Pool of available ministers mismatched to churches’ needs
Numbers don’t show everything, but sometimes the big statistical picture can help explain some churches’ leadership matching dilemmas.
Marcia Clark Myers – who is director of the Office of Vocations for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), and whom Bruce Reyes-Chow, moderator of the 218th General Assembly, has given a shout-out for the way her statistical presentation had the audience buzzing (both in the room and via Twitter) at a recent meeting of denominational leaders – has spent time and energy recently pulling together numbers regarding leadership in the denomination.
Her bottom line: the PC(USA) has some mismatches between those trained for ministry and what the denomination needs.
The future leaders of the church will need to be flexible and creative, able to serve at a time of new denominational and religious realties. Among the types of ministerial leaders the PC(USA) will need: church planters; those who can transform older congregations into new ways of being; and those capable of “hospice” ministry, who can guide congregations that won’t survive faithfully through their final days.
