Is pastoring harder today?

There seem to a lot of churches anxious to dump their pastor this year. And an almost-equal number of pastors confess to being 'half-burned out' and are looking for a way of escape. Perhaps I'm hearing about the worst cases, but it sure looks like pastoring is tougher than it was 40 years ago. My pastor-father pretty much always expected a 'unanimous vote.' To him, a few 'no votes' meant it was time to move on. Not so today. Pastors simply expect some opposition as part of the 'cost of doing business.' What has changed? Why are church members more willing to criticize, oppose, or vote against a pastor today?

1. Loss of spiritual respect.

Thirty years ago my pastor-father's primary job was to pray, call on people, study, and preach. The pastor was considered 'godly,' and even respectfully called 'preacher' or 'Reverend.' My dad pastored the largest church is his area, but he didn't even have an office in the church—he had a 'study' at home, and that's what he did there - study. When people in town discovered that he was a minister they responded in an almost hushed respect, and often with a discount. Not so today in the post-Swaggart/Bakker era. Many ministers hide their identity now that the general respect for the profession has sunk closer top the media, congressmen, and lawyers.

But we haven't just lost this spiritual aura in the world, it's slipped away in the church too. I sometimes wonder if it is because of the change in what we actually do now. Today's busy pastor has more in common with a YMCA director or business manager than the preacher of the 1950's. Many of today's church offices hum like an insurance agency, complete with a photocopy machine, computer, office hours, and a paid secretary. The work of a pastor has changed from praying, calling, study, reading, and sermon preparation to leadership and managerial activities related to a sprawling church activities calendar. Laity increasingly see us ministers as employed 'program managers' or 'church administrators' more than 'prophets of God.' Does this make them more comfortable criticizing our productivity, or 'firing a non-producer?' Have we brought some of this on ourselves?

We ministers now swim with all the other management sharks, and sometimes pay the same price for it. Many laymen on the board are better experts than the pastor at these things, and we sometimes look bad, in spite of our decade's reading of management books. Seldom does a pastor get the boot for being a poor preacher or weak in fasting, but more often it is because he is a 'weak leader,' or 'poor administrator.' Many pastors are totally out of his or her own area of expertise. Certainly we can't turn back the clock. But has this massive change in the nature of our work, gotten us into areas where we have little or no seminary training, and eventually made us less effective at doing what we were not trained to do? Hmmmmmmmmm...

2. Increasing expectations