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Original Research
doi:10.4102/ve.v34i1.821
hp://www.ve.org.za
Adversity in pastoral leadership: Are pastors leaving the
ministry in record numbers, and if so, why?
Author:
Robert Elkington1
Aliaon:
1Praccal Theology, North
West University, South Africa
Correspondence to:
Robert Elkington
Email:
roberts1@icloud.com
Postal address:
113 Lady May Drive,
L1R3M5, Whitby, Ontario
Dates:
Received: 27 Dec. 2012
Accepted: 23 May 2013
Published: 12 Aug. 2013
How to cite this arcle:
Elkington, R., 2013, ‘Adversity
in pastoral leadership: Are
pastors leaving the ministry
in record numbers, and if so,
why?’, Verbum et Ecclesia
34(1), Art. #821, 13 pages.
hp://dx.doi.org/10.4102/
ve.v34i1.821
Copyright:
© 2013. The Authors.
Licensee: AOSIS
OpenJournals. This work
is licensed under the
Creave Commons
Aribuon License.
As churches in the West grapple with the rising tide of secularism, post-modernism and
individualised spirituality, the leaders of those churches become casualties of these macro-
environmental factors. Statistics show that three pastors in North America leave the vocational
ministry every day to move into a different career path. This ongoing loss of leadership must
prove detrimental for churches, which in turn are confronting declining attendance gures,
declining income and low volunteerism from the membership. It would seem that pastoral
leadership is vital to the health and sustenance of the church, and yet churches all over North
America are losing pastoral leadership on a daily basis. This article attempts, through the
use of Osmer’s heuristic, to review why it is that pastors are leaving the ministry and what
might be done to stem that tide. A missional ontology in contrast to a Christendom ontology
together with a review of workplace adversity and the Scriptural data on suffering in the
ministry are developed for the reader as potential solutions to stem the tide.
Introducon
The 21st century is proving to be a time of intense crisis and adversity. Whether it is the economic
downturn and the global debt crisis or the tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes and disasters that
result from these cataclysmic events, such as the nuclear tragedy in Fukushima, Japan, adversity
seems to confront the modern leader at every turn. However, adversity may be a surprising factor
in developing leadership strength and leadership capacity. Adversity emerges in the literature as
a potential element, given the right conditions and factors (Pellegrini 2009), of personal growth
(Durkin & Joseph 2009) and thus also of leadership character (Berry 2007) and the development
of leadership capacity (Stoner & Gilligan 2002). Kouzes and Posner (2003:xvii) suggest that
leadership ‘creates the climate in which people turn challenging opportunities into remarkable
successes’. Brownstein (2009:159) concludes that many leaders in North America ‘have no idea
how to make good use of our adverse circumstances’. He (Brownstein 2009:163) also incisively
points out that ‘[a] leader doesn’t herd; a leader doesn’t blindly follow others in their foolishness.
A leader must have a theory through which he or she sees the world clearly’.
What type of world-view thrives in a context of adversity? What type of leadership emerges from
contexts of adversity and then thrives in situations of adversity? Wilson and Rice (2004) point out
the following:
Times of adversity often give rise to unpredictability, fear, anxiety, and loss of condence. Such
circumstances call for inspirational leadership, which gives employees the motivation, commitment, and
productivity to take advantage of the opportunities lying on the other side of what seems to be a dark
curtain of misfortune. (p. 3)
This general research article seeks to understand how adversity shapes leadership in general
leadership and pastoral leadership, in particular, utilising a literature review for leadership in
general and Osmer’s (2010) heuristic for the effect of adversity upon pastoral leadership. The rst
part of this article, the literature review, seeks to understand how adversity shapes leadership. In
order to achieve this goal, I searched Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health (CINAHL),
Elton B. Stevens Co. (EBSCO) and Journal Storage (JSTOR) within the date range 2000 to 2012,
using the following keywords: ‘adversity’, ‘leadership’ and ‘resilience’. Articles in English were
included. The second part of this article focuses on pastoral leadership and the impact of adversity
by using Osmer’s (2010) heuristic to uncover the potential causes of decimation amongst church
leadership. The articles also tries to determine what – if anything – can be done to stem the tide?
Osmer’s heuristic follows a fourfold line of inquiry, namely:
• What is going on: ‘Are pastors leaving the ministry because they face serious opposition,
difculty and adversity during their ministry career? What factors contribute to the current
exodus of pastors from vocational ministry?’
• Why is this happening: ‘What systemic pathologies lead to the endemic adversity and
consequent stress that seem to be causing so many pastors to leave the ministry in the 21st
century?’
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• What should be happening: ‘What is the Biblical view of
the pastoral role, and is intense and widespread adversity
a natural component of leadership and by extension the
pastorate?’
• What can be done: ‘How do we mitigate the current
exodus from the pastoral ministry? Are there strategies
and mechanisms that can be developed to help churches
and pastors see longevity and health within the realm of
pastoral leadership?’
The following question also arises: Why does adversity
seem to shape business and ‘secular’ leaders with seemingly
positive outcomes whilst within the ranks pastors it seems
to cause career termination and loss? What is the difference
between the way in which business and secular leaders
handle adversity and the way in which pastoral leaders
handle adversity? What causes such seemingly different
outcomes in the current global milieu of adversity, crisis and
uncertainty? This article attempts to uncover these factors
as well as trying to provide some suggestions on how the
current tide of the daily loss of pastoral leaders might be
stemmed.
Dening adversity and its role in
shaping leadership capacity
Adversity can be dened (Jackson, Firtko & Edenborough
2007) as ‘the state of hardship or suffering associated with
misfortune, trauma, distress, difculty or a tragic event’.
Stoner and Gilligan (2002) distinguish adversity from crisis
based on the risk of survival. For Stoner and Gilligan,
adversity comprises the following three elements:
• Adversities are unexpected.
• Adversities are disruptive, twisting and thwarting the
expected patterns of planned action.
• Adversity has a level of uncertainty and ambiguity
surrounding it. The path through it is often not
immediately clear.
Jackson and Daly (2011) dene adversity as it relates to
the domain of leadership within the nursing profession in
Australia as follows:
Workplace adversity has been conceptualized in nursing
as the cluster of negative, stressful, traumatic or difcult
situations or hardships stemming from working conditions,
the work environment and the daily challenges encountered
in an occupational setting. It is often associated with excessive
workloads, lack of autonomy, bullying and violence, and
organizational issues such as restructuring. (p. 21)
They (Jackson & Daly 2011:22) then expand on this denition
with a plethora of challenges that nurse leaders face in their
daily regimen and conclude that ‘ … personal resilience is
an essential characteristic, necessary for nurse leaders to
effectively manage the many, often unremitting, and highly
complex demands placed on them.’
In his Asa Yancey lecture, Pellegrini (2009) gives us an
example that illustrates this denition of adversity and how
it shapes leadership capacity when he states: ‘I believe that
we build strength when we face the barriers that are put in
our path.’ He then goes on to recount his youth in Argentina
and the severe moral crisis that corrupt leadership brought
about as well as his attempts to change the environment and
the difculties that caused him to leave Argentina to seek
a new life in the USA (Pellegrini 2009:143). Pellegrini then
outlines his desire to become a surgeon and the difculty he
faced because even though he applied to every conceivable
program, no one even offered him the possibility for an
interview. Pellegrini (2009) shares that he felt:
shameful and down every time I received another thin letter with
just a few lines of apology for not offering me an interview, but
I went on and eventually I was offered a preliminary position at
the University of Chicago in their internship program. (p. 143)
Pellegrini also describes how, in the early years in Chicago,
he felt like he had lost his anchor (his modes of being,
language, food, music, way of living), and so he was adrift,
and this drift was the root of his adversity. Pellegrini’s
experience of adversity ts all three of the criteria listed in
Stoner and Gilligan’s denition. What is key for Pellegrini is
that he had a keen self-awareness as reected in his personal
engagement and the way in which he perceived the reality
of his circumstance. He understood his circumstances as
a situation of adversity in which he needed to develop
a paradigm to address that adversity. Pellegrini’s (2009)
paradigm is a stroke of genius, and it is reected in his eight
rules represented in summary form in Table 1.
