls out the list the young minister was to have completed for that day, and he grades him. 

When the young minister asks for mentorship and time with his pastor, the pastor says no, and pushes the list back into the young man’s hands. 

As a result, the young pastor is battling insecurity and feelings of inadequacy: Did he miss God? Is he really called? Is he cut out for ministry life? Is it right to subject his wife and young family to this kind of present and future – is that really what God wants? He preaches the abundant life and hope of Jesus even as he has little hope for the future, and his present life is killing him. 

No investment, only spending. No pouring into him, only taking it out of him. At this rate, this young minister won’t last long at this church or in the ministry. No matter, the lead pastor can always find another kid to hire and give a to-do list. 

Staff pastor horror stories. Like horror movies, they don’t fade out to the sound of soft music and fairy tale words: “They all lived happily ever after.”  

THE TIME HAS COME

You might be thinking these are unique situations. Would that it were so. I hear stories like these all too often. And the stories are backed by stats that say young ministers aren’t making it. We’ve written about it many times here at Journey. 

Plainly stated: it’s time for the staff pastor horror stories to stop. 

It’s time for the church to stop misusing and even abusing young ministers. It’s time we begin stewarding them and their ministries. Until we do, young ministers will continue to quit, not because they couldn’t make it, but because we broke them. And don’t forget that when ministers break, ministries break, today and for years to come. Ministry that could have taken place this year and the next thirty years doesn’t happen. 

“Ministry that could have taken place doesn’t happen.” 

That’s the second horror in this story. 

Am I angry? You better believe I am. I am angry at this misuse and sometimes abuse of young ministers.  More importantly, I am mad at what this does to the ministry of the Gospel to a world that is dying without Jesus Christ. I am mad at what this does to people in the church who were built for and who need pastors. Shepherds.

I could go on and on . . .

. . . the youth pastor who could only get one meeting with his pastor during an entire year;

. . . the youth pastor who is expected to put in 40 hours+ at week, and whose unpaid wife (with small children) is expected to serve, but he’s only paid a part-time salary – “You or your wife will need to get a job on the side;”

. . . the lead pastors who refuse to mentor their staff pastors; 

. . . the youth pastor whose lead pastor helps other lead pastors design coaching programs for their staffs but refuses to coach them;

. . . the young staff pastors whose lead pastors only talk to them to tell them when they have done something wrong; 

. . . the young pastor who can’t get a meeting or phone call with his district superintendent or his local presbyter;

. . . the young pastors who have quit attending denominational meetings for the lack of spiritual substance and opportunities for making relationships – “Why go? It’s just a big sales pitch telling me why I should give more money to their latest project. I barely make enough to pay my own bills.”

HELP IS ON THE WAY

“Not to worry,” we’re told. “We’re committed to raising up 5,000 or 10,000 new ministers for our denomination.” 

That’s great.  But what about the ministers who have already answered the call?  

What about the 5-10-5 Rule: the 5 of every 10 ministers who quit in the first 5 years? 

What about those who survive the first five years only to spend the next five or twenty-five years trying to survive when they could thrive if only their leaders would invest in them or even open their doors to them?

COUNSEL FROM THE WISE 

In his indispensable read, Survive or Thrive, Jimmy Dodd writes as a modern day John the Baptist, poking an all-too-comfortable church and the poor stewardship of its greatest earthly resource, its young leaders: 

“I need to be outraged over the things that outrage God. Worse, I am all too often apathetic over the things that demand godly outrage. . . I need to experience outrage that more than half of those who are called to pastoral ministry leave within the first five years. I should be angered that the majority of pastors believe there is no place to process their disappointment confidentially. I should be outraged that pastors suffer in silence, feeling as if there is no safe place for them to turn.”

Jimmy Dodd again:

“God has given us the concept of a mentor. Mentors provide counsel, wisdom, and encouragement. And in dark times, mentors offer much-needed perspective. Sometimes, when we are in the midst of a battle, they provide a “high-altitude perspective.” 

In an equally essential read, “They Smell Like Sheep,” Lynn Anderson continues the theme in equally strong tones: 

“Elders are generally older, more experienced, stronger memory members of the group to whom the younger look for identity. However, This role is conspicuously absent from modern American culture, at least in formal social structures nevertheless, … we long for mentors. We seem to do better when they are in our lives. And when we don’t find positive mentors, by default, negative ones usually find us!” 

