The Professional Ministry

Oct 20 2008

I have been a professional minister for almost ten years. I don’t know how this happened, but here I am. It is sometimes a strange realization for me.

Professional ministry in the church today is difficult. Ministers are seldom afforded sufficient time to do their jobs. The demands on ministers far exceeds the explicit expectations of the job. I find this the most frustrating part of my job: not being able to do it.

I suspect that is an unusual problem for ministers compared to other professionals. In other professions, your provide your service or skill, and you are paid for it. I know it isn’t always quite that simple. But for clergy, exactly what is expected of us varies wildly from congregation to congregation, season to season. I would say that in my experience I generally spend half my time on my stated job description, and the other half of my time on a wide variety of tasks outside of my actual job description and training.

In addition to distracting and confusing, this reality makes it difficult to know how you are being perceived and evaluated. Am I being judged by my performance of my stated duties? Or is it the plethora of “other things” that determine how I am perceived? When conflict erupts in the congregation, as it often does, it is difficult to unpack all of the competing and conflicting expectations that have given rise to the conflict.

I’ve read a few books on being a pastor. Some of them seem to suggest that clergy should be super-humans, capable of doing all their pastoral duties and also able to clean the toilets and fix the roof. At the same time, we are repeatedly encouraged and even pressured to make sure we devote enough time to “self-care.”  The conflicting messages can be maddening.

What is a pastor to do? The answer, I think, is provide leadership. Our churches are in decline in part because our laity are not acting like disciples. We have failed to create communities of passion and joy. If our laity are engaged in meaningful ministry that effects real transformation, I suspect our pastors will spend less and less time outside of their job description. That means someone has to show them the way out of the wilderness and to the promised land. It’s not an easy job. And sometimes it’s quite depressing and discouraging. At other times you get a glimpse of the kingdom.

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Comments

  • oh...and thanks a bunch for commenting. I never really think anybody reads my ramblings.
  • In the few jobs I've had outside of ministry, expectations have been much more clearly defined than in the local church. In fact, most local churches don't even have a clear sense of what the organization as a whole is supposed to be doing, let alone the pastor. I suspect that reality has contributed generously to our decline. Over and over I confront the attitude that "pastors only work on Sundays." This is expressed in numerous ways, but is rooted in a deep ignorance of what the pastor does. Ironically, it contributes to an attitude on many church committees that the pastor can do the leg work and carry out the decisions of the committee, because what else is he gonna do? The result is an even more overworked pastor.

    Certainly the "never enough time" phenomenon is a feature of contemporary culture. But I still contend that as membership has declined, as community needs and expectations have increased, as pastoral support has all but disappeared, pastors are now caught in a rather extreme example of the "never enough time" problem.
  • Professional ministry in the church today is difficult. Ministers are seldom afforded sufficient time to do their jobs. The demands on ministers far exceeds the explicit expectations of the job. I find this the most frustrating part of my job: not being able to do it.

    I suspect that is an unusual problem for ministers compared to other professionals. In other professions, your provide your service or skill, and you are paid for it. I know it isn’t always quite that simple. But for clergy, exactly what is expected of us varies wildly from congregation to congregation, season to season. I would say that in my experience I generally spend half my time on my stated job description, and the other half of my time on a wide variety of tasks outside of my actual job description and training.

    I dunno. Most professional jobs that I have held are like this. Expectations vary widely and there's never enough time. That's just working life.
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