The Mainline Church Is Running Out of Pastors

TL;DR:
Many Mainline churches may think their biggest challenges are declining attendance and aging buildings. But a deeper crisis is emerging: there simply aren’t enough pastors coming through the pipeline. Falling ordination numbers, aging clergy, seminary formation questions, and the lack of a leadership “farm system” are creating a shrinking pastoral bench—one that is already reshaping how churches find leaders.

Yes, this image is AI generated.

The Mainline Church’s Real Crisis

Recently I learned that the pastor of a church I know well will be moving to another congregation in hopes of helping revitalize it. In his denominational system, pastors are periodically reassigned to new churches—sometimes with their approval, sometimes not—as part of the way the denomination deploys clergy across congregations.

What makes the situation striking is the contrast between the two churches. This pastor, in his 50s, is leaving a church that averages more than 350 people across two services and includes many families with children. The church he is moving to averages fewer than 100 and has very few families.

In many ways, the struggling church would seem like an ideal call for a pastor in their 30s with a few years of experience under their belt—someone with the energy to experiment, build relationships, and try new things.

I’ll admit I may be a little too close to the situation to see it objectively. Still, the contrast between the two churches makes the move feel less like a strategic deployment of leadership and more like a desperate attempt to plug a hole.

The question isn’t whether the pastor is capable of helping a struggling church. The question is whether taking him away from a healthy one creates more risk than it solves.

And the more I thought about it, the more it seemed like the move revealed something deeper happening across the mainline church.

Stories like this reveal an uncomfortable reality: the real crisis in the mainline church may not be attendance or buildings. It may be the pastoral bench.

The Numbers Are Getting Harder to Ignore

Sociologist Ryan Burge recently wrote about decline within the United Church of Christ, spending some time dissecting the coming clergy shortage—and the numbers are quite shocking.

The United Church of Christ Is Running Out of People—and Pastors

In 2013, the UCC ordained 177 new ministers. Since then the number has steadily declined. By 2019 it had dropped to 120. In 2022 it fell to 92, and in 2023 only 80 new ministers were ordained.

In the most recent two years of data, there were 172 new ministers ordained total. In 2013 alone there were 177.

That’s a 55 percent decline in ordinations in just a single decade.

Burge notes that if the current trajectory holds, something remarkable may happen within the next several years:

“If that current trajectory holds steady, there will be more retired UCC ministers than active UCC ministers in the next five to seven years.”

Meanwhile the clergy already serving are aging. According to denominational records, roughly three in five active ministers in the UCC have already celebrated their 60th birthday.

As Burge’s data details, if retirement rates begin to accelerate—as seems likely—the math becomes stark. It would not be surprising to see retirement rates approach five percent annually in the coming years. If that happens, for every two pastors entering ministry, five could be retiring.

Which means hundreds of pulpits could soon sit empty. And, as Burge notes, empty pulpits often lead to church closures.

The mainline church may think it has a building problem or an attendance problem. What it actually has is a bench problem.

Yes, this image is AI generated.

An Illustration of the Problem

You can already see this dynamic playing out in the kinds of clergy entering ministry.

Increasingly, many of the new pastors I see in mainline settings are third-career pastors—people who have already retired from another profession and are answering a call to ministry much later in life.

Let me be clear: there are many faithful and capable clergy coming through this path, and their gifts should not be dismissed. But the demographic reality remains.

A denomination cannot sustain itself if many of its “new” pastors are beginning ministry in their 60s.

The issue is not commitment or calling.

It’s time.

A pastor beginning ministry at thirty may serve a church for three decades. A pastor beginning ministry at sixty simply does not have the same runway.

Research on pastoral tenure suggests that many congregations experience some of their most fruitful years between a pastor’s sixth and tenth year of ministry, once trust has been built and relationships have deepened. Long tenures remain relatively rare, but the evidence is fairly consistent: churches often become healthier when pastors remain long enough to build strong relationships and guide congregations through challenges over time.¹

Which raises a practical challenge. A pastor beginning ministry at age sixty-five may not realistically be able to remain in one congregation long enough to experience that full arc of ministry.

