A Satisfying Vocation?

by L. Gregory Jones

"Ministry a satisfying vocation, survey finds." Headlines like this, reporting on the initial findings of a national clergy survey conducted by Duke's Pulpit and Pew Project, appeared in newspapers, church periodicals, and elsewhere this past spring.

It was not the only, much less the most important, finding of the survey. But it was the one that, over and over again, reporters and editors found most fascinating and newsworthy. Why?

Perhaps it was because the news sounded so different from the dominant religious news story of those weeks and months - the scandal of sexual abuse and its cover-up by Roman Catholic priests and bishops. Or perhaps it was because the reporters were grateful to report on good news about the ministry, reassuring church people that the clergy are still committed to their vocation and find it fulfilling.

Yet others questioned the results. How could ministry be seen as such a satisfying vocation, given the reports and stories of burn-out and other morale problems, a high drop-out rate in the first five years of ministry, financial struggles among clergy, splits within congregations as well as denominations, and the reluctance of clergy to encourage others to consider ordained ministry as a vocation. The news seemed polyannish, if not deceptive.

The report seems even more baffling when looked at in the light of these clergy's answers to other questions. Most troubling is that over half of the clergy across the denominations reported that among their greatest daily problems is their "difficulty reaching people with the Gospel today." How could ministry be a satisfying vocation for clergy if they find ministry's central task to be so difficult?

Might it be that clergy find ordained ministry to be a satisfying vocation in principle, in spite of the enormous obstacles, challenges, and systemic distortions which make it so difficult in practice? After all, my wife and I know from our own involvement in congregational ministry how deeply satisfying and rewarding it is to be invited to share in the lives of other people. Ordained ministers are invited into some of the most intimate times of people's lives - the joys of marriage and new babies and anniversaries and promotions and new jobs, the griefs of broken relationships and deaths and the loss of work and tragic systemic injustices.

Even more, ordained ministry is shaped by rhythms of life with other people that are intrinsic to human flourishing: timeful movements of work and play and rest; the cultivation of intimate relationships yet a rich diversity of acquaintances; making a joyful noise yet also being still; rigorous study and prayerful listening; an opportunity to make a significant social difference yet often in quiet, hidden ways.

Ordained ministry offers an opportunity to be in solidarity with those on the margins as well as to offer counsel to the leaders of a community, a chance to explore how best to form faithful children while respecting and caring for wise (and not-so-wise) elders. Where else can you draw the generations together in profoundly life-giving ways, receiving and offering opportunities for life abundant in the presence of God?

At its best, ordained ministers and their congregations cultivate a life together that is, indeed, deeply satisfying. It is why we are so touched and nourished by powerful depictions of ministry - by pastoral memoirs such as Richard Lischer's Open Secrets, or collections of sermons such as Barbara Brown Taylor's Gospel Medicine. It is why people are drawn to congregations where the presence of God in Christ is so clearly present in life-giving ways.

We should not be surprised that people recognize that ordained ministry is a satisfying vocation. We should be surprised, and troubled, that so deeply satisfying a vocation is beset by so many challenges, obstacles, and systemic distortions in contemporary American life. What are the problems - in our seminaries, in our congregations, in our discernment and recruitment of potential clergy, in our evangelistic outreach, in our readings and engagements with cultural changes - that so many clergy could find it so difficult to reach people with the Gospel today?

What is happening that so many clergy feel that they are unable to support themselves and their families with the kinds of material resources to enable a well-lived life? Why are there not enough books, and films, and music, and art, to sustain and support the pastoral vocation - and why are the clergy not turning to those available resources that might nourish them more deeply?

Why do many clergy seem so lonely, a loneliness that often becomes painfully real only at the point of serious misconduct or dropping out? Why are clergy finding it so difficult to distinguish the urgent from the genuinely important in their work? Why are we not telling more stories, and telling them well, of places where ministry is faithfully flourishing? Why have we so often asked the clergy to become amateur practitioners of other vocations, such as therapists or politicians or managers - rather than to cultivate a genuinely pastoral intelligence shaped by the crucified and risen Christ? Why are clergy not commending to others a vocation we find satisfying?

The Pulpit and Pew project is gathering and gleaning significant data as well as undertaking historical and theological analysis in order to help address questions such as these. To be sure, many of these questions are not new, and we ought not pretend that there was some golden age from which contemporary clergy have fallen. But neither should we pretend that the present state of ordained ministry is where it should be. Nor should we lament the present as if there is no hope for the future.

Rather, we ought to be encouraged that ordained ministry is so deeply satisfying a vocation. The problems are real, and the challenges we confront are daunting. But at the heart of the vocation of ordained ministry - and the friendships, practices, and treasures that sustain ministry's work - is the opportunity to reach people with the Gospel, bearing a life-giving witness to the gracious love of God in Christ. What can we do to make what is satisfying in principle more satisfying in practice for more people?

Copyright 2002 Christian Century Foundation. Reproduced by permission from the August 14-27, 2002 issue of the Christian Century. Subscriptions: $49/year from P.O. Box 378, Mt. Morris, IL 61054. 1-800-208-4097

Return to Publications