I am increasingly hearing the same worrying story. I know of several churches that are seeking a full-time pastor, but many of them are coming up against the same problems. For one thing, there is a shortage of quality men putting themselves forward for ministry.
For another thing, of those who do put themselves forward, some are not made of the right stuff. As one church deacon recently said to me, some of the men who apply for pastoral vacancies are evanjellyfish. Which is to say, they’re ‘evangelical’, but they lack any backbone needed to stand for gospel truth.
There is another related problem. Several churches have reported to me that they are interviewing men for ministry who make it clear they couldn’t possibly preach twice on a Sunday. It’s just too much, they say. One sermon a week is as much as they can manage.
Poor little lambs. Even then, one gets the impression they’d need to take frequent breaks from even weekly sermon duties. We seem to have a generation of men who aren’t willing to roll up their sleeves and work hard for the kingdom of Christ.
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