This is not a criticism of older clergy. Many bring deep wisdom and experience to the churches they serve. But it does highlight the demographic challenge facing many mainline denominations: if most new pastors are beginning ministry close to retirement age, the long-term leadership pipeline becomes much harder to sustain.

Questions About Formation

There are also questions about how pastors are being formed.

In one conversation I had with a judicatory leader in the mainline church, she expressed concern that a certain seminary was not doing enough to form students as pastors.

The concern wasn’t that students lacked passion or conviction. It was that the formation seemed less focused on preparing leaders to shepherd congregations—to preach week after week, guide communities through conflict, develop lay leadership, and sustain local churches.

She did not use the word “activist,” but reading between the lines, that seemed to be the concern.

In other words, seminaries may sometimes be forming leaders who are well prepared to critique institutions but less prepared to sustain and lead them.

Perceptions in the Field

I have heard similar concerns from pastors themselves.

One mainline pastor I spoke with in the Midwest was trying to revitalize a struggling congregation through a multisite strategy. When it came time to hire additional staff, he ended up looking outside the mainline entirely.

As he explained it to me somewhat bluntly (my paraphrase):

“If I hired a graduate from a certain seminary, they’d probably just want to sell the building and give the money to an NGO.”

That comment shouldn’t be taken as a blanket judgment about seminaries or the many thoughtful leaders they produce. But it does reveal a perception that has taken hold in some corners of the mainline church.

Some pastors worry that the formation pipeline is not always producing leaders eager—or prepared—to shepherd congregations.

The Missing Farm System

Even if more young clergy were entering the pipeline, there is another structural challenge.

Many mainline churches no longer provide the kind of low-stakes leadership development that once formed young pastors.

In previous generations, a young minister might spend a few years serving as an associate pastor in a healthy congregation before taking on the responsibility of leading a church, often like what happens in Evangelical or non-denominational churches.

Today, many seminary graduates move directly from the classroom into pastoring small, struggling, and often dysfunctional congregations. How many promising young clergy just give up after five years or less because it’s simply too much?

Seeing a seasoned pastor handle even low-grade conflict and division sure can be helpful when it comes time for that same young pastor trying to navigate dysfunction within their own revitalization effort.

That was certainly my experience, and it is increasingly common.

Without a healthy system for developing younger pastors within thriving congregations, the pipeline becomes even more fragile.

Looking Beyond the Mainline

Another dynamic that observers like Andy Root have noted is that churches are increasingly hiring pastors from outside their own traditions.

I have seen this firsthand. One mainline pastor I know hired a pastor from outside the tradition to help lead a revitalization effort. The same pastor also hired a youth pastor—also from outside the mainline.

Whether we like it or not, this trend may accelerate.

If denominations cannot produce enough pastors internally, churches will eventually look elsewhere.

And if that happens, it will increasingly fall to the churches themselves—not pastors—to become the primary stewards of their traditions.

What Can Be Done?

Several things seem necessary.

1. First, churches must identify and invest in young leaders who show gifts for pastoral leadership and encourage them to pursue ministry.

2. Second, denominations need to simplify the pastor leadership pipeline. Careful discernment and vetting are important, but endless meetings and uncertain job prospects can make ministry an increasingly difficult path for younger leaders.

3. Third, mainline churches need to look beyond their own traditions to find capable pastors willing to lead congregations faithfully.²

None of these solutions are simple.

But ignoring the problem will not make it go away.

Back to the Beginning

Which brings me back to the story that started this reflection.

Moving a successful pastor out of a healthy church in order to stabilize a struggling one is a huge risk. I’ve seen too many incoming pastors unintentionally damage otherwise healthy congregations for that risk to be taken lightly.

But when the bench is thin, decisions like this start to look less like strategy and more like triage.

For years we’ve talked about declining attendance and aging buildings in the mainline church.

Those concerns are real.

But the deeper crisis may be something else entirely.

There simply may not be enough pastors.

1. https://baptisttrumpet.com/2023/02/14/church-health-pastor-tenure/

2. As I’ve said before, I think increasingly congregations, not pastors, will need to become the holders of denominational tradition.