It is clear that Pellegrini faced adversity and that this
adversity rened his leadership capacity. Pellegrini reframed
his experience of adversity into a learning event that enabled
him to acquire, through reection on a specic period of
adversity in his life, a world-view or mental framework that
serves as a paradigm for each new situation of adversity
he faces in his leadership role as a surgeon. This paradigm,
forged by adversity, is so clear and useful to Pellegrini
that he felt compelled to share it with a larger audience of
professional colleagues in his Asa Yancey lecture.
However, it is not just people in adulthood who develop
leadership capacity through adversity. Teenagers facing
adversity can also develop leadership traits as (Shepherd,
Reynolds & Moran 2010:273–290) point out in their study.
They (Shepherd et al. 2010) aimed at exploring:
… the psychological journey from adversity to resilience,
starting with participants’ memories of an adverse event
(or set of events) in adolescence, and then the processes that
constituted their recovery. Resilient adolescents who have
coped with adversities such as foster care or early motherhood
Page 2 of 13
TABLE 1: Pellegrini’s eight rules.
Strategy Descripon
1. Get an anchor Decide what gives meaning to your life
2. Set your goal Aim high, follow the direcon (of loy goals)
3. Get a mentor Do not wait for someone to come to you
4. Knock at the door Seek opportunity
5. Take some risks Do something with passion, defy the odds
6. Believe in yourself Every person is unique, make a dierence
7. Enjoy the process Success is not a desnaon
8. Keep a balance Put important things rst
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typically present personal strengths including problem-focused
coping skills, internal locus of control, self efcacy, and positive
ambitions ... (p. 274)
Lee et al. (2009) present an extensive study on resilience in
children in the face of adversity with special reference to
the ecological or environmental and cultural factors that
inuence how people, and by extension their children,
approach adversities in life. They go on to state (Lee et al.
2009):
It was found that positive cultural beliefs about adversity was
associated with a higher level of positive mental health, better
school adjustment, and less problem behaviors, even more so for
adolescents facing adversity (such as economic disadvantage).
(p. 440)
The conclusion that Lee et al. (2009:451) draw from their
extensive research with three waves of data collected from
a sample of 843 Grade–4 pupils is that children exhibit a
higher level of resilience in the face of adversity when they
experience a better quality of family life. This conclusion is
reached after the researchers (Lee et al. 2009) point out that:
… even large scale programmatic effort will not be sufcient
to raise a generation of young people who are optimistic about
their future … Indeed, family is considered the most important
source of social capital. (p. 450)
For the purposes of this literature review, what is key in
this study is that, in the course of their research, Lee et al.
(2009:450) highlight the notion that adversity can be a useful
element in developing the kind of character in children that
would be useful in leadership settings. They state (Lee et al.
2009):
… what constitutes the outcome of resilience has evolved from a
focus on a reduction of negative outcome to a focus on positive
development, such as psychological well-being and a positive
outlook–and this overlaps with the concept of quality of life
(QOL). (p. 450)
Dening ‘adversity’ leadership
The concept of leadership is a contested one, but four broad
categories (Bolden & Kirk 2009:70–71) of theory can be
identied, namely:
• essentialist, which sees leadership as something done by
leaders to followers
• relational, which sees leadership not as innate but as
residing in the leader’s relationship with others
• critical, which sees leadership in a negative light as
something used to maintain status relationships and
legitimise the unequal distribution of power and
resources
• constructionist, which sees leadership as a process of
constructing shared meanings that enable people to make
sense of their predicament.
Reecting on Bolden and Kirk’s research (2009:69–86), it
seems useful to dene leadership as an art and a skill in which
a person or persons collaborate to construct shared meaning
with a view to securing helpful outcomes. Adversity often
poses a threat to the accomplishment of those outcomes
and thus calls for certain types or styles (Kerfoot 2003:232)
of leadership in response to the threat. Kerfoot (2003) states:
‘Leaders help us transcend life’s adversity by bringing us
together in new self-organised ways that create a sense of
belonging and caring among us.’ Leadership in the face of
adversity must thus take on an inspirational tone (Kerfoot
2003):
… because we create the cultures in which people’s spirits can
grow, or die, in adversity as well as in good times. Those who
can keep the spirit of the organization alive in times of great
adversity are the truly great leaders of our time. (p. 233)
Building on this idea that great leaders are those who keep
the spirit of an organisation alive in times of great adversity,
Wilson and Rice (2004) state:
But steering an organization skillfully through adverse
conditions doesn’t just happen. Handling the intangibles—
instituting more efcient processes, developing a strategic plan,
tightening spending, diversifying the customer base, and so
on—is in many ways the easy part. The trickier part is mastering
the intangibles involved in practicing a model of leadership
that is often qualitatively different from and runs counter to
the theories of leadership prevalent in modern organizations
and in society as a whole. This model is inspirational leadership-
displaying the skills that enable leaders to motivate, grow, and
build condence in the people they lead so the organization can
regularly achieve high standards of performance, even in tough
times. (p. 4)
The idea that leadership in the face of adversity must be
inspirational is attested to on many fronts. For example,
Nancy Adler, in her 2009 Duke University lecture ‘Inspiring
leaders of the future’, speaks extensively about the role of
inspirational leadership in shaping history, especially in the
face of adversity. For Adler (2009), leadership is courage, and
she denes this as the:
… courage to see reality the way it actually is. It is the courage
to see possibility even when others cannot see this possibility
and label you as completely naïve and stupid for suggesting
that there is possibility when others see none. It is the courage
to inspire people to move from reality back to the type of
opportunity and possibility we would really like to live in. (n.p.)
Adler attributes the roots of her courage to her mother and
her mother’s stories of intense adversity during her childhood
in Vienna as a Jew during World War II and the inspirational
way in which her mother, as a 14-year-old teenager, had
survived and thrived in this context of adversity.
Wilson and Rice (2004:4) see adversity in an organisation as
a great opportunity from which the organisation can emerge
stronger, revitalised and more resilient, mature, focused
and disciplined. Ferrer (2009:21) asserts the same optimistic
perspective on the opportunity that adversity holds within
the context of academic heads of colleges and universities
within the Philippines. Wilson and Rice (2004) point out that,
to achieve positive outcomes in the face of adversity, requires
inspirational leadership:
… displaying the skills that enable leaders to motivate, grow, and
build condence in the people they lead so the organization can
regularly achieve high standards of performance, even in tough
times. As people in organizations experience higher than usual
levels of stress, new demands are made on their leaders. (p. 4)
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Wilson and Rice (2004:4–5) point out that inspirational
leadership surfaces naturally during times of uncertainty and
complexity (adversity) and state: ‘Inspirational leadership
can breathe the capacity for responding to adversity into the
heart and soul of an organization, and this capacity becomes
part of the organization’s culture.’ They list the following
characteristics and capabilities as endemic to inspirational
leadership in the face of adversity (Wilson & Rice 2004):
• Strategic orientation and vision. In adversity, leaders require
impressive mental, social, physical and spiritual intelligence.
