Hard to find enough Un-Biblical Church Leaders

OK, That's a bit harsh. But I have a problem. I have this big black book I read pretty regularly. I know the books of Titus, Ephesians, The Timothy's and others where church leadership is defined. I searched and searched and guess what I didn't find. Seminaries.

OR

Ordinations. Licencing. Denominational hoops.

What I do find is the local body being careful to see to it the leadership they put in place is moral, upright, steady, wise and without compromise.

Right now, many denominations are having a hard time finding enough pastors to fill all the empty pulpits there are in the nation. Yet, several of the regular readers of this Blog, several friends of mine and several good men and women of God would be excellent leaders of Churches. There are two problems. One is the denominational hoops and the other is frankly the money. Some of these churches do not and will not pay even a living wage to lead the church.

I suspect this is a part of what the Lord told me at the beginning of the year. These kinds of foolish and man made structures must fail.

Read this from the article about all the empty pulpits in the country:

Is there a Protestant clergy shortage?

Yes and no.

The answer, as in the Catholic Church, often depends on where you worship.

Some churches, especially those that are small or rural, struggle to fill pulpits. But even in denominations that say they’re doing OK, it can be more an issue of having enough people, just not in the right places.

“It is a growing problem for us,” said the Rev. Ralph E. Jones, bishop of the Northwestern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Over the next decade, the bishop said, the number of Lutheran ministers retiring is expected to exceed the new pastors joining the ranks each year.

He said his synod has about 90 clergy, half of them retired. Some of those continue to serve some smaller congregations on a part-time basis, he said.

Jones also said that about 80 percent of the 89 congregations in his synod have 100 or fewer people at worship. Supporting a full-time pastor can be hard for those groups, he said.

In the Presbyterian Church USA, the number of clergy is steady to slowly increasing, said the Rev. David Oyler, general presbyter for the Presbytery of Lake Erie.

“So nationwide there is not a shortage,” he said. “The challenge is people are not necessarily located where the need is.”

He said the seven Presbyterian seminaries have as many students now as in the past 10, 20 or 30 years.

And the Lake Erie Presbytery has 72 clergy, or about the same number as past years, he said. That number includes retired pastors, some of whom continue to serve among the presbytery’s 60 churches.

The Right Rev. Sean W. Rowe, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Northwestern Pennsylvania, also considers the ordination process healthy.

His diocese ordained six priests in 2008, which he said is typical.

What is changing, Rowe said, is that the number of ordained people younger than 30 is up. The 33-year-old bishop said there had been a trend for awhile of older candidates, many of them coming to the priesthood as a second career. He believes it’s good to have a mix of ages.

Rowe said there’s not a shortage of Episcopal priests in big cities. It’s more of a problem in rural areas, where smaller congregations might have trouble affording or attracting a full-time priest, he said.

Rural areas are also sometimes more difficult for the Assemblies of God to staff, said John Palmer, general secretary for the Pentecostal denomination with 2.8 million U.S. members.

He said there were just under 33,900 Assemblies of God ministers in the U.S. at the end of 2007. About 4,700 were retired.

“We’re sort of keeping up with the population,” Palmer said.