The following was shared with future Living Waters Clergy on Thursday, Oct. 15, 2026
Beloved Colleagues,
For generations, the pathway into Christian ministry seemed relatively straightforward: discern a call, attend seminary, receive theological education, become ordained, find a congregation, serve as a full-time pastor, and remain in congregational ministry until retirement.
That pathway is changing.
Across the church, congregations are becoming smaller, denominational structures are being reorganized, full-time pastoral positions are becoming harder to find, and seminaries are confronting declining enrollment and changing patterns of theological education. Regions and denominations are also downsizing, consolidating positions, and rethinking how ministry is resourced.
These changes should concern us. But they should not frighten us. They should force us to ask a more important question: What does it mean to prepare people for ministry when the traditional model of full-time paid congregational ministry can no longer be assumed?
I believe the answer requires us to rethink vocation itself. For much of the twentieth century, theological education operated on an implicit assumption: if someone was called to ministry, there would be a church somewhere that needed a full-time pastor. That assumption is increasingly difficult to sustain.
There are still wonderful congregations looking for excellent pastors. There are still clergy serving faithfully in full-time positions. The pastoral vocation is not disappearing. But the ecosystem around it is changing. Some congregations cannot afford a full-time minister. Some churches are choosing part-time or shared ministry. Some congregations are closing. Others are merging. Denominations are reducing staff positions. Seminaries are adapting their programs to meet new realities. And clergy who once expected to spend an entire career in one congregation may find themselves navigating multiple vocational transitions.
I believe these transitions are not merely a crisis of employment; they are also a crisis of imagination. If our definition of successful ministry is limited to obtaining a full-time pastoral position, then we will inevitably define too many gifted and faithful ministers as failures. Perhaps the problem is not that there are fewer places for ministry. Perhaps the problem is that we have defined ministry too narrowly.
Preparing Ministers for Ministry and Work: Reimagining Seminary, Regional, and Denominational Structures
I believe seminaries, regions and denominational structures have an important opportunity in this moment. We must continue to form people spiritually, biblically, theologically, ethically and pastorally. That foundation is indispensable. But clergy also need employable skills. I believe that preparing clergy to be employable is not a capitulation to capitalism; it is an act of stewardship.
People enter ministry with gifts, families, financial responsibilities, educational debt and long professional lives ahead of them. We should not tell people to follow their calling and then send them into a changing labor market without giving them the tools to navigate it.
A seminary graduate should be able to preach a sermon. But perhaps that same graduate should also know how to facilitate a strategic-planning process.
They should understand pastoral care. But perhaps they should also understand organizational leadership.
They should be able to interpret Scripture. But perhaps they should also know how to write a grant proposal.
They should be able to lead worship. But perhaps they should also understand project management, communications, fundraising, conflict mediation, community organizing and basic data analysis. These are not distractions from ministry. They are ministry skills.
Clergy Already Have Transferable Skills
One of the great mistakes I used to make was underestimating what we (clergy) actually know how to do.
- A clergy person who has led a congregation through a difficult transition has practiced change management.
- A clergy person who has mediated conflict between members has practiced conflict resolution.
- A clergy person who has organized a capital campaign has practiced fundraising and project management.
- A clergy person who has preached every week has developed public communication skills.
- A clergy person who has supervised staff has practiced human-resource management.
- A clergy person who has built partnerships with schools, nonprofits, government agencies and community organizations has practiced stakeholder engagement.
- A clergy person who has sat with people in grief, crisis and uncertainty has developed a profound capacity for emotional intelligence and relational leadership.
- And a clergy person who has interpreted complex theological questions for ordinary people has learned how to translate complicated ideas into language people can understand. These are valuable skills. The challenge is that many of us clergy do not know how to name them outside the church. We need to teach them.
My Own Journey
I am a political scientist by trade. That part of my vocational story matters. My training taught me to study institutions, systems, public policy, leadership, power, organizations and communities. It taught me to ask questions about why institutions function the way they do and why they sometimes stop functioning the way they once did.
Eventually, my vocational journey led me into ministry. But becoming a minister did not erase my previous formation. It expanded it. And today, I also consult. That combination has taught me something important: our vocational lives do not have to fit neatly into a single category. I do not have to choose between being a political scientist, a regional minister and a consultant as though these identities are competing with one another. They can inform one another. My theological formation shapes how I understand leadership.
My political-science training shapes how I understand institutions. My ministry experience shapes how I understand people and communities. My consulting work creates another space in which those gifts can be used. That is not vocational confusion. It is vocational integration. Instead of assuming that one person must derive 100 percent of their income and vocational identity from a single congregation, we might imagine ministers whose vocational lives include several expressions.