These are leaders who can see beyond the horizon and who
are willing to take calculated risks. They are also the kinds of
leaders who are naturally compelling.
• Strong awareness of perspectives and behaviour. As people
in organisations look for cues on how to deal with misfortune
and distress, they turn to their leaders’ words and actions for
inspiration and for an example they can follow.
• Sense-making communications. People operating in adverse
conditions want to believe that they can negotiate their way
forward and past the unfortunate events or circumstances in
a sensible way. They want to know the goals the organisation
will pursue and why those goals have been chosen.
• Competence-building communication. Leaders can support
their followers by taking an interest in developing them,
helping them reach their full potential and making them feel
important and valued. (p. 4)
Workplace adversity and personal
resiliency in professional leadership
Personal resilience refers (Shepherd et al. 2010:273) ‘to a
process of dynamic adaptation to adversity – the active
process of coping, reframing experience, and even thriving
after trauma and loss’. Personal resilience does not describe a
nalised state or trait since no one can be classied as resilient
in a static and permanent way. Kerfoot (2003) writes in the
context after September 11, 2001: ‘Extreme states of adversity
often create a blur as we try to lead through the confusion
of the event.’ It seems that leadership within contexts of
workplace adversity is extremely complex because there
is often so much uncertainty in a world of such rapid and
massive global change (Levenson 2002:165–176). Kerfoot
(2003:233) goes on to point out that leading through times
of great adversity is a new challenge in which the leadership
styles of yesterday will not t in this new chapter because the
world is changing so rapidly. Kerfoot suggests that the true
test of leadership is what happens when uncontrollable fate
turns the world upside down and the leader must, somehow,
move forward. Kerfoot suggests that adversity renes and
reveals true leadership character and that a leader’s capacity
is developed if that leader can reframe situations of adversity
as a learning experience. Jackson et al. (2007) review the
effects of adversity in the nursing profession in Australia
whilst Brownstein (2009) looks at the impact of the economic
downturn on business leaders in America. Pellegrini
(2009) reviews circumstances of personal adversity in both
Argentina and the USA and how personal adversity better
prepared him for life as a surgeon and as a leader within his
profession in the USA. Farmer and Ofcer (2010) discuss the
impact of adversity upon educational leaders and possible
mechanisms to address such adversity. In this section, we
review the dynamic interplay between workplace adversity
and personal resiliency with a view to understanding the
innate capacity to respond to adversity and learned capacity
to respond to adversity.
Stoner and Gilligan (2002:17–24) focus on the interplay of
workplace adversity and personal adversity when they point
out that ‘adversity has a unique impact on leaders’. Stoner
and Gilligan unpack the personal narrative of leaders passing
through adversity by detailing the three stages of growth
that leaders experience when facing workplace adversity that
cause personal distress. Stoner and Gilligan (2002) surface
the notion that:
… successful leaders followed a surprisingly consistent path
when confronted with the disruption of adversity. Three stages
of response or rebound emerged: disillusionment, reection and
transformation. Each stage appeared to be an essential step in the
overall process of constructive adjustment. (p. 17)
Stoner and Gilligan (2002:23) conclude their article by stating:
‘All of us face adversity and crisis. None of us are exempt.
Rebound leaders make a series of conscious decisions that
facilitate their movement through adversity.’
Jackson et al. (2007) review a vast body of literature related to
workplace adversity within the nursing profession. Their goal
in the literature review is to identify strategies that enhance
personal resilience in nurses. Jackson et al. (2007:1) identify
workplace adversity associated in nursing with ‘excessive
workloads, lack of autonomy, bullying and violence and
organisational issues such as restructuring …’ Jackson et al.
(2007:1) go on to state: ‘However, despite these difculties
many nurses choose to remain in nursing, and survive and
even thrive despite a climate of workplace adversity.’ Jackson
et al. (2007:4) propose that nurse educators better prepare
nurses for the ongoing and sustained adversity related to
their work by utilising the model developed by the Human
Becoming School of Thought (HBST) in which the nurses
are able to develop strategies of reective learning and
reexive practice. Added to this notion of learned resilience
through the understanding of the HBST is the fact that they
(Jackson et al. 2007:5) also point out that ‘the personality trait
of hardiness helps to buffer or neutralise stressful events or
extreme adversity’. They then cite, from the literature, that
resilience can be learned and present the following three
dimensions of resilience:
• being committed to nding meaningful purpose in life
• the belief that one can inuence one’s surroundings and
the outcome of events
• the belief that one can learn and grow from both positive
and negative life experiences.
Another aspect (Jackson et al. 2007:5) of hardiness that is more
an innate personality trait than a learned behaviour is that
of optimism or positive emotions. These positive emotions
or the sense of optimism serves to broaden a person’s initial
thought-action inventory, which increases thoughts and
possible actions that come to mind, which in turn builds
long-term personal resilience. As a result of these ndings,
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Jackson et al. (2007:6) propose the following self-development
strategies for nurses that can help build personal resilience to
workplace adversity:
• build positive nurturing professional relationships and
networks
• maintain positivity
• develop emotional insight
• achieve life balance and spirituality
• become more reective.
Jackson et al. (2007:6–7) expand the discussion of each of these
elements in the rest of their article and conclude by stating:
We believe that it is not only possible but favourable to build
resilience as a strategy for assisting nurses to survive and thrive.
Nurses’ occupational setting will always contain elements
of stressful, traumatic or difcult situations, and episodes of
hardship. Therefore, combatting these adverse effects through
minimizing vulnerability and promoting resilience has the
potential to impact positively on nurses’ daily experiences. (p. 7)
Jackson and Daly (2011:21–22) update this study with an
incisive article in which they point out the following:
Today’s nurse leaders are facing challenges and levels of
accountability perhaps not contemplated by previous generations
of nurses. Nurse leaders are sometimes seen as being all things to
all people, and Hewison highlights this in posing the question,
‘Do we expect too much of our leaders?’ (p. 21)
Jackson and Daly (2011:21) also highlight the fact that,
although the pressures and difculties on nursing leaders are
real and legion, there is a relatively scant body of literature,
and the literature that does exist focuses more on the positive
aspects of leadership than on dealing with the difculties
and complexities that can take their toll on even the most
committed leaders.
Farmer (2010:1), in a paper presented at the annual meeting
of the Georgia Educational Research Association called
‘Resilience development strategies for educational leaders’.
In his article, Farmer (2010:1) lists the circumstances of
adversity that educational leaders in the USA currently face:
• increasing costs
• at or decreasing revenue streams
• decreasing fund balances
• unfunded mandates
• increasing accountability
• decreasing autonomy
• continued demise of the nuclear family
• increased poverty
• changing demographics
• high school board turnover
• teacher morale issues
• recruitment and retention issues
• aging facilities
• tax payer revolt.
He then goes on to say (Farmer 2010:1): ‘It is easy to see how
school leaders could allow themselves to become consumed
by adversity.’ Whilst adversity can be helpful in developing
leadership capacity, especially if one applies the matrix
developed by Pellegrini (2009) or Jackson et al. (2007:5),
Farmer (2010:2) suggests healthy coping mechanisms such as
a balanced exercise program and a healthy diet as opposed
to unhealthy coping mechanisms such as overeating, alcohol
or drug abuse or negative attitudes that can lead to negative
outcomes. Just like Pellegrini (2009) and Jackson et al. (2007:5),
Farmer presents a positive mental outlook as a powerful
coping mechanism when facing adversity. Farmer (2010:2)
also points out that ‘[a] positive attitude during difcult times
can also simultaneously promote personal health and serve
as a professional example to both colleagues and educational
stakeholders alike’.
