logo

No Room at the Table:
A case for Local Pastor rights
By John Montgomery

At our most recent Annual Conference, the Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell motioned to send a proposal to General Conference giving local pastors the right to vote for delegates to General Conference. With little discussion the motion carried. My lay leader overheard a conversation between two ladies from a large urban church in Houston. A third woman asked the

other two if they had voted for the proposal. They said they had but were now having second thoughts. One commented, “I’m really not sure what a local pastor is, anyway.” The third woman said, “Well, my pastor told me he’s against this idea because local pastors are just uneducated preachers given little ‘podunk’ churches someplace.”

The phrase “local pastor” is confusing because it has two very different meanings. The meaning used here, though, refers to clergy who are not ordained or on the track to ordination. These are licensed by the church to act as clergy but have not earned a Master’s of Divinity degree or finished an equivalent curriculum. They have not received the prescribed education from a United Methodist-approved seminary.

 These local pastors represent approximately 15 percent of all United Methodist clergy and serve in every jurisdiction. Our numbers have increased 31 percent since the year 2000, while the total number of elders and churches overall has decreased. Our numbers are largest in those areas where small churches predominate, particularly in rural areas. Local pastors also tend to serve the poorest churches, those that have become unable to sustain both themselves and the increasing demands of the connectional church. Because most local pastors have two or three church charges, we represent over 30 percent of the United Methodist churches nationwide. In some areas, we represent a majority of the local churches.        

   As we approach General Conference we see two conflicting positions concerning local pastors. First is a concrete set of proposals to give local pastors a “Bill of Rights.” Second is a suggestion that 10,000 of our smallest churches be closed or consolidated, permanently eliminating the 6,600-8,500 local pastors that serve them now.

So what’s behind the contradictory call for improved rights for local pastors by some and the call for their complete elimination by others? The principal author of the recent Ministry Study outlined the viewpoint that would favor eliminating our smallest churches or somehow merging them. This is characterized by some as a really “courageous” act. But why would someone advocate closing between one-third to one-half of United Methodist churches and firing approximately 6,600-8,500 of our clergy? Are we so callous and apathetic to think we are no longer responsible for the weak and the poor, including those within small United Methodist churches?

The truth is that our church finds itself in a shifting demographic reality and a rapidly changing labor market. While we recognize the need to focus on growing urban areas, we also have a responsibility to encourage those United Methodists who don’t conveniently live in such places. Spiritual mission aside, pragmatically we have a serious human resource problem. We have become a church of stark contrasts: the bourgeois and the blue-collar. More and more of our small churches cannot afford to pay the price of a seminary-trained clergy person. They price themselves out of the market—and the trend is increasing.

Having churches that can’t afford a seminarian is not a new phenomenon. Historically, the problem has been addressed by the institution of local pastors, to fill the gaps where congregations can’t pay for the services provided by the seminarians. Some work for as little as $1,000 a year, serving as many as four churches. Most earn between $4,000 and $30,000 a year. A few actually make the mandated minimum salary for a full-time pastor (in my conference $39,000 plus benefits, in total about $50,000). There is competition for jobs, principally between the entry level seminarian and the longest tenured and most successful local pastors.

We have created a two-tiered clergy system which strongly rewards those who choose seminary. They are the “officers” of the clergy, to use the military analogy, while local pastors are enlisted personnel.

The elder clergy also rules the greater church, but particularly that portion that applies to clergy membership and status. They control our governing apparatus and have become quite adept at bureaucratic politics. No wonder there is never any serious discussion of the fundamental basis for ordination, or alternatives to academic credentialing, or whether or not the United Methodist seminaries are even a faithful branch of the Body of Christ anymore.

And what of local pastors? If they aren’t seminary graduates, who are they? Most are older, often retired, having already served our society with distinguished careers. Few, if any, were told the restrictions under which they would serve the church as local pastors. Many were pulled from the most motivated and dedicated of the laity, or from ordained ministry in some other denomination. They often are highly educated and bring tremendous educational backgrounds to the ministry.