A minister might pastor a congregation three days a week and consult two days a week. Another might serve as a chaplain while teaching. Another might work in nonprofit leadership. Another might become a community-development consultant. Another might work in public policy. Another might combine preaching with executive coaching. Another might work in higher education. Another might develop a nonprofit or social enterprise. Another might serve several congregations collaboratively. None of these possibilities necessarily represents a retreat from ministry. They may represent ministry expanding into places where the institutional church has not traditionally looked.
We Need to Change the Language
There is also a pastoral and theological issue here. We need to stop telling clergy that their worth is determined by whether a church can afford to employ them full time. I admit that I was guilty of that in the past. But now I understand that a person’s calling is bigger than their job description and bigger than what a church’s budget says it can afford to pay them.
Employment and vocation are related, but they are not identical. A congregation may be unable to employ a particular minister and yet that minister may have an extraordinary vocation. The denomination may eliminate a position and yet the person’s gifts remain. A church may close and yet the ministry God has entrusted to its pastor does not suddenly disappear. Sometimes God calls us to serve institutions. Sometimes God calls us to serve communities. Sometimes God calls us to build something new. Sometimes God calls us to carry the gifts we developed in the church into places beyond the church. The marketplace may not always recognize the language of “calling.” That does not mean our calling cannot be expressed in the marketplace.
What Should Seminaries, Regions and Denominational Structures Teach?
If we are serious about preparing clergy for the future, we should consider adding or strengthening courses in areas such as:
- Organizational leadership
- Strategic planning
- Project management
- Grant writing
- Fundraising and development
- Public policy
- Community organizing
- Data literacy
- Communications and public relations
- Entrepreneurship
- Consulting
- Nonprofit management
- Mediation and conflict resolution
- Human resources
- Financial management
- Board governance
- Facilitation and group process
Imagine a seminarian graduating with a Master of Divinity who can preach, teach, provide pastoral care and facilitate a board retreat, develop a strategic plan, write a successful grant, manage a project, analyze community data and consult with an organization facing institutional change. That person is not less prepared for ministry. They are more prepared for the ministry that is emerging. This responsibility cannot rest entirely with seminaries. Denominations and regions should rethink clergy development. We spend enormous amounts of energy asking, “How do we place this minister in a church?” We should be intentional about asking:
What are this minister’s gifts? What problems can this minister help solve? What organizations need what this minister knows how to do? What additional skills would make this minister more versatile? How can we create pathways for clergy to serve beyond traditional congregational structures? Regional ministries could (we should) develop consulting networks that connect experienced clergy with congregations, nonprofits and community organizations needing assistance with strategic planning, conflict transformation, leadership development, organizational assessment, pastoral transitions and community engagement. In other words, we could stop thinking only about clergy placement and start thinking about clergy deployment. The difference is significant. Placement asks, “Where can we put this person?” Deployment asks, “Where can this person’s gifts make a difference?”
A New Theology of Vocation
The changing landscape of ministry requires more than an economic response. It requires theological imagination. Perhaps we need to recover a broader understanding of vocation. Vocation is not simply the job we hold. Vocation is the intersection of our gifts, our passions, our formation, the needs of the world and the places where God is calling us to serve.
The church needs pastors. But the world needs people who know how to listen, love, reconcile, organize, lead, teach, advocate, interpret, encourage and build community. Who better to do some of that work than people formed in the traditions of Christian ministry?
The question is not whether clergy should become something other than ministers.
The question is whether we are willing to recognize the many ways ministry can be expressed.
The Church Is Changing. We Must Change With It.
There will always be grief associated with institutional change. We should acknowledge it.
When a congregation can no longer afford its pastor, that is painful. When a denomination or a region eliminates positions, people suffer. When a seminary closes, there is loss. When a minister spends years preparing for a vocation only to discover that the traditional employment model is disappearing, disappointment is understandable. But disappointment does not have to become despair.
The church has survived enormous changes before. The question before us is not simply how we preserve the old model of ministry. It is whether we can imagine the new one. I believe we can. And perhaps the ministers who thrive in the next generation will not be those who are simply waiting for the church to hire them. They will be those who understand their gifts deeply enough to recognize the places where those gifts are needed.
They will preach. They will teach. They will pastor. They will consult. They will organize. They will lead. They will build. They will advocate. They will create. They will serve. And they will discover that vocation is not confined to a church office, a pulpit or a pastoral contract.
The church may be downsizing some of its institutions. But God has not downsized the call to serve. The challenge before seminaries, churches, regions and denominations is to prepare clergy not simply to find jobs in the church that was but to discern their vocation and exercise their gifts in the church, the community and the world that is emerging.
Amen. Asé.
Rev. Dr. William E. Crowder, Jr.
Thanks for this Dr. Crowder.
Steve Peters