By Chris Moon
Despite a global pandemic that limited in-person church services for much of the past year, the job market for pastors in the Restoration Movement remains robust, say those who closely follow the trends.
“I’ve not heard any of them talking about a mass exodus or mass shifting or layoffs,” said Kent Fillinger, president of 3:STRANDS Consulting, Indianapolis; Fillinger conducts Christian Standard’s annual church surveys. “Churches remained financially healthy during COVID, and so they weren’t in a pinch where they had to make adjustments to staffing.”
Many churches were able to bank funds from the federal government’s Paycheck Protection Program, helping to boost operational reserves. Additionally, giving from church members remained strong in most churches.
Fillinger said the 2020 annual church survey revealed 70 percent of more than 400 churches were at or above the previous year’s financial giving levels.
“Some churches were 20 or 30 percent above their giving from the year prior,” Fillinger said. “To do that in the midst of a pandemic was pretty amazing. I think everybody just had the mentality we don’t want to see the church go under or see our church staff leave.”
Fillinger also serves as regional vice president with Christian Financial Resources, which provides loans to churches for things like building projects. Of more than 300 outstanding loans to churches, “not one is a day late on payment,” Fillinger said.
‘HUNDREDS OF JOBS AVAILABLE’
Rick Shonkwiler, director of the “Find Your Next Minister” initiative for the Christian Church Leadership Network, said the number of job openings among Restoration Movement churches has remained consistent.
“We still have hundreds of jobs available across our movement,” he said.
Shonkwiler said demand is strong for preaching pastors. Many baby boomers are retiring, some of them after hanging on with their churches through the uncertainty of the pandemic.
“So those positions will be coming open,” Shonkwiler said. “The challenge I see are the number of people to fill those positions. It seems the pipeline is really depleted.”
Shonkwiler said he’s noticed a shortage of skilled pastors who are ready to enter the preaching arena. Younger pastors are training to become youth or children’s pastors, or are focusing on other specialties, such as online ministry.
Shonkwiler said there’s a reluctance by some ministry graduates to go cut their teeth in smaller churches where they would learn a variety of pastoral skills.
Even so, another trend in the ministry job market is in a very specialized ministry: online pastor. It is a role that has emerged in full force during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Shonkwiler said he’s noticed more churches looking for youth pastors at the moment, after having moved their veteran, tech-savvy youth pastors into the role of online pastor during the pandemic.
“Now we have student ministries available,” he said.
MANAGING THE ‘DIGITAL ECOSYSTEM’
Mountain Christian Church in Joppa, Md., has been assessing its staffing in light of the pandemic. The church recently added three new staff members to its group of more than 100 employees, said Luke Erickson, Mountain’s executive pastor.
But the church continues to weigh the best way to structure itself as the pandemic winds down. Some staffing deliberations are focused on determining exactly how many people are part of its flock today.
Mountain Christian Church began meeting again in January, and only recently has the state’s governor lifted many of the pandemic restrictions, including mask-wearing.
The church averaged 6,300 weekly before the pandemic, including 1,300 who viewed services online, Erickson said. More and more of the in-person attenders are coming back while the online viewership remains constant, Erickson said.
“We have some more to learn there,” he said. “What we really are trying to do is get our arms around the right strategy.”
Since the pandemic’s arrival, the church created the position of online ministry director and moved an existing team member into that role. The church also is shifting the job assignments of others who manage the church’s “digital ecosystem,” Erickson said.
For instance, one video producer is no longer just making videos. That staff member also is taking existing video content from the church, such as sermons, and figuring out ways to share that content in new ways online. The staffer may bolster a sermon with a backstage interview with the preacher or by putting together a live online event discussing the sermon topic.
“You maximize what can happen through the content,” Erickson said.
It very well could require additional staff to do that.
“We’re not cutting back,” Erickson said. “I would say repositioning. There might be a net expansion.”
‘MORE UTILITARIAN GRADUATES’
Meanwhile, new graduates of Restoration Movement colleges don’t seem to be having a hard time finding jobs. Several college presidents interviewed recently by Christian Standard said ministry graduates were finding positions about as easily as they ever have.
Derek Voorhees, president of Boise Bible College, said the need for pastors in the Northwest is large, particularly in children’s and youth ministry. But other needs are emerging.
“People are looking for a lot more utilitarian graduates,” Voorhees said.
That is, they’re looking for young ministry staff with a variety of skills and who are willing to move into areas of need within the church. That trend is not new, but it is growing, he said.
Chris Moon is a pastor and writer living in Redstone, Colorado.
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