Farmer (2010:4), much like Pellegrini (2009) and Jackson et al.
(2007:5), present a list of healthy coping mechanisms that can
increase educational leaders’ chances of both overcoming
adversity and promoting personal health as follows:
• a routine of exercise and healthy diet
• a positive life view
• a sustained focus on building bridges between
stakeholders
• spiritual renewal
• a focus on one’s personal mission
• a determination to model resilience
• utilisation of supportive professional networks.
Farmer (2010) concludes by stating the following:
The incorporation of healthy coping mechanisms into a
balanced lifestyle can lead to both positive health benets and
more effective leadership. By utilizing these healthy coping
mechanisms as part of their daily life, school leaders are more
likely to overcome adversity and accomplish organizational
objectives. School leaders employing these healthy coping
mechanisms have an increased likelihood of mental, physical
and social vigor. Through the effective use of healthy coping
mechanisms, school leaders develop resilience skills and increase
their capacity to overcome adversity. (p. 4)
Adversity as a useful element in
developing leadership capacity
Most people see adversity as an unwelcome intrusion into
the rhythms of life. Adversity is certainly unwelcome because
it is often disruptive, and yet it seems that the literature,
which covers a wide range of professional and personal
experience, highlights that adversity has a rening (Stoner &
Gilligan 2002:17) and strengthening (Galli & Vealey 2008:318)
capacity within the lives of those who become leaders or
those who serve as leaders. Building upon Brownstein’s
(2009:163) notion that ‘A leader doesn’t herd; a leader doesn’t
blindly follow others in their foolishness. A leader must have
a theory through which he or she sees the world clearly’, it
seems absolutely essential that part of a leaders worldview
(Wilson & Rice 2004:4) must include an acknowledgement
that adversity is unavoidable and that strategies (Farmer &
Ofcer 2010; Jackson et al. 2007:5; Jackson & Daly 2011:21–22;
Pellegrini 2009) to deal with adversity on both a personal and
professional level are thus vital.
Strategies for dealing with adversity are listed throughout
this article and occur as both intrinsic and extrinsic strategies
to deal with the adversity. Intrinsic strategies encompass
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worldview, attitude and spirituality whilst extrinsic
strategies refer to external supports to be garnered in the
face of adversity. These intrinsic and extrinsic strategies are
grouped in Table 2.
This table highlights the importance of internal (mental)
strategies for developing resilience and leadership capacity
in the face of adversity. The extrinsic strategies are also
extremely useful, and they possibly buttress and strengthen
the intrinsic mental foci essential to strengthening leadership
in the face of adversity. It seems that, whether from an early
age Lee et al. (2009), in adolescence (Shepherd et al. 2010:273–
290) or in adulthood (Farmer & Ofcer 2010; Jackson et al.
2007:5; Jackson & Daly 2011:21–22; Pellegrini 2009), adversity
can be a factor in shaping leadership character and capacity.
This is true because, if effective leadership is the ability to
construct shared meaning (Kerfoot 2003:233) and to inspire
action in difcult and adverse situations, the leader will
rst have learned this process of rening and applying
effective intrinsic and extrinsic strategies in situations of
personal adversity before applying those same strategies to
situations of workplace adversity that require effective and
inspirational leadership (Wilson & Rice 2004:3). Adversity
presents a threat that leads either to surrender and despair
or to an opportunity to grow through resilient endurance and
optimism as evidenced (Table 1) in the various paradigms
developed for thriving in the face of adversity.
It seems that there is a strong connection (Stoner & Gilligan
2002:18) between success and adversity since there is no
realisation of success if there is nothing to overcome. Stoner
and Gilligan (2002:18) refer to this as the ‘paradox of success:
the meaning and value of success are heightened as adverse
events build, intensify and are handled’.
Galli and Vealey (2008:324) provide a diagram of the process
of sport resilience in which an athlete moves from adversity to
positive outcomes. This diagram mirrors the material gleaned
in this literature review that suggests that effective leadership
rst masters personal adversity, whether in childhood
through the support of a strong family system, in adolescence
through effective coping mechanisms or in adulthood. The
diagram is inserted as Figure 1.
As outlined in the literature (Stoner & Gilligan 2002), leaders
who succeed in the face of adversity undergo the same process
of movement from adversity through agitation to strength,
learning, perspective and improvement coupled with a
desire to help others. Often such a movement to success is
possible because of the predisposing factors, as represented
in Figure 1, in the life of the leader such as ‘inuences’ (Lee
et al. 2009:450) and ‘personal resources’ (Pellegrini 2009:144).
The question of whether or not leaders can develop these
‘inuences’ and ‘resources’ if they have not been cultivated
through childhood and adolescent experiences is something
Jackson et al. (2007) wrestle with for nursing leaders who
face increasing adversity in the workplace. As Farmer and
Ofcer (2010) highlight, wrong responses to adversity are
also possible and manifest themselves in ‘unhealthy coping
mechanisms that are counterproductive both personally and
professionally’.
Adversity and its impact upon
pastoral leadership in the 21st century
Statistics inform us (Sherman 2012) that three pastors leave
the church ministry in North America every day. This gure
TABLE 2: Strategies to deal with adversity.
Intrinsic strategies Extrinsic strategies
Get an anchor or dene and rene your value system to give clarity to your understanding
of life’s meaning. Keep your focus on your personal mission (Farmer 2010; Pellegrini 2009).
Get a mentor (Pellegrini 2009).
Set goals and have a ‘forward looking’ mentality driven by a desire to achieve those goals
(Pellegrini 2009; Galli & Vealey 2008).
Knock at the door – seek opportunies (Pellegrini 2009).
Take some risks (Pellegrini 2009). Build bridges between stakeholders (Farmer 2010).
Believe in yourself and work to sustain a posive life view (Farmer 2010; Pellegrini 2009;
Galli & Vealli 2008; Jackson et al. 2007).
Ulize supporve professional networks (Farmer 2010; Jackson et al. 2007).
Enjoy the process (Pellegrini 2009) by regulang negave emoons and building posive
emoons (Jackson et al. 2007).
Keep a balance and have a roune of exercise and a healthy diet (Farmer 2010;
Pellegrini 2009).
Determine to model resilience in the face of adversity (Farmer 2010). -
Develop a roune of spiritual renewal (Farmer 2010; Jackson et al. 2007). -
Find ways to enjoy good humour and laughter. (Jackson et al. 2007). -
Note: Please see the full reference list of the arcle, Elkington, R., 2013, ‘Adversity in pastoral leadership: Are pastors leaving the ministry in record numbers, and if so, why?’, Verbum et Ecclesia
34(1), Art. #821, 13 pages. hp://dx.doi.org/10.4102/ve.v34i1.821, for more informaon.
Source: Galli, N. & Vealey, R.S., 2008, ‘“Bouncing back” from adversity: Athletes’ experiences
of resilience’, The Sport Psychologist 22, 324
FIGURE 1: The movement from adversity to posive outcomes.