Among my colleagues are retired and active medical doctors, counselors, attorneys, teachers and professors, and other exceptional professionals. Just as important, because most local pastors are second or third career professionals, they bring a high level of wisdom and experience working with ordinary people, running organizations, and embracing practical goals and objectives. Their theology comes from the grassroots, developed from years of Bible study and an extensive faith journey in both the church and society. In general, they support biblical authority, placing their faith in the Lord, not a liberal institutional surrogate.

 Local pastors exercise and discharge the same responsibilities and functions in a local church as an ordained elder (as mandated by para. 340 of the Discipline). The only difference is that elders serve larger and more affluent churches. Yet local pastors are paid less, given no job security, and excluded from making decisions about themselves or their churches. When local pastors are disenfranchised, so are their churches. Without meaningful clergy representation, small church issues are conveniently lost in the shuffle.

 What I’ve learned most of all from my experience—first as a lay person and now as a local pastor—is that formal education does not equate to ministerial quality or the success of a church. We have forgotten that it was circuit riders who made the glory days of Methodism what they were, who grew the church and set it on fire with the Holy Spirit. The most godly and spiritual Methodist minister I have ever met never finished high school. After twenty years of ministering he finished his Methodist local pastor training, got a GED, earned an Associates degree from a Methodist college and qualified to be an ordained deacon.

Only because local pastors are not seminary graduates are we denied benefits and privileges, then criticized for not being something we were never intended to be anyway. Local pastors can begin working as ministers after only two weeks of licensing school, though we are not allowed by the Discipline to finish the 60 hours of required training in less than five years.

 Local pastors may be called part-time because we hold another job and actually work as a pastor for a restricted number of hours, or if we work full-time, because we are paid below a specified salary level arbitrarily chosen by the church. Some believe that local pastors are not itinerant. That is false. We move when required as often as ordained elders.  

Others criticize local pastors because we are allowed to administer the sacraments, as if somehow that administration’s purpose is to serve as an entitlement for a special class rather than as a grace that God makes available to all believers. We local pastors serve the sacraments so that elderly people in nursing homes can receive communion, so that country folk don’t have to drive 40 or 50 miles to get baptized and received into the church. Most mainline churches are disappearing from the rural areas. Is that where United Methodism is heading?

 Local pastors will never be assigned to large or wealthy churches—those assignments are reserved for seminary graduates, although local pastors have been known to “grow” large churches. Unlike seminary graduates, local pastors serve on a year-to-year basis and can be let go without cause whenever a bishop chooses. In other words, we are what the secular workplace calls “temps.” We remain as “temps” even if we’ve loyally served for 20 or 30 years.

 If we are the Body of Christ, we might start by acting like Christ towards all of our clergy. We could start with equal pay for equal work. If the connectional church is going to subsidize seminarians in small churches so that they have a livable wage, why not local pastors who serve the same charges? Let us have our rightful place at the table. Open up leadership positions to qualified local pastors. Provide the same professional development and job security benefits to local pastors that seminarians enjoy. After all, we and our small churches are helping to pay for those things for the ordained. Most importantly, give us back our right to fair representation. Local pastors should have a vote for all church policies and positions. And we need to ensure that no pastor, whether local pastor, retired, full-time or part-time, loses the authority to administer the sacraments to believing United Methodists simply because that pastor didn’t go to the right school.

It’s really not about local pastors being paid less or having smaller churches—most of us could care less. We love our small churches. The small church lives at the heart of United Methodism, even though we may be only a small part of its body. But if we’re cast aside the church will lose a big piece of its soul—a traditional piece, essential if we are to have a successful and spirit-filled future.

 We can’t call for renewal until this issue of discrimination within our clergy is addressed. It’s about who we are as the United Methodist Church. It’s at stake at this General Conference—again. Now is the right time to prayerfully consider support for local pastors. And I have hope and no small confidence because I continue to believe that with God all things are possible. This General Conference it’s time for our fellowship to prove to small churches and local pastors that the business of United Methodism is actually the business of Jesus Christ. 

 

John Montgomery is the pastor of First United Methodist Church of Lovelady, Texas.



Click here to send your response plus the title of this article to us at Good News.

Good News | 308 East Main St. | P.O. Box 150 | Wilmore, KY 40390 | 859-858-4661 | 1-800-487-7784
info@goodnewsmag.org | About Us | ©2007 Good News magazine