The Blunt Truth About Ministers Today

-Rev Melissa Fain-

Months ago I connected our inability to see church decline with the growth of the mega-church. Basically, congregants go where the resources are. Most don't understand the problem, because from their view there isn't one. 

Eighty is the magic number in understanding church decline. About thirty years ago eighty percent of churches are small, but eighty percent of congregants go to a large church. Eighty percent of churches are dying. This problem was first seen in, you guessed it, the eighties. Going where the resources are is increasingly about going to mega-churches- because they are increasingly the one ones who can do things. I'd be interested to see that 80/80 statistic redone. I'd guess that it has changed as smaller congregations are dying out, and more and more are forced into larger churches.

As churches try to understand the problem, ministers are neck deep in it. Here are some blunt truth about ministers today and what they are currently living through:
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1. We Don't Know: Large scale church decline is a new frontier for ministers and congregants. We weren't trained on how to deal with this gaping wound. Many of us are pulling out old play books and trying them out just to do something. You are looking to us to find answers we don't have. If we find ourselves in a stable congregation, most of us are still well aware the problem still exists. We read. We see the treasures report. Because we don't know how to solve it, many of us cloister ourselves in the safety of one of these remaining lifeboats as so many drown right beyond our doors. We don't know how to fix the problem, but we know we can protect those who are left, even if it means letting everyone else sink to oblivion.
2. A Minister's paycheck is a weapon: There's a tough lesson I had to learn in ministry. God is the employer, and the church is the accountant. Deep down most of us know this. We know we are supposed to follow God's call, not a churches mandate. Yet, the church knows all they have to do is threaten to stop paying a minister, and all of a sudden the minister gets in line. Ministers desire to have a comfortable life. There are many of us that will sacrifice call for comfort. A church can lure a minister from the Wilderness/Mission Field with a decent paycheck. A church can force a minister to do terrible things with the same said paycheck. 
3. We don't want to admit when we are Paul: No one questioned Paul's tent-making venture back when he was planting churches in the Mediterranean, but we know congregants are secretly judging us because we have to do something to make ends meet outside of our call. Since coming back to Georgia I've cleaned out a house, worked as a server, and now I substitute. We want to explain that God doesn't always call ministers to places that have full time pay with insurance and retirement. We see those shiny jobs and know our current duel employment life is being compared to it.
4. We are burdened by seminary: The big joke when we were in seminary was that choosing to be a minister was taking a vow of poverty. As university system prices have risen, so have seminary costs. We are dealing with solid debt. I heard a Dave Ramsey condemnation of debt once. He said no one should go to college unless they can pay for it. (The summation was that there are jobs out there that don't require a degree and pay more than degree jobs.) Then he added- unless you are a minister. He understood why we need that degree. Seminary is important. It is also a huge burden.
5. None of us are adequate: You can't run an entire church with just us., but many of us don't want to admit it. We forget that we are called to be shepherd, not He Man or She-Ra. For your standard female minister, we have so many judging eyes upon us. We are more afraid to be human, because we know there are those out there looking at us only for signs of failure. For all ministers, we don't know when some family that has been in the church for six generations is going to be offended. We have personally known or know someone who has lived through a witch hunt. We know when all the good we've done has been forgotten to only focus on our failures. None of us want to admit we are not super human because a congregation can be turned on a dime with just a few pieces of our humanity.