Here are some crazy statistics compiled by the Barna Group (or so it said it was compiled by them, listed on ChurchMarketingSucks.com and posted on a pastor/blogger's blog. I am amazed at the statistic that says 1500 pastors leave the ministry every month. Can that be right?! Are there THAT many pastors to begin with? You can read the whole article here.
- Fifteen hundred pastors leave the ministry each month due to moral failure, spiritual burnout, or contention in their churches.
- Fifty percent of pastors' marriages will end in divorce.
- Eighty percent of pastors and eighty-four percent of their spouses feel unqualified and discouraged in their role as pastors.
- Fifty percent of pastors are so discouraged that they would leave the ministry if they could, but have no other way of making a living.
- Eighty percent of seminary and Bible school graduates who enter the ministry will leave the ministry within the first five years.
- Seventy percent of pastors constantly fight depression.
- Almost forty percent polled said they have had an extra-marital affair since beginning their ministry.
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I followed your link to the burnout article and, I too, found the numbers high. I can't help wondering, though, since he talks about seminary and Bible college graduates entering ministry and is getting his numbers, in part, from Dobson's Focus on the Family, if he isn't tapping into a whole different clergy pool than the UCC is used to. I can see the numbers being this inflated if you count all the "pastors" who get "ordained" on the internet; the ones who present themselves to small and struggling churches, saying "God has called me to be your pastor"; the ones who go out as independent pastors without a denominational support structure or a mentor; and the ones who go out with a Bible college degree and very little other theological or professional education to undergird their ministry.
I can surely see where that would cause even more stress than usual.
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