Stats on pastors
prodigal Kiwi points out the following statistics on pastors of local churches:
· 80% of pastors say they have insufficient time with spouse and that ministry has a negative effect on their family.
· 40% report a serious conflict with a parishioner once a month.
· 33% say that being in ministry is an outright hazard to their family.
· 75% report they’ve had significant stress-related crisis at least once in their ministry.
· 58% of pastors indicate that their spouse needs to work either part time or full time to supplement the family income.
· 56% of pastors’ wives say they have no close friends.
· Pastors who work fewer than 50 hrs/week are 35% more likely to be terminated.
· 40% of pastors considered leaving the pastorate in the past three months.
Mmm, just what I need to read in my current frame of mind on my first week of holidays. Back to the garden 
Read more of Paul’s post here
May 2nd, 2007 at 5:10 pm
Warren me thinks you have taken my Survivor strategy wrongly. In any community, people will find reason to have differences. Jesus provided a way [Mt 18] by whcih we can settle our differences. The way of Christ provides for reconciliation and also for natural justice for the accused [to hear the accusation, and to respond].
The people I have ’survived’ are people who chose the opposite,a nd subsequently played politics. Its the politics that I have to bypass and survive, and thankfully in both circumstances despite being stitched up I somehow survived.
Last year someone on the leadership who wanted to dance on my grave was put in charge of my review. The reviewe lasted about 3 months in all, and consisted of an open invitation to all and sundry to come and tell the review team what they thoguht of me. No testimony, even if prejudicial would be communicated to me and all submissions were in secret. In that 3 months I was not formally interviewed by the team, and my role description was not used.
When the verdict came down from the review team to retain me it went to a church meeting where a last stand was made by the refuseniks. The day went awry and the decision to retain me was made in an overwhelming majority. The chair of our leadership copped an angry serving and denunciation and within 48 hours the review team leader resigned and left.
That’s what I’m talking about when it comes to surviving.
So why do I stay? Well at the risk of sounding cliched, I feel a genuine [if not misguided] sense of call from God to remain, and not to lose heart, to continue serving according the best of my conscience and ability, and to leave all the other stuff to him.
I also feel a strong sense of responsibility to the majority who do not engage in a destructive manner. I also stay cos I get the chance to help shape the culture. This week ther leadership signed off on a new review process which conforms to best practise in both secular and ecclisastical world, the centrepiece being a committment to procedural fairness and natural justice.
No more secret testimony, no more politics when it comes to this delicate process of discerment. It was a long night [and not always easy], but I went home satisfied that all those who follow me can have confidence that they will be dealt with fairly and with wisdom.
That’s what I call outlasting. outplaying, outwitting. I’m not talking about being tricky or deceptive. My refusal to politic and fight back with campaigning in the end won through.
As far as having a strong constitution - read the experiences of Paul in 2 Cor 11, or read any other epistle closely. The real church has never been utopia. Counting the cost will always be a big factor. Get back in the Body brother.
May 2nd, 2007 at 5:21 pm
So what I’m hearing from dan and zulu are : the bad experiences of Pastors are typical of the profession. If I have a bad experience as a parishioner it is not typical. Whatever happened I should just suck it up and go back again.
May 2nd, 2007 at 5:43 pm
I think it’s sometimes right to leave a particular church… but you haven’t really given a lot of detail other than saying the pastor complained about his pay. (and frankly… I’d side with you in thinking… Jesus said to count the cost before you start building… the award for ministers in particular denominations is set out in black and white, and if you don’t like it get a different job. Is that harsh?)
I’d be interested to hear more warren… I get the feeling there’s more to your story.
There’s a fair few people who’ve left churches on Signposts… it’s a pretty safe place to have a therapeutic whinge!
May 2nd, 2007 at 6:59 pm
You hear wrong Warren. Reveal more of the iceberg. I don’t buy that the pastor complaining about his pay is what the deal is.
In my experience parishioners who present with an issue which seems relatively trivial are generating a head of steam about something altogether more serious.
May 2nd, 2007 at 10:52 pm
Warren, I was trying to express some concern for your experience whilst sticking to my own point of view about the people that I observe. To infer from my comments that I think you should “suck it up” is unfair.
That said, I think I will stick to what I had said earlier and leave the discussion to others.
May 3rd, 2007 at 8:32 am
The “suck it up” comment was referring to what I heard zulu say at the end of 61.
Here’s an experience zulu might like to analyse. Different pastor, different church, different denomination. Pastor was accused of “inappropriately counselling” women over a number of years. I cant say for sure whether it was true, but most of the congregation believed it, it had contributed to marriages breaking up etc. etc.
Pastor used Survivor tactics and denied everything, outlasted and outwitted. Denomination supports Pastor. Matthew 18 dosent seem to be sufficient in these cases, some evidence has to be collected in private - what do you do when he still wont listen?
In the end the whole church self-destructed but very,very slowly. Denomination funds Pastor to start a new church down the road. Not that the basic problem touched me, but it was like arriving on an emotional battlefield, seeing all the casualties and trying to work out who fired the shots.
May 3rd, 2007 at 5:39 pm
Fair call Warren, there are ‘players’ who approach Survivor from different motivations and use different MO. Some make their way into final contention by double crossing, lying and screwing people over. Others make it all the way on the strength of their character, team ethics and the admiration they evoke in others.
I could fill a book with stories of crooked pastors, don’t think I’ve somehow got it in for ‘the other side’. I’ve had to arrive on the scene of two battlefields and try and make sense of what happend and what needs to happen. Thankfully, the majority are always keen to move on towards healing and restoration. The minority want to stay and take down as many with them. It these people I have learend to outwit, outlast and outplay.