Agitaon
Adversity
• Strength
• Learning
• Movaon to
help others
• Realisaon of
support
• Perspecve
• Improvement
Unpleasant
emoons
Sociocultural
inuences
Social support
cultural/
Structural factors
Quesoning
mental
struggles
Personal
resources
Achievement
Movaonal
Personality
Characteriscs
Love of sport
Behavioural
coping
strategies
Cognive
coping
strategies
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Page 7 of 13
is startling and represents a major shift in just two decades
since Richard Brown (1993) wrote his book Restoring the vow
of stability: The keys to pastoral longevity. In Brown’s book,
the concern was with pastors who moved around between
churches after a short tenure. Now, in the 21st century,
pastors are not moving from church to church. It seems
that they are just moving right out of the church altogether.
The eminent management researcher, Peter Drucker, stated
(Malphurs 2003:63) that the pastoral leadership of a large
church is one of the most difcult vocations in the world.
This article attempts, through the use of Osmer’s (2010)
heuristic, to uncover the potential causes of decimation
amongst church leadership and what – if anything – can be
done to stem the tide. In utilising Osmer’s (2010:3) heuristic,
we follow a fourfold line of inquiry, namely:
• What is going on: ‘Are pastors leaving the ministry because
they face serious opposition, difculty and adversity
during their ministry career? What factors contribute to
the current exodus of pastors from vocational ministry?’
• Why is this happening: ‘What systemic pathologies lead
to the endemic adversity and consequent stress that seem
to be causing so many pastors to leave the ministry in the
21st century?’
• What should be happening: ‘What is the Biblical view of
the pastoral role, and is intense and widespread adversity
a natural component of leadership and by extension the
pastorate?’
• What can be done: ‘How do we mitigate the current
exodus from the pastoral ministry? Are there strategies
and mechanisms that can be developed to help churches
and pastors see longevity and health within the realm of
pastoral leadership?’
It seems as though something disturbing might be happening
within the leadership of North American churches. It is
believed that most people who enter the vocational ministry
do so because they believe that it is a call from God, and they
want to be obedient to that call. Often though, after years of
ministry training in a Bible College, University or Seminary,
at great personal and nancial cost, they enter some form of
vocational ministry with an eagerness to change the world
and to build God’s church, only to nd that things may not
be as they rst anticipated or envisaged. What is happening
in North American church life to give birth to the alarming
loss of three pastors from the vocational ministry every
single day? What factors lead to such an exodus and is there
any way to stem what seems to be an emerging tide?
What is going on: Are pastors
leaving the ministry?
Statistics (Krejcir 2011) indicate that three pastors leave the
ministry in North America every day, and signicant numbers
experience ministry burnout (Chandler 2009:273–287) due to
inordinate ministry demands. The literature suggests that
this attrition in pastoral leadership is a global phenomenon,
occurring in countries such as Australia (Miner, Downer &
Sterland 2010:167–188), Korea (Shinwan 2006:241–255), and
the United Kingdom (Lewis, Turton & Francis 2007:1–8), to
name but a few. It is clear that the modern church ministry
is exacting a heavy toll upon pastoral leadership. This author
conducted a brief on-line survey amongst 51 pastors who
have served, or are currently serving, in pastoral ministry in
countries such as Canada, Netherlands, France, Germany,
Norway, South Africa, United Kingdom and the USA. The
feedback from this survey was as follows:
• 98% had served in pastoral ministry for four years or
longer
• 75% stated that they had faced serious difculty in the
ministry
• 75% stated that they had also faced intense opposition in
the ministry
• 67% stated that they had faced exhaustion and sadness in
their ministry tenure
• 52% stated that they had faced hardship in the ministry
• 48% had faced loneliness in the course of their ministry
career
• 44% faced serious doubt at some time in their ministry
career
• 35% had dealt with feelings of fear whilst in their ministry
career.
Whilst each aspect of adversity listed above could be
developed further, the key impression that arises from this
broad survey of ministry practitioners is that difculty and
opposition together with exhaustion and sadness are major
factors within the ministry prole of more than 65% of
these pastors. These gures indicate that serious opposition,
hardship and difculty, coupled with loneliness, exhaustion
and sadness, form a major part of the pastoral career prole.
Both the literature and the statistics cited above indicate that
pastors are under duress, and it seems that many of them
are vacating the pastoral ministry as a way to alleviate that
stress. Some of the pastors surveyed stated that adversity
in the ministry is to be expected, a notion that is discussed
further in the: ‘What should be happening’, section of this
article.
Within the narrative section of the on-line survey, pastors
were asked: ‘Please share any further comments you have
about adversity and difculty in pastoral ministry.’ Their
responses were thoughtful and enlightening. One pastor
stated:
‘There are two main sources of adversity: the world and the
visible church. Acts 20:28. The ruling paradigm for ministry
simply does not work in a chaotic and post Christian world,
where very possibly most of your enemies are sitting in the pew.’
(Participant 34, male, pastor, 50–59 years of age)
Another pastor had this to say:
‘Our culture’s accepted metrics of success in church ministry,
and the cult of personality and of the pastor, over against the
biblical understanding of the church, not the pastor, as the locus
for the dwelling of the Spirit, sets up pastors and prepares us to
fall. We need a far more collegial model of church ministry, both
pastorally and within our local churches.’ (Participant 32, male,
lead pastor, 40–49 years of age)
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Page 8 of 13
Is there some systemic way in which the modern church is
structured that may undermine the health and vitality of
pastoral leadership within the local church? Both pastors
quoted above are keenly aware of the post-Christendom
(Frost 2006) nature of the church in the context of the 21st
century in Western countries. Many Evangelical churches
across North America need to adapt (Stetzer & Putman
2006:7–28) to a missional ontology. That is to say, the
church needs to see herself (Stetzer & Putman 2006:21–58)
as a missionary community, sent by God, to reach the
surrounding community with the Gospel message. Such a
shift to a missional mindset, in a post-Christendom milieu,
is essential for the effective proclamation of the Gospel (Frost
2006:28–49; Guder 1998:6; White 2006:vii–17). The reality
and pressure of a post-Christendom context for the North
American church has been a welcome catalyst in moving
practitioners and thinkers to reect on their current praxis
with a view to re-shaping both their ecclesiology and their
praxis (Braaten 2008:143–151; Guder 1998:6–17; Suderman
2005:1–51). The eminent Lutheran theologian, Braaten (2008),
has developed an excellent treatise on the conuent forces
that have led to the post-Christendom reality and the need
for the North American church to shift from a Christendom
to a missional focus. This leads us to the second aspect of
Osmer’s (2010:3) heuristic, namely, ‘Why is this happening?’
What systemic pathologies exist that cause such endemic
stress within the pastoral ministry in the 21st century?
Why is this happening: ‘Are there
systemic pathologies within church
life in the West in the 21st century
that cause stress within pastoral
ministry?’
This brief review of some of the literature around workplace
adversity highlights the notion that pastors in Western
society are not unique in facing adversity related to their
leadership role. What may be different is the rate at which
pastors leave the ministry when confronted by sustained
and intense adversity. This may have something to do with
the expectations (Miner 2007:14) that pastors have upon
entering the ministry, expectations that the parishioners
will love them, work harmoniously with them and that the
church is a safe and peaceful place to full one’s calling?
