“Because that’s where the money is” Quote attributed to bank robber Willie Sutton when asked why he robbed banks. That quote came to mind this morning over coffee as I read an interesting article, “If cooking slowly and growing organically are in, why is rural ministry out?” by Darryl Hart on Front Porch Republic.  (And a quick note – if you are not familiar with this blog but enjoy well written and thought provoking essays about contemporary culture that sometimes have something to do with religion check the blog out.)  The article is about why clergy would rather pastor suburban and urban churches than rural ones.

from Wikimedia Commons

I do not mean to imply that all clergy with a preference for urban churches are there because of the salary, although it might be the case.  As the article discusses, and I was running through in my mind while reading it, you could fill in the blank in the sentence “Because that is where the (blank) is/are” with any number of other things, including “people,” “resources,” “opportunities.”  In fact, the article itself focuses mainly on the people and the large, urban multi-site churches.

But the problem of finding clergy for rural churches is a real one, as Adam Copeland pointed out in his blog post “The huge problem of the clergy shortage that doesn’t exist.”  The problem is not one of numbers — at the end of 2008 the PC(USA) had 10,751 congregations and 21,286 ministers.  The problem is that too few of them sense a call to serve in the rural areas or that rural congregations are less able to afford a full-time minister.

But the problem is a bit more complex than just saying “we have more ministers than churches so there should be no problem.”  Going back to 2007, the last year that the full comparative statistics are available, and looking at the breakdown by call, we can see that there are 21,368 clergy.  But of those, 7,753 are honorably retired (and for the non-junkies reading this honorably retired is a call) leaving 13,615 active ministers.  To find how many are active in parish ministry as a senior pastor, co-pastor or solo pastor you can add up the categories of Pastors (6,100), Supply Pastors (626), and Interim Pastors (484) for a total of 7,210 filling some of the 10,751 pulpits.  So from this viewpoint there is a clergy shortage because only 67% of the pulpits are filled.

(I would note that there a lots of other ways that a pulpit could be filled and it would not show up in this analysis including commissioned lay pastors, yoked churches, union churches, part-time interim and supply pastors who would be counted by their regular job category, and retired ministers serving in a supply or interim capacity.)

So only 53% of the active ministers in the PC(USA) are helping lead congregations as their primary call.  Add to that the 1,395 Associate Pastors and the way these statistics are reported there are 8605 ministers primarily in parish ministry, or 63% of the total.  (This does not include, or intend to minimize, the role of ministers in other calls who still contribute on a congregation level, whether they do so as a Parish Associate or in other ways.) (And while other validated ministries like chaplains and seminary instructors are vital, it does make me wonder when over one-third of the active ministers are not in parish ministry.  Another time.)

Taking this one step further and looking at the filled pulpits geographically by synod you get the following, ranked by % filled:

Looking at this data you get the strong sense that metropolitan areas are more successful at filling their pulpits even though no single synod is exclusively urban or exclusively rural.  The Synod of Southern California and Hawaii is almost certainly the most urban of all the synods covering the urban areas of Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and San Diego and the surrounding areas.  And while the synods with the lower percentages of filled pulpits do have urban centers, their geographic location in the mid-continent means those urban areas are generally smaller and that there are a substantial number of small-town congregations in those synods as well.

I include the last two columns of data as possible proxies for a measure of the rural/urban blend of the synod.  The median size of the congregations is an easier metric to tie to the rural/urban mix with the conventional wisdom being that rural areas have smaller congregations.  Indeed, there is a strong statistical correlation of 0.77 between the % of pulpits filled and the median congregation size.  My theory behind the second metric, the % of active ministers fi
lling pulpits, is that urban areas should have a lower percentage because there are greater opportunities for other validated ministry in more urban settings.  And indeed, while the correlation is not as good, the -0.50 inverse correlation between % of pulpits filled and % of active ministers filling pulpits is still respectable.

Now I fully realize that there are other interpretations of these correlations.  For instance, higher median size of congregation correlating with more filled pulpits could be seen as an aggressive program of consolidating churches so as to fit the available pastoral resources.  Likewise, the inverse correlation between filled pulpits and the percentage of ministers serving in parish ministry may not be a sign of more and varied opportunities, but rather a greater surplus of ministers available to fill open positions.

OK, so I just set about trying to prove what we think we already know.  Now, what are the implications for ministry and mission?

I would be curious if detailed numbers such as these are available for other Presbyterian branches.  In my search over the lunch hour I was more successful at finding congregation statistics than clergy statistics.  But the anecdotal evidence suggests that mainline churches in general, not just the PC(USA), have more ministers serving in positions outside the parish.  Therefore, if we need more parish ministers we must (1) recruit new individuals with a call for congregational work, (2) convince those presently serving in other ministries that parish work is valuable, rewarding, important, etc. (3) keep ministers in the congregation rather than leaving because of financial needs, burnout, or conflict.  Are the mission priorities such that we value parish ministry enough to recruit individuals to serve congregations and find ways to keep gifted individuals in those congregations, especially when it is in rural areas?

While the PC(USA) may have this surplus to try to work with other areas are not so lucky.  It is a well publicized issue within the Church of Scotland that there are not enough ministers, especially for the islands.  Possible solutions being discussed there include video links to island churches for worship and changing the understanding of the Scottish church so that it does not need to be a national church with a presence in every community, no matter how small.  Within the last week The Herald published an article that indicated its sources say the Special Commission studying the territorial church will recommend altering that section of the Articles Declaratory.  This was followed by some letters to The Herald, some of which advocated keeping the territorial church, but being more creative in providing leadership.  Then today there was a letter to The Herald from the Principal Clerk of the General Assembly pointing out that if the Special Commission recommends it there is still a long process of three GA votes and two sets of presbytery votes to approve the change.

But returning to the essay by Mr. Hart — in it he makes some strong comments about our concept of mission, particularly the interests of those who call themselves evangelicals.  It is not just that the big city has the population and the resources, it is the opportunity for celebrity or the brush with celebrity, the “L.A. moment” as my family calls it.  Mr. Hart writes:

Of course, the reasons why evangelicals fawn over the city may stem from sources other than the obvious appeal of bright lights and big buildings. One of them may be a born-again infatuation with celebrity and the disillusionment that follows when public figures like Mark Sanford or Miss California, Carrie Prajean, fall from grace. Evangelicals are disposed to understand grace and faith in extraordinary categories and so overlook stories of ordinary believers, routine piety, and even rural congregations as insignificant. Discontent with the average and routine aspects of natural life and of grace appears to breed a similar dissatisfaction with humble ministries in places of little interest to the editors of the Times.

So what are our mission objectives and our mission priorities?  Do we “go out into all the world” or just where it is easy, convenient, or even possibly exciting and rewarding?  Is a big urban church better than a small rural congregation?  And maybe most importantly, when a minister makes the commitment to serve a rural parish do we support that decision and find ways to encourage and help them in that ministry?

If all congregational ministry matters equally we need to be ready to support it equally.