Crash! And Great Was Its Fall

As I posted last Monday, Mountain State Baptist Association Director of Missions, Dr. Don Deel has uncovered some disturbing statistics in his doctoral dissertation research. As he wrote in his introduction, “These facts should cause a pastor, staff, wife and church to take notice.”

• Fifteen hundred (50 a day) pastors leave the ministry each month due to moral failure, spiritual burnout or contention in their churches.


• Fifty percent of pastors’ marriages will end in divorce.


• Eighty percent of pastors and eighty-four percent of their spouses feel unqualified and discouraged in their role as pastors.


• Fifty percent of pastors are so discouraged that they would leave the ministry if they could, but have no other way of making a living.


• Eighty percent of seminary and Bible school graduates who enter the ministry will leave
  the ministry within the first five years.


• Eighty-five percent of pastors said their greatest problem is they are sick and tired of dealing with problem people, such as disgruntled elders, deacons, worship leaders, worship teams, board members, and associate pastors.


• Ninety percent said the hardest thing about ministry is dealing with uncooperative people.


• Seventy percent of pastors feel grossly underpaid.


• Ninety percent said the ministry was completely different than what they thought it would be before they entered the ministry.


• Seventy percent felt God called them to pastoral ministry before their ministry began, but after three years of ministry, only fifty percent still felt called.


• Seventy percent of pastors constantly fight depression.


• Almost forty percent polled said they have had an extra-marital affair since beginning their ministry.

Next week we shall see statistics concerning pastors’ wives and children.

1 Peter 5:8