Most pastors entering the ministry may be vastly unaware
of the leadership challenges before them and the adversity
they will face. Indeed, when approaching the question of
systemic pathologies within modern church life that may be
impeding effective and sustainable pastoral ministry, it may
be helpful to think of the local church as a complex adaptive
system (Ebright 2010). Complex adaptive systems are
‘diverse living elements made up of multiple interconnected
agents that have the capacity to change and learn from
experience’ (VanderKaay 2010). From this denition, it is
evident that complexity refers to the concept of many diverse
yet interconnected living elements. It is evident when one
reviews the biblical description of the church as a ‘body’ in
1 Corinthians 12, namely that the church is made up of many
different and distinctive (1 Cor 12:12–31) yet interconnected
living elements or ‘members’, and so by its very nature, the
church might readily be termed ‘complex’. Thomas Oden
(2006b) refers to the nature of the church’s complexity when
he states:
Christianity has never been merely a matter of isolated
individuals being converted and voluntarily joining together
to constitute autonomous, voluntary organizations of believers.
Rather the body of Christ is called out by Divine address, from
the world from the outset as a corporate, social reality. There
can be no absolute individualism in the body of Christ. The
church is from the outset dened as a single living organism,
an interdependent body with every member depending on the
community of faith made alive by the Son through the Spirit
(1 John 1:1–7). (p. 280)
Grudem (2000:951–961) points out that the organising
principle of the complex body of Christ is that it is comprised
of a community of believers who have come together
around a common commitment to the lordship of Christ
and their willingness to follow him in discipleship. To full
this commitment to Christ and live out their discipleship
call, each local church (Erickson 2007:1042) gathers for the
purposes of fellowship, prayer, worship, encouragement,
evangelism, discipline, service, baptism, Holy Communion
or the Lord’s Table and teaching (Erickson 2007:1060–1078;
Oden 2006:287–365). By its very nature, every person who
is a part of a local church has a role (Eph 4:11–13; 1 Pt 2:9)
or function (Grenz 2000:486–510) within that local church,
as people exercise the Spiritual gift, or gifts, that have
been given to them by the Holy Spirit. It is because of this
organismic (Oden 2006:281) nature of the church and the
corresponding multifarious diversity within the unity of the
Spirit, subsumed in the Lordship of Christ, that the church
can be said to be a ‘complex system’.
Having established that the church is a ‘complex’ system, we
need to consider the notion of the church as an ‘adaptive’
system. By ‘adaptive’ system, we refer to the idea that, both
within the church and then also outside of the church, there
are many different agents acting (Nikolic 2010) and reacting
(Senge 2006:73–91). This notion of agency as an aspect of
the adaptive nature of systems is extremely helpful when
thinking through adversity and the pastorate because it alerts
the reader to the fact that the churches in the West, and indeed
anywhere in the world, are not static, inanimate entities.
Churches all over the world are complex living organisms
that are affected by the actions of agents both within (pastors,
deacons, elders, members, visitors, etc.) and outside (regional
laws, culture, economic realities, family breakdown, etc.) of
the church. The linear (Kaiser 2006:46–47; Kaufman 2008),
mechanistic (Borden 2003; Malphurs 2004) success model
(Rima 2002) of the church-growth methodology may not
always acknowledge the powerful impact of internal and
external agents that act as stressors upon the leadership
of churches and that also impede any sense of success as
dened by the Church growth model. The added debilitation
of these models is that they create unrealistic expectations in
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Page 9 of 13
the mind of the pastor(s) who review this more simplistic and
linear model as the authoritative denition of church life and
church growth. Understanding the church as an adaptive
system alerts us to the need for a keen awareness of and
research into the multiplicity of internal (Brunson & Caner
2005; Richardson 1996) and external (Carson 2008; Wells
2005) realities that impact the systemic health and vitality
of local churches and the way in which endemic pathologies
impact pastoral staff in ways that can create intense adversity.
The church is adaptive and this means that it is continually
changing as it is acted upon both internally and externally.
The church is constantly undergoing movement towards
either health or increasing strength, or it is moving towards
disease and stagnation (Philips 2001:31–77).
We have identied that the church is both a ‘complex’
system, and it is an ‘adaptive’ system. We must now answer
the question: ‘Is it accurate to identify the church as a
system?’ Capra (1996) denes living systems in a way that is
reminiscent of the church as a living body or organism when
he states:
Living systems are integrated wholes whose properties
cannot be reduced to those of smaller parts. Their essential or
‘systemic’, properties are properties of the whole, which none
of the parts have. They arise from the organizing relations of the
parts, i.e. from a conguration of ordered relationships that is
characteristic of that particular class of organisms, or systems.
Systemic properties are destroyed when a system is dissected
into isolated elements. (p. 36)
The church is a system because it is comprised of many
interdependent parts or ‘members’ (1 Cor 10–12) as the
Bible refers to them. These ‘members’ exert inuence upon
each other that results either in health (Eph 4:29–32; Phlp
4:1–3; Col 3–4) or conversely and unfortunately in un-health
(Tt 1:10–11; Ja 4; 2 Pt 2; 3 Jn 9–11; Jude 3–16), dependent upon
the nature and purpose of their mutual interactions. As Lars
Skyttner (2005) points out:
A system is a set of interacting units or elements that form an
integrated whole intended to perform some function. Reduced
to everyday language we can express it as any structure that
exhibits order, pattern and purpose. This in turn implies some
constancy over time. A system’s purpose is the reason for its
existence and the starting point for measuring its success. ‘The
purpose of a system is what it does. (p. 57)
Pastors who lead the church will nd it helpful to gain a
stronger awareness of the nature of the church as a complex
adaptive system. Such awareness will equip the pastor to look
beyond the microcosmic forces that are creating adversity to
the much larger macrocosmic realities that intersect, interact
and, indeed, shape the various people and families who
make up the church. The pastor will also realise that simply
maintaining the church to keep the peace is not an option
since a system functions best when it is accomplishing the
purpose it was designed to accomplish. All that the church
does should accomplish the missional purpose of ‘bringing
many sons [and daughters] to glory’ (Heb 2:5–10). If the goal of
the church is to serve as God’s light in the world, sent into the
world by the risen Saviour, perhaps it is essential to change
the measurement of success and hence redene the purpose
of the church. If the measurement of success becomes
the degree to which the church is serving as a missional
community that seeks to make disciples and to shine as light
in the darkness, and not the degree to which it attracts large
crowds, the expectations upon the leadership of the church
and especially the pastors will also change dramatically. This
may then lead to a greater sense of satisfaction and health on
the part of all of the members who form the church body. If
life transformation and spiritual formation through a process
of effective biblical discipleship becomes the goal, the size of
the church and even the ‘happiness’ of the members is no
longer the measurement of effectiveness. If the goal of the
church is not so much to be ‘big’ as it is to be ‘missional’ and by
implication ‘disciple-making’, the role of the leadership and
the expectations upon the leadership change dramatically as
does the leadership’s own assessment of their personal and
ministry effectiveness.
In North America, and indeed in most Western countries,
the church has functioned within a Christendom framework
and continues to do so, even though we live in a post-
Christendom era. In the Christendom model of church
life and ministry, success has been measured based upon
consumer values such as the following: How many people
attend, how much do they give to support the programs of
the church, how much do these people personally support
the ministries of the church? Perhaps, in a post-Christendom
milieu, the measure of success should no longer be ecclesio-
centric or church centred, but perhaps now, it should be
discipleship centred or missio-centric according to the call of
Matthew 28:19–20. If the leaders of Evangelical churches in
the West can shift the focus of their membership away from
the old measures of church size as an indicator of success to
a missional focus as the indicator of successful discipleship,
there may yet be hope for the survival of pastors – and by
extension the Evangelical churches that they are called to
serve. This is true simply because the expectation upon those
pastors and the role denition for those pastors will change
dramatically from chief executive ofcer (in the Christendom
model) to equipper and fellow pilgrim (in the missional
model). Roxburgh and Romanuk (2006:12) highlight the
distinction between the Christendom pastoral leadership
paradigm and the missional pastoral leadership paradigm,
in Table 3.
