1) SIGNIFICANT ISSUES IN PLACEMENT

Placement is the task of assisting candidates and ministries in search of the right ministry match for both the church and the candidate. Pastoral placement is a vital aspect of church life since the office of pastor is the most significant and influential position in a local church. Charles Spurgeon said that the church with an empty pulpit faces its time of greatest danger. Wesley Johnson concluded "[I]t has become evident that the effectiveness and the tenure of a pastor is directly related to the procedure of calling a pastor."1

 

2) CHURCH POLITY AND PLACEMENT

Congregational Polity

A large number of local churches operate under the “Congregational Government”

model. These churches have employed the candidating method for pastoral placement. Typically, pastorless churches form a pulpit committee to seek candidates. After a candidate has completed the steps required by the local church, he is presented to the congregation for a formal vote.

Elder-Rule Polity

A significant trend in church polity is “Elder Rule,” in which the multiplicity of elders is seen as the biblical model. In this model elders are given leadership of the church. In elder-rule churches, placement decisions are the domain of the governing elders.

Vocational staff may be chosen and placed by the elders without congregational 

endorsement or vote.

 

3) CHALLENGES AND PROBLEMS IN PLACEMENT

Survey Data from Churches, Pastors, and Placement Professionals2

• A vast over-supply of pastors for available pulpits

• Pastor/church mismatches are epidemic in proportion

• Forced terminations are a serious problem

• Placement professionals are pessimistic about placement trends

• Bible colleges and seminaries are able to successfully place only fifty percent of the

applicants seeking ministry placement

• Discouraged ministers are leaving the ministry because of placement delays

• The placement process is in need of serious modification

• There is no known theology of placement

 

4) PASTORAL TENURE

Rob Green documented the phenomenon of short pastoral tenure:

According to recent statistics, there is significant turnover of clergy within

evangelical circles. George Barna reports that clergy move every four years. Ten

years after the Barna study, Thomas Rainer, in his book Surprising Insights from the

Unchurched, concluded, “Our surveys of pastors across America indicate the

average tenure of a pastor to be 3.8 years.” Joseph Miller argues, “Most pastorates

last two to three years.” Regardless of the exact figures, it is clear that many

churches face the possibility of looking for a new pastor, and pastors look for a new

church on a fairly regular basis. Research suggests that the negative impact caused

by pastoral turnover is devastating to all parties involved. 3

 

5) DEFICIENCY IN SEARCH COMMITTEES

In a survey of 515 Independent Baptist pastors, Robert Ratzliff reported that only thirtytwo pastors said that church boards know in an unqualified sense what they are doing

and are asking the right questions.4  

 

6) PLACEMENT DELAYS

Well-qualified candidates with respectable résumés find placement delay a common experience. The imbalance between the candidate's difficulty and the church's is striking. National offices for two of the largest Independent church groups report that it takes two to four times longer for a candidate to secure placement than it takes a church to call a pastor.5

 

7. CHURCH PROBLEMS

Wesley Johnson writes, “At least fifty percent of all churches are vacant because the

pastor left under troublesome conditions.”6  Further, “Six of every ten pastors leave under some kind of stress.” 7 Forty-four percent of the pastors he surveyed reported that church trouble was the cause of their leaving.8   Sixty-six percent of pastors from the Great Lakes District of the Evangelical Free Church left because of trouble.9

 Rob Green said that Lloyd Rediger’s volume Clergy Killers marshaled evidence that many pastors leave churches because their congregations made their ministry miserable. Approximately twenty-three percent of pastors say they have been fired at least once and forty-three percent said a faction forced them out. This is made worse by the fact that “clergy killers” are small in number. They are identified by their aggressive and determined effort to injure or destroy pastors.10 Rediger iterated, “There is little concern at leadership levels for the devastation the ‘clergy-killer’ phenomenon is causing to the mission and spiritual energy of churches and pastors, and to the personal lives of pastors and their families.“11

 

8) PASTORAL QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPECTATIONS

Gerald Gillaspie, in his respected volume The Restless Pastor, stated that churches today desire their pastors to have seminary training and that laymen want their ministers to be informed about life, about the institutions, resources, and distinctive problems of community life.12 Wesley Johnson emphasized that churches expect personal integrity, personal heart, ability to preach, ability to counsel, the establishment of a successful track record, ability to love people, and spiritual maturity.13 One of the emerging needs for candidates and churches is the formal statement of a philosophy of ministry which expresses the what, why, and how of ministry. The statement should affirm orthodoxy, distinctive doctrines, contemporary theological and ecclesiastical issues, and one’s view of leadership(from Placement Handbook 2017, Shepherds Theological Seminary)