How Pastors Can Encourage Others to Consider Vocational Ministry

Why are fewer people today answering the call to vocational ministry, and what can pastors do to curb this trend?

By Mike Leake

A growing church in a thriving college town is looking for an associate pastor to work with students. They put advertisements in their Baptist state paper and online. The pay isn’t amazing, but it’s a solid livable wage. And the expectations outlined in the paper seem fair and reasonable. It’s a great gig.

How many resumes did the church receive? Three.

That story is being played out in numerous churches. It’s not unique to Baptist churches either. There are fewer people answering the call to vocational ministry. This isn’t merely anecdotal information. Statistics give evidence of this reality. In 1992, the median age for a Protestant pastor was 44. By 2020, the median age had climbed to 57, remaining steady in the mid-50’s for over a decade.

Why are fewer people answering the call to vocational ministry, and what can be done to curb this trend?

Why are fewer people becoming vocational ministers?

There are many possibilities of why fewer people are answering the call to gospel ministry today.

First, there are likely cultural reasons for this. Pastors were once held in high esteem. Today that’s no longer the case. According to polls from Gallup, in 1985, 67% of people believed clergy were honest and had integrity. For years, clergy either topped the rankings in Gallup polls or ranked somewhere in the top 10. In 2023, trust in clergy fell for the fourth consecutive year, dipping to a new historic low of 32%.

Secondly, the cost of acquiring a ministry degree has skyrocketed while pay for clergy has not. The reality is it’s not only the cost of the degree but also the cost of living. Many young, would-be pastors look at the cost of education compared to compensation and realize it’ll be incredibly difficult to provide for a family.

Third, our pool for potential ministers is shrinking. Our churches are experiencing a decline in youth and college-aged people. Most people surrender to a call to ministry in teenage or college years. If we’re struggling to reach this population, we shouldn’t be surprised to find a smaller number of potential pastors as well.

“Most people surrender to a call to ministry in teenage or college years. If we’re struggling to reach this population, we shouldn’t be surprised to find a smaller number of potential pastors as well.” — @mikeleake Share on X

Lastly, vocational ministry is less appealing. Seasoned pastors are leaving vocational ministry. Many find the polarization within our nation has infiltrated our churches. As we’ve faced the realities of the difficulty attending pastoral ministry, our young people might hear only the pain and not the blessings. These days we’re more apt to talk people out of ministry instead of into it.

What can we do to curb this trend?

1. Help pay for pastoral training

I realize our churches are struggling to pay the bills as well. Yet, we always figure out how to pay for the things we value. There are many expenses beyond tuition that are unaccounted for as a young family goes off to seminary. If we want a pipeline of young ministers, we might need to assist with funding.

2. Speak of the joys as well as the hardship

I don’t think its healthy to pretend ministry is all rainbows and unicorns. It’s often more like a violent thunderstorm without the rainbow and being jabbed by the horn of goats instead of unicorns. Yet, there are some joys that are unique to pastoral ministry. We should let people know we enjoy our job. That doesn’t mean we fake it, but we should be serving Him with gladness. This gladness will be contagious.

“We should let people know we enjoy our job. That doesn’t mean we fake it, but we should be serving Him with gladness.” — @mikeleake Share on X

If we always present the ministry like a burden we’re forced to carry, why would anyone (except the most neurotic among us) want to sign up for this? 

It’s difficult to find a balance here. There are sufferings unique to pastoral ministry. There truly is a weight you only feel when you say “yes” to this calling. But our pride can also present this weight in such a way that we cut people off from considering this as a calling for their own lives. Pastoral ministry is different than other professions, but also kind of not. The more we can walk this tightrope, the better we’ll be at helping people consider vocational ministry as a calling.

3. Consider a bi-vocational option

Some are calling this “co-vocational,” and that might be a better term. More people are able to work from home. The job market is changing. The way in which we work is different than it was even 20 years ago. Doing vocational ministry alongside another vocation is perhaps more doable than it has ever been.

I understand this thinking wrecks our narrative of calling. We like the stories of Elijah slaughtering his oxen, kissing his parents, and burning the plow. That break from the “world” seems like the only option. But we shouldn’t forget Paul was also a tent maker as well as an evangelist. There are benefits, especially in this economy, for a tent-making ministry. Perhaps a model of multiple co-vocational pastors is the way churches should move in this climate.

4. Ramp up your young adult ministry

We hear enough negative things about Gen Z. Let me tell you some of the positive things. When these students and young adults are won to Jesus, they have a depth and excitement that’s deeply encouraging to me. They’ve had to live out their faith in a difficult culture. It’s caused them to ask good questions and not take things for granted. Yes, there are challenges to ministering to this generation (as there are with every generation), but they’re hungry.

Their lack of Bible knowledge can be discouraging, but it can also be exhilarating. This is a generation that gets to hear precious Bible stories for the first time. Consider ramping up your young adult ministry. It might be different than what you’ve experienced in the past. Gone are the days when you can show up to a playground with a few pizzas and a basketball and gather a crowd. Teens and college-aged students aren’t there much anymore. But they’re online. They are connected, but differently. You’ll need to be creative to get their attention, but they are so starved for authentic communication that some of the simplest of ministry ideas will work. Have a Bible study at your home. Reach a few and you’ll find that before long you’re reaching several.

Pour into this generation, and as the pool of people expands, I almost guarantee the number of those surrendering to ministry will as well.

5. Embrace missional heartbreak

You’ve decided to follow the advice of pouring into your young adult ministry. It’s tough sledding, but after some labor the Lord has blessed you with a young man who’s excited about Jesus. You see in this young man great possibility for growing this ministry. He’ll be the foundation of your efforts here. Then he tells you he feels called to ministry.

At first, you celebrate this. Then you realize the implications. He’ll likely be leaving your congregation to go to a Bible school somewhere. Even if you do the training “in-house” you know it’s only a matter of time before he’ll be pastoring his own congregation. There goes your young adult ministry. Dead in the water before it even took a breath.

This is where missional heartbreak must be embraced. Missional heartbreak is the intentional pursuit of heartbreak for the sake of gospel advancement. It’s intentionally discipling people for the purpose of furthering God’s Kingdom instead of our own slice of that kingdom. It means training people in order to let them go. It means encouraging relationships to go deep enough that our hearts break—but also realizing that every person ultimately belongs to the Lord.

“Sometimes I think we aren’t encouraging people to respond to vocational ministry because we aren’t willing to endure the heartbreak of seeing them go.” — @mikeleake Share on X

Sometimes I think we aren’t encouraging people to respond to vocational ministry because we aren’t willing to endure the heartbreak of seeing them go. They do such precious labor in our own local church that we want to keep them for ourselves.

Praying for workers

These are only a few suggestions for potentially curbing this trend. Yet, at the end of the day it’s all up to the Lord. He calls people into ministry. He doggedly, and lovingly, pursues them to surrender. For this reason, the greatest thing we can do is pray. As Jesus told us in Matthew 9:38, the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few; therefore, pray. These suggestions can help you create a culture where young people are thinking about vocational ministry, but the Lord does the calling.

For permission to republish this article, contact Marissa Postell Sullivan.