I tell you, I am so very thankful for the Baptist Press! They do a great service to the Kingdom of God!
Baptist Press
By Ken Sande, posted March 18, 2024 in Churches and Ministry
Forced pastoral exits are crippling thousands of churches every year, as these sobering statistics prove:
- 23 percent of all current pastors in the United States have been fired or forced to resign from past positions.
- The average pastoral tenure in a local church today is just 3.8 years.
- Some seminaries report that over 50 percent of their graduates drop out of ministry within five years after graduation.
- The attrition rate in the U.S. church is approximately 1 percent. This means more than 4,100 pastors are leaving the ministry prematurely every year. That’s an average of 79 pastors giving up on or being driven out of their churches every week!
- 45 percent of the pastors terminated in one denomination left the ministry altogether.
- Only 2 percent of church conflict involves doctrinal issues … 98 percent of church conflict involves interpersonal issues.
- The most common factors in forced pastoral exits include conflicting visions for the church, personality conflicts, relational incompetence, lack of church discipline, contentious individuals or power groups and burnout.
- The Rest of The Story Here
- Most Americans say religion’s influence is waning
- The rise of profanity in the pulpit
