Struggling conferences are giving pastors many more churches. Is this a good plan?
19 August 2024 |
Dear Aunt Sevvy,
I’ve heard that in some financially struggling conferences, pastors are being assigned a ridiculous number of churches that aren’t even near one another. This is being presented as going back to the model of pastors as evangelists, who leave the local elders to run the church. They say that this has been the model in other countries. What are your thoughts?
Signed, Save our pastor
Dear Save,
You are correct, and you will see more of this in North America.
The reason isn’t hard to discern. Just sit at the back of most congregations and look forward: in front of you, you’ll see mostly gray heads. Aging Adventists are still giving, but they won’t last forever.
Except for a few churches near large institutions and some ethnic churches, most congregations are shrinking. The church isn’t attracting younger generations. Traditional evangelistic approaches aren’t working. Church leaders will have no choice but to cut back on personnel, and that means fewer pastors serving more churches. Whether fewer pastors and more lay-led churches will be a successful plan remains to be seen.
Aunty is pretty confident of one thing, though: as money dries up, the last thing to go will be conference, union conference, division, and General Conference offices. Administrative offices will endure, because the church’s governance structure and financial policy is set up to make sure they do. We’ve long regarded offices as more important than congregations, and Aunty sees little will to change that.
The Adventist church has adjusted poorly to changing times. At some point in the future it will become clear even in those hallowed offices that the money has dwindled. Some will probably interpret that in eschatological terms—but in fact it is simple economics, and could have been avoided with better planning.
Buckle your seat belts, young church workers—and begin to think about alternate careers.
Aunt Sevvy
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