May 3rd, 2007 at 8:21 pm
It’s a shame we have to play power with structures at all of course… but anyone walking into an institutional church is walking into some power structures… some benevolent, some healthy, some toxic… we may as well name what they are.
Courage and tenacity can be redemptive… they can make one stick at something until unhealthy power dynamics are dealt with… or diabolical… they can make one dig in and entrench power for utterly selfish ends.
Within Baptist and Church of Christ and Bretheren contexts, the lay leadership hold “employer power” over the minister… I imagine these would be quite stressful contexts for ministers to work in. In the Anglican and Uniting and Salvation Army contexts, head office has “employer power”… head office can move ministers as they see fit (within reason.) The Pentecostal churches are interesting… they don’t seem to have either hierachical control from head office nor employer power by a board of deacons or elders (happy to be corrected on that by anyone)… there seems to be greater deference to the leadership of the pastor. Each of these situations would have quite different dynamics I think.
May 3rd, 2007 at 10:21 pm
Janet the power I have encountered has not existed in structures but in people. In my first pastoral role a colleague pulled me aside and listed 9 particular people I needed to consult first before changing ANYTHING. Only some of them had ‘positions’, most were just ‘influential’ families.
Power can exist in any gathering of people, even in a groovy bunch of post modernist ec’ers.
May 4th, 2007 at 9:27 am
Nabbed: the deputy mayor and clergyman who stole water to save his trees
Orietta Guerrera
May 4, 2007
BY ALL accounts, Dallas Terlich had led an exemplary life. Clergyman, youth worker, philanthropist, councillor and, in recent times, Deputy Mayor of Greater Shepparton — the list of his virtuous enterprises was long.
So it must have been quite a shock to colleagues, constituents and parishioners at the Apostolic Church where he is a minister when Cr Terlich found himself standing before a local magistrate this week charged with a crime of the times — stealing water — and facing pressure to stand down as deputy mayor.
It was in January this year when Cr Terlich, amid the worst drought on record, gave in to temptation and used irrigation water he wasn’t entitled to in order to save a field of dying plum trees on his property near Shepparton.
Cr Terlich, 40, a father of three, has admitted using a stick to stop a dethridge wheel, which acts as a meter measuring water use, and allowing water to flow.
He said he used the water to irrigate about 600 plum trees he had planted to harvest and sell, with proceeds to go towards an orphanage in Burma.
“When I was doing it I knew it was wrong, but I had no idea of the level that it would be viewed” he told The Age yesterday.
He made the comments after pleading guilty in Shepparton Magistrates Court this week to one count of unlawfully taking water and one count of interfering with works or property.
Magistrate Reg Marron ordered Cr Terlich to donate $500 to charity and pay $903.30 in water and administration costs to Goulburn-Murray Water. After being placed on a good behaviour bond for one year with no conviction, Cr Terlich said he expected locals to react angrily to his actions. He hoped they understood the temptation he felt after watching the trees dying.
Cr Terlich said he was not considering stepping down. “I don’t think I was elected because I’m infallible, I was elected because I’m somebody people believe would try and do the best that I can for the community,” he said.
“Obviously in this case I haven’t and I deeply regret that and I wish I hadn’t done it, but unfortunately I have and the best I can do now is to own up to it and say it was a stupid thing.”
Cr Terlich was one of 45 people nabbed stealing water during night and early morning patrols, according to Goulburn-Murray Water chief executive Russell Cooper. “It’s a small percentage of people who do this, but we have to have a zero tolerance approach to it, and we need to be very vigilant and do everything to prosecute in every case,” Mr Cooper said.
Municipal Association of Victoria president Dick Gross said under current laws, Cr Terlich was not barred from continuing in his role but this and other recent cases raised questions of councillor conduct.
Cr Gross called for an independent tribunal to be established to hear such matters.
Greater Shepparton Mayor Jenny Houlihan is standing by her deputy. “There is no doubt that he has made a serious mistake… that he regrets, but as far as I’m concerned as the mayor, he is certainly valued as a councillor and I support him to continue,” she said.
May 4th, 2007 at 11:44 am
The thing that makes it so difficult is that in a serious conflict both sides feel like the victim, and when you are the victim its easy to lash out.
Someone posted Brian Houston’s sermon in another thread recently about just turning up, and not answering people who accuse you of wrong-doing. He compares himself and the accusations the the newspapers are publishing, with Jesus and the false accusations levelled at Him. I have no doubt that Brian feels like the victim here, and he probably also feels that he is not answering the accusations - even though he is giving his version to an auditorium of 2000 people, publishing rebuttals on web-sites and printing stickers with slogans of rebuttal. At the same time he is sending a message to the congregation to just keep turning up and not worry about what people are saying.
May 4th, 2007 at 12:02 pm
Warren I agree, except in some cases the facts do matter. All I’ve ever asked of from my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ is that if there is an allegation they have against me or anyone else, that it be made and justified, and a response allowed. This is natural justice.
The problem with discussions about pastors on signposts is that we never know whether we are referring to notable pastors who remain unaccountable or the average pastor out there in the suburbs.
If I have done something wrong, or am doing something wrong, I am prepared to face the music. Its difficult to face the music when it always stops when you enter the room. Whisperings drive me over the edge. I prefer people with the integrity to come and tell you the deal, or at least tell the leadership.
Part of the attraction of reading and posting here is that nobody whispers!