If pastors and churches shift their focus in pastoral leadership
from the left side of the table to the right side of the table,
the churches might be healthier. Not only will churches be
healthier with a missional focus, pastors will function more
effectively as facilitators of church ministry as opposed to
the key functionaries in church ministry. The leadership
dimensions on the right side of the table are far more
sustainable because they involve a multiplication process
through equipping (missional discipleship) rather than a
control process through managing (Christendom).
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What should be happening:
‘Are there biblical paradigms for
adversity in pastoral ministry?’
What does the Bible say concerning hardship, opposition and
difculty in the ministry, and how does the Bible suggest
that pastors respond to adversity? The following question
may arise in the mind of the pastor: ‘Why am I facing such
hardship, difculty, loneliness and opposition when I am
doing my best to serve God?’ Does the New Testament
specically, as the road map of the structure and function of
the church, say anything about suffering in the ministry? At
this point, we attempt to uncover and discuss key aspects in
the New Testament concerning adversity related to pastoral
ministry.
Paul and suffering in ministry. Whilst it is true that Paul served
as an apostle and as a missionary, his service for the Lord
Jesus was marked by suffering, and his commitment to
suffering serves as a model for those in pastoral ministry in
the 21st century. As King (1999:31–100) points out:
God not only chose Paul to bear His name, but also to suffer for
the name of Christ. This prophecy was fullled in the life of Paul
as can be seen from his own testimony (2 Corinthians 4:7–11; 6:4–
10; 11:23–28). The call to suffering was as real as the call to preach
and teach. Paul emphasized the importance and inevitability of
this in his letters to the churches (Philippians 1:29; 3:10; 2 Timothy
3:12). The call to suffering was of special importance in Paul’s
admonition to Timothy (2 Timothy 1:8; 1:11–12; 2:2–3; 2:9). In
each of the references Paul associated the life of intense suffering
and persecution with the ministry of preaching and teaching the
Word of God. The concept of suffering is of special importance
when discussing an appointment to the ministry because it has a
direct relationship to a commitment. The universal requisite for
a minister of the gospel is that he will be faithful when the times
become difcult. Paul knew of the difculties from the very
beginning and was still desirous of serving. (pp. 31–32)
Many who commit to serve in the pastoral ministry may not
be aware of the difculty, opposition, hardship and loneliness
that are part of the commitment to ministry. However, that
being said, it seems prudent to seek to ameliorate those
aspects of suffering that are overwhelming for a pastor and
thus destructive, as well as nding ways to equip pastors to
endure adversity when it becomes an aspect of their ministry
prole.
Peter and suffering in ministry. Peter served as both an
apostle (Mt 4:18) and a pastor (1 Pt 5:1–4), and he was well
acquainted with adversity and with suffering. It was Peter
(Lk 22:31–32) whom Satan desired to sift, and Luke recounts
that Jesus did not deny permission for the sifting, only that
Peter’s faith would not fail through the sifting and that Peter
would be restored after the sifting to enable him to restore
his brethren. This instance of trial and sifting seems to inform
Peter’s urging (1 Pt 1:3–7) to the believers who seem to be
undergoing suffering at the time of his writing to them. Peter
understood suffering (Osborne 2002:405) as the path to glory.
As Elwell (2001) states:
According to Peter, suffering promotes sanctication (1 Pet. 4:1–
2). It does so in various ways such as rening the believer’s faith
(1 Pet. 1:6–7), educating the believer in such Christian virtues
as endurance and perseverance (Rom. 5:3–4; James 1:3–4),
teaching the believer something more of the sovereignty of God
so that he understands his Lord better (Job 42:2–4), and giving
the believer an opportunity to imitate Christ (1 Pet. 3:17–18). If
any of these occurs in the life of the believer, it will be evidence
of sanctication, and such sanctication is worked through
afiction. (p. 883)
For people in pastoral ministry, suffering seems inevitable
and part of the sovereign process of rening and deepening
the faith of the pastoral leader. It seems, though, that
pastors today may not be as fully equipped for the suffering
that comes their way, often at the hands of those within
the church, and so they are tempted to vacate vocational
ministry for some other ‘less stressful’ position. A systems
approach (Richardson 1996) with a capacity for wisdom and
differentiation (Richardson 1996:85–89) in leadership and
ministry could help a great deal as a component of securing
TABLE 3: Operang models of leadership.
Pastoral or Christendom Pastoral or missional
Expectaon that an ordained pastor must be present at every meeng and event or
else it is not validated or important.
Ministry sta operate as coaches and mentors within a system that is not dependent
on them to validate the importance and funcon of every group by being present.
Ordained ministry sta funcons to give aenon to and take care of people in the
church by being present for people as they are needed (if care and aenon are given
by people other than ordained clergy, it may be more appropriate and eecve but is
deemed ‘second class’).
Ordained clergy equip and release the mulple ministries of the people of God
throughout the church.
Time, energy, and focus shaped by people’s ‘need’ and ‘pain’ agendas. -
Pastor provides soluons. Pastor asks quesons that culvate an environment that engages the imaginaon,
creavity, and gis of God’s people in order to discern soluons.
Preaching and teaching oer answers and tell people what is right and wrong.
Telling, Didacc, Reinforcing assumpons, Principles for Living
Preaching and teaching invite the people of God to engage the Scriptures as a living
word that confronts them with quesons and draws them into a disncve world.
‘Professional’ Chrisans ‘Pastoring’ must be part of the mix, but not the sum total.
Celebrity (must be a ‘home run hier’) -
‘Peacemaker’ Make tension OK.
Conict suppressor or ‘xer’ Conict facilitator.
Keep playing the whole game as though we are sll the major league team and the
major league players. Connue the mythology: ‘This sta is the New York Yankees of
the Church World.’
Indwell the local and contextual; culvate the capacity for the congregaon to ask
imaginave quesons about its present and its next stages.
‘Recovery’ expert (‘make it like it used to be’) Culvator of imaginaon and creavity
Funcon as the manager, maintainer, or resource agent of a series of centralised
ministries focused in and around the building that everyone must support. Always be
seen as the champion and primary support agent for every-one’s specic ministry.
Create an environment that releases and nourishes the missional imaginaon of
all people through diverse ministries and missional teams that aect their various
communies, the city, the naon, and the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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longevity in the ministry. It may help leaders to understand
that suffering is a tool that God uses to strengthen and deepen
their faith (and by implication leadership capacity) and that
suffering because of bad behaviour by those they lead can be
assuaged and diffused through wisdom and differentiation.
There are many other New Testament examples of suffering
as a natural part of the leadership of the local church, but
Paul and Peter render sufcient exemplars of the verity that
ministry entails suffering.
What can be done: ‘How do we
respond to migate the current
exodus of pastors away from
pastoral ministry?’
