A FALL in the numbers training for ordination in the Episcopal Church in the United States, together with churches’ inability to pay for full-time ministry, is causing a crisis in clergy recruitment, figures suggest.
Data released by the Church show that the numbers coming forward for ordination have fallen over the past 12 years. Seminaries are also reporting a decline in enrolment over the past five years.
In 2010, there were 325 newly ordained priests, compared with 225 in 2022. Clergy retirement numbers have remained steady at about 400 a year, and half of the remaining clergy are within ten years of retirement.
Those coming forward for ordination are also older and sometimes only within a few years of retirement.
Figures reported at the Episcopal Church Council in June also showed that the number of parishes seeking a priest far exceeded the number of clergy looking for a post.
The director of the Church’s office of transition ministry, which supports recruitment by dioceses and congregations, the Revd Meghan Froehlich, reported that there were 622 vacancies and just 87 clergy identified as seeking a new post.
In the south-east of the US, just eight clergy were searching among 123 vacancies.
Bishops, clergy, and laity discussed a new model of “bi-vocational” or “multi-vocational” ministry, at an event this month. In this proposal to encourage and keep more people in ministry, ministers could have several other forms of employment outside the Church.
A data scientist for the Church Pension Group, the Revd Alistair So-Schoos addressed the event, hosted by the Iona Collaborative, which offers an online training programme. He said 56 per cent of serving clergy in the Episcopal Church today were already in bi-vocational or multi-vocational ministry.
The director, the Revd Dr Nandra Perry, left academia to become the Vicar of St Philip’s, Texas, whose congregation numbers 18. She told the Episcopal News Service: “There are people in small towns all over this country that need to know that they are welcome in God’s Church. I wanted to be a part of helping one small church in one small town keep its doors open.
“When I lost my faith as a young woman, the Episcopal Church welcomed me in, just as I was, and then loved me back to wholeness over a period of several years. I don’t believe that kind of healing power should be limited to the East Coast or to major cities.”
Most smaller churches cannot afford to pay for full-time ministry, and so struggle to attract priests.
A former Bishop of the Southwest Synod, in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Dr R. Guy Erwin, is now President of the United Lutheran Seminary, Philadelphia. He said: “The problem is not that we have a shortage of pastors. We have a shortage of congregations that can pay a full-time pastor the way they used to.”
But the situation presented an opportunity, Dr Perry said. “We’ve got some scrappy little churches that are out there being salt and light in some very inspiring ways. I think bishops are in touch with that, and increasingly, with the importance of elevating the ministry of all the baptised, and strong, well-trained, locally formed leaders, it’s an enormous opportunity.”
