Associate Director’s Report
By Gregg Boll

Pastors Retiring and the SBC’s Leadership Crisis

I want to congratulate and express my deepest appreciation for several of our BR-KC pastors who have retired in the last few years after long, faithful pastorates.  Forgive me if I leave anyone out, but here is the list of retiring pastors within the last four years:

Welby Jones from Sterling Acres                                                      Larry Heenan from Spring Valley Baptist Church

Tim Redding from Peculiar First                                                      Randy Messer from Oak Grove First

Chane Hutton from South Kansas City (Testimony Church)              J.C. Beckner from Raymore First

Ernie Cecil from Antioch Southern                                                   Scott Flippin from Norfleet Baptist

Francis O’Donnell from The Gathering

This wave of retiring pastors is probably a fair sampling of what’s going on across the SBC as 1000’s of Baby Boomer Pastors are presently retiring or near retirement.   The problem is that there are far fewer younger men surrendering to full-time vocational ministry to take up the mantle of faithful men like these listed above.

It is not the purpose of this article to belabor the reasons for this shortage, but to awaken our churches and current pastors to the actual dearth of new, young pastors.  Allow me to illustrate this shortage in real numbers from my personal experience working with pastor search committees over the last several years.  In 2014 a full-time, pastorless church in our Association received 268 resumes after posting their open position.  In 2015 another full-time, pastorless church received 350 plus resumes during their search process.  Last year, 2022, a full-time church in a desirable community, with a much sought after school system, with great potential for growth received 31 resumes for their open pastorate.  Recently, I read an article from the Baptist Press expressing enthusiasm over Southern Baptists not having as great a shortage of pastors as other mainline denomination and some seminaries having record enrollment.  Yet, here is the inconvenient truth.  Those increased numbers in enrollment are the result of the seminaries adding non-ministry undergraduate degree programs which attract men and women seeking a more faith-friendly, Christian education.  Actually, there is a decline in enrollment of men seeking vocational ministry degrees.  This is not speculation on my part.  I have heard registrars from one of our seminaries and two of our state Baptist colleges share this very thing.  Couple that with an escalation in resignations of mid-career, experienced pastors over the last few years and the shortage of pastors is undeniable and palpable among our S.B.C churches.  Missouri currently has nearly 300 pastorless churches.  It’s not uncommon to hear stories of churches in small towns and country crossroads communities in the Midwest often not receiving one resume after posting their open position.  What can we do?  I recommend that your church do the following:

  • Pray; “Therefore, plead with the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.” Future missionaries and pastors don’t come from seminaries and denominational agencies; they are called by the Lord from churches just like yours.
  • Intentionally challenge children, youth, and adults to consider God’s call upon their life. Preach sermons that call out the called.  Provide several ministry and mission opportunities that God can use to affirm His calling in a person’s life.  I remember a survey which showed that 90% of our International Missionaries said that a mission trip as a young person was very instrumental in them sensing God’s call to serve as a career missionary.
  • Establish an internship in your church to give aspiring young, potential ministers a place to serve and develop their skills for ministry. The Missouri Baptist Convention provides funding for internships for student summer missionaries to serve 10 weeks in your church.  They also offer paid internships through the Resound Revitalization Network to work in your church to help the church with ministries that lead to health and growth ( https://resoundnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/2023-Summer-Overview1.pdf ).  There is also $2400 available per church to pay a prospective pastor/elder through the Pastoral Mentorship Initiative.  https://mobaptist.org/touchpoints/touchpoints-web-communications/pastoral-mentorship-initiative/
  • Develop a healthy discipleship process that challenges and equips every believer in your church to live missionally.  You will find that such an intentional discipleship process will create a pipeline of future leaders, some vocational pastors.