What can be done to assist pastors who face adversity in
the ministry, especially those who face adversity to such a
degree that it causes those pastors to leave pastoral ministry
as a calling and as a career? The following suggestions need
to be developed and expanded, but they serve as an initial
attempt at some potential suggestions that might help to
slow the mass exodus of pastors in the West in general, and
in North America in particular, who are currently leaving
the ministry at such an alarming rate. A number of these
suggestions arise from the material cited in the ‘business’
or ‘secular’ leadership and adversity section of this article
in which these coping mechanisms have been developed
and tested amongst secular leadership seeking to cope with
increasing complexity, crisis, adversity and uncertainty:
1. Shift from a Christendom model to a missional mode of church
life. Changing the pastoral worldview: This is a worldview
issue as developed in the ‘Introduction’ portion of this
article. How do pastors view their role, the nature of the
church and its place within the world of the 21st century?
As long as pastors have a worldview that is shaped by
a Christendom mentality, they will struggle to deal with
complexity and adversity that is so much a part of the
new world order in the 21st century. As stated above, it
is imperative that the metrics of success and the focus
and purpose of ministry move away from a Christendom
model in which the size of the church determines the
success of the leader to a missional model in which
leaders and people see themselves as a community on
mission with God to reach their community for God. This
major paradigm shift to missional ontology is essential
for the health and strength of the churches and pastors in
North America.
2. Shift from high intensity to a balanced life or harmonious
lifestyle: When the 51 pastors surveyed were asked the
question: ‘What suggestions do you have for helping
pastors facing adversity in ministry?’, their responses
were varied. One pastor stated: ‘Keeping balance in your
life is essential, that is, ministry is not life it is how we
serve God. Life is far fuller and meaningful when we
see the rest of what God has given to us to enjoy. Taking
time away is important too, though in some situations
the church doesn’t give this option. Having a good
friend to talk with who will give perspective is of great
value. Expect adversity, Satan doesn’t move opposition
against those who are doing nothing of consequence
for God. Don’t give up and don’t give in to anger and
resentment. Try to remember that you are part of God’s
plan to build his church and it is him whom we are to
please.’ (Participant 50, male, lead pastor, 50–58 years of
age). These are helpful suggestions, especially the notion
of balance and the idea of wise counsel from a friend.
Interestingly, in this regard in the on-line survey, the
following data concerning counsel in the face of adversity
emerged:
• 90% of the respondents stated that when faced with
situations of adversity they conde in their spouse
• 74% stated that they conde in another pastor as
mentor
• 35% stated that they conde in a friend not in ministry
• 7% stated that they conde in a denominational
representative.
It may be that one of the ways in which pastors can be
assisted in coping with situations of adversity in the
ministry is to ensure that they take time to cultivate
meaningful relationships with other pastors and with
other people outside of the ministry. If these relationships
are cultivated at the outset, they will serve as great
bulwarks in the face of adversity in the ministry. It
would be prudent to train churches on the necessity and
importance of allowing and supporting their pastor(s)
in meaningful time with other pastors and perhaps
even building such collegial interactions into the job
description of the pastor(s).
3. Shift to include resiliency training in ministry preparation:
Bible colleges, seminaries and universities need to prepare
pastors (and their spouses?) for the personal cost that a
ministry career will exact upon their lives. Leadership
training with especial focus in resilience needs to be built
into the curriculum of ministry training institutions. This
training occurs for nurses (Jackson et al. 2007), police
ofcers (Paton 2006) and many other careers that work in
high-stress, people-related careers.
4. Shift to a better system of care developed by denominational
resources: This is clear from the very low percentage (7%)
of pastors in the survey who report that they conde in
a denominational representative when facing adversity
in ministry. Denominational leaders and administration
would be well advised to research why this percentage
is so low and to nd ways to become a resource to the
pastoral leadership that serves on their front-lines every
day!
5. Shift to a renewed perspective on the value of adversity in
shaping pastors for deeper, richer ministry outcomes: In this
regard, the new book, Sifted (Cordeiro 2012) and the web-
site, ‘Stories of Sifted’ (Exponential 2012) are a great rst
step in reframing pastoral perspectives on adversity in
ministry.
6. Shift to congregational education concerning the high cost
of pastoral attrition: Churches would be well advised to
understand the high cost of pastoral attrition to their
Original Research
doi:10.4102/ve.v34i1.821
hp://www.ve.org.za
Page 12 of 13
effectiveness, health and vitality. When a pastor is
demoralised, attacked and lled with sadness, as the
survey of the 51 pastors uncovered, their capacity to
remain energised, focused and empathic can be greatly
hindered. Churches (Christian Century 2011:14) expect
that every church should have a full-time pastor. When a
pastor resigns from the leadership of a church, it can take
up to 2 years to replace that pastor. This is a long time
for a church to be leaderless as they work with interim
pastors and guest speakers whilst undergoing the process
of reviewing candidate proles, interviewing candidates
and then bringing that candidate before the church
family for a vote. Church leadership could take a very
pro-active stance on care for the pastor(s) by ensuring
healthy governance models that deect and share some
of the leadership and conict issues within the church.
Conclusions and areas for further
research
The literature survey in the rst part of this article highlights
the fact that leaders who succeed in situations of adversity
move through a process, sometimes difcult and painful,
to a place of resolution and resilience that opens space for
new vistas and opportunities to address the problems that
the adverse reality has interpolated into the leader’s world.
Most often these leaders do not enter this movement from
adversity to resolution in a vacuum. It seems that this is
a learned skill, garnered over a lifetime of dealing with
adversity and understanding through familial support and
training and other learned thought processes and behaviour,
which the leader brings to the realm of adversity. Adversity
varies in level of threat and intensity, but the process within
the life of the leader to meet adversity and to succeed in the
face of adversity remains the same. This article also raises
many important and intersecting questions that warrant
further research such as:
• Pastoral education and training: What areas of education
and training are needed to equip pastoral leaders for
effective and sustained ministry in the face of adversity?
• Leadership styles: Which leadership styles (Northouse
2010) are prevalent in situations of conict and adversity
within churches, and which leadership styles sustain
greater longevity and harmony within church ministry
contexts?
• The church as complex adaptive system: Much more
work needs to be done in understanding the church
as a living organism and the various ways in which
complexity theory and network theory intersect and
impact the assigned and emergent leadership within
church contexts.
• Effective long-term pastors: What is the nature of the
pastors who have sustained their ministry over an
extended period of time (10 years or more) in a specic
context? What factors have enabled these pastors to
sustain an effective (missional) and healthy ministry over
an extended period of time within a Western, secular
context?
• Missional versus Christendom ontology: Does a missional
ecclesial ontology impact leadership health and longevity
as opposed to a Christendom ecclesial ontology? We
argued in this article that it should and seems to, but
further intensive research in this area may prove useful
for the Western church in the 21st century.
It is this author’s hope that further research into this complex
and important topic is quickly developed since the church
in the West cannot long survive the loss of her leadership
at such alarming rates, nor can she thrive or even survive
with a Christendom mindset in a post-modern and post-
Christendom milieu. If this article helps pastors to think
through these issues and make some changes, and if this
article spurs academics and practitioners into a framework of
meaningful dialogue and research, it will have accomplished,
in small measure, something of signicance.
Acknowledgements
Firstly, to my wife Rebecca, who continually inspires me to
press on in the face of complexity, adversity, and contexts of
uncertainty. Secondly, to all pastors who serve with faithful
hearts in the face of great suffering – press on – your care for
others is needed, but be sure to take care of yourselves too,
since, as a great pastor of yore once said: ‘the axe cannot be
too long at the task without itself becoming blunt’.
Compeng interests
The author declares that he has no nancial or personal
relationship(s) that may have inappropriately inuenced
him in writing this article.
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