PASTORAL TENURE
In The Pastor’s Confidential, editor James Swanson cites a recent survey of 758 pastors. The survey concluded that the average pastor serves one church only five years before making a move. Tenure of pastors has decreased over the past twenty years from an average of seven years to less than five years. The four most common reasons for leaving a church are: 1) acquiring a new vision or a sense of call to a new location: 38%; 2) a feeling that their ministry in that place was finished or could go no further: 26%; 3) the opportunity of career advancement to a larger church: 23%; 4) fleeing unresolved tensions or problems in the church: 18%. The larger churches in the survey had pastors who had been at the same church for an average of twenty years or more.
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