MICROWAVE MINISTERS - SHORT TENURES & STAFF TURNOVER

In 2005, LifeWay’s Facts & Trends noted that the average stay for a senior pastor at a church was only about 7.7 years. When you look at the other ministry positions in a church, the stay is much shorter. Alan Rudnick at the Lewis Center for Church Leadership gives 2-3 years as the average stay for an associate pastor. The cliche in youth ministry has been if you can make it longer than 18 months you’re ahead of the curve!

I found a lot of this in my study on associate church leaders, as well as my doctoral dissertation. In my dissertation, the average stay of a lead pastor at a church was 9.7 years with a standard deviation of 7.4 years (in other words, not a lot of consistency) with half of them serving for 7 years or less. Associate pastors had an average tenure of 2.9 years, whereas my larger study showed an average tenure of 6.9 years (but 56% had been there less than 5 years - there were some long tenured guys who pushed the average higher). Basically, the same conclusions can be reached: ministers are not staying around in churches very long. The ripple effects of this are huge - significant vision is never carried out, generational impact is lost, consistency is absent in the staffing structure, expectations are never clear as leadership changes frequently, associate staff question their place, proteges find no mentors, and lead pastors spend much of their time filling ministry positions rather than effectively building the Kingdom.

Any number of reasons can be given for this. The web group ExPastors says that many leave after short tenures because of overwork, underpay, unprepared, depression/discouragement, loneliness, or families negatively impacted. Jeremy Zach at ChurchLeaders believes youth pastors move on because of finances, differences in theology/leadership, or not fitting into a church/community culture. Vanderbloemen Search Group has 10 reasons great staff members leave, which include a lack of voice in strategy, micromanagement, office politics, a lack of support during conflict, a lack of encouragement, compensation issues, and a lack of investment. Many of these show up on Thom Rainer’s negative reasons for a minister to leave a church, and places blame for the departures on both sides depending on the reason.

What can be done to stave the trend of microwave ministers? I want to propose 3 ways:

1. Ensure their financial situation is healthy - Many pastors report relocating because of financial strains. Their salary has been fixed for several years as inflation drives up prices, they have children or their children’s needs change from Dora DVDs to braces. Sadly, most churches are not marked by generosity to their staffs, and because of that morale drops, ministers begin looking elsewhere, and the reputation of the church suffers. Ensuring a church keeps its high performing staff means compensating those staff members in a way that frees them to focus on their ministry.
2. Consider redeployment of current staff members - Many associate-level pastors may not be serving in the position they feel called and burdened for. As ministers mature, their giftings and skills reflect their growth, and it may be time to reassess their role in the church. It could mean they have reached the end of their road at that church, which would make the transition out a wise move. But chances are many associate pastors would welcome a shift in their job description to a different area of ministry focus. Elevate your high performing staff to more responsibility, consider the implementation of executive pastoral roles for them.
3. Honor your ministry team - This goes beyond a gift card to Olive Garden during Clergy Appreciation Month. Take time to celebrate ministry accomplishments, tenure milestones, educational accomplishments, focused times of prayer, letters of encouragement, or date nights for the ministers and their spouses where church members do the babysitting. One way I’ve seen this well received has been to give ministers a sabbatical, a paid month off to rest, write, attend conferences, travel to other churches, or invest time with their family.