The pastor’s pastor, Eugene Peterson, writes in “The Pastor: A Memoir”:

“In the early years when I was becoming a pastor, I needed a pastor.” 

Stephen Baldwin, in his article, “Needed: Pastor-Mentors for Emerging Ministers”:

“Of all vocations, surely the gospel ministry is the one whose paradigm is most radically formed by the dynamics of godly mentorship.” 

Even the secular world understands the power of coaching-mentorship.  Warren Bennis:  

“Coaching will become the model for leaders in the future. Coaches teach, mentor, and empower. I am certain that leadership can be learned and that terrific coaches . . . facilitate learning.”

THREE OBJECTIONS AND OBSERVATIONS

I’ve been a lead pastor, staff pastor, missionary, evangelist, college campus pastor, faculty member, and pastoral coach. Wearing all seven hats, I’ve asked many lead pastors to describe their walk with their pastoral staffs. A surprising number have told me they have little relationship with them. What relationship they do have is focused almost exclusively on the work of the ministry – not minister development (coaching or mentoring) or personal relationship. When I’ve asked why they do not coach or mentor their staffs, they usually give one or more of these three answers: 

1.  “No one mentored me, they shouldn’t need it either;”

2.  “They are big boys and girls, let them develop themselves.” 

3.  “I hired them to do a job, not to make me spend my time developing them.”

Pastor, if one of these is your answer, please consider this: 

1. “No one mentored me, they shouldn’t need it either;”

Actually, most of us were mentored and coached when we were young. And we admit it. When I’ve asked “coaching-deniers” if they had anyone who poured into them when they were young ministers, almost invariably – along with a nod and a smile – they speak a name, followed by the names of others. Most of us had coaches and mentors. We just didn’t call them coaches or mentors in our day. And over the years we’ve forgotten what they gave us because what these people did and how they did it was so natural and organic. Just as coaching should be.

2. “They are big boys and girls, let them develop themselves.” 

Yes, they are big boys and girls. And God built them for mentorship – first to be mentored and then to mentor others. Jesus demonstrated that in his pastoring as he walked with – i.e., coached-mentored – His pastoral staff, the twelve disciples. The Twelve and Barnabas. Barnabas and Paul. Paul and Timothy. You get the idea. 

Here’s one for our egos, Pastor. when Jesus began His ministry, He occupied Himself with crowds, but the longer He walked in ministry, the fewer He chose to walk with – he focused on developing just twelve individuals for the greatest cause the world has ever known: The Great Commission. How about you? Or are you occupied with lesser things that make you larger in the eyes of others? 

Gordon MacDonald: “With a world of millions to reach, Jesus budgeted the majority of his time to be with just twelve simple men.”  

3. “I hired them to do a job, not to make me spend my time developing them.”

Yes, and they will do that job better with your investment and input. What could be clearer?

The single most significant thing you can do to multiply your ministry in your church is to mentor your pastoral staff, to pour yourself into them – and through them. 

And what about the Kingdom of God? While your staff pastors serve your church and the churches to follow, what about the Kingdom of God? You have a God-given responsibility – and privilege – to develop young ministers not only for their service at your church, but for a lifetime of healthy and effective ministry for Jesus Christ and His kingdom.

MAYBE . . . 

But then again, it is easier to send money to your national headquarters so they can recruit new ministers to replace the ones we all use, misuse, and abuse. It’s easier than actually walking with the ones we’ve got right now, isn’t it? 

Staff pastor horror stories. They’re not film fiction. They’re real life. It’s time we turn them off. And it’s time we begin producing staff pastor hero stories again. 

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NOTE: Journey Pastoral Coaching exists to provide pastoral coaching to Millennial ministers.

Saddled with large student debt, just beginning to set up homes and start families, and serving in low paying first and second positions, Millennials are those who most desire but can least afford to pay for pastoral coaching.

So we offer it to them at NO COST: Our members do not PAY for coaching; they EARN it.

We are able to do so thanks to the faithful and generous support of individuals and churches like yours who want to see young leaders not only enter the ministry, but remain in the ministry. If you or your church would like to help Millennial ministers in 20 US states and 5 nations build strong for a lifetime in ministry, please click here to contact us by email or to support Journey monthly or with your one-time gift. Thank you.

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“In the early years when I was becoming a pastor, I needed a pastor.” 

 Eugene H. Peterson, The Pastor: A Memoir