A recent article published by the Episcopal News Service, was entitled, “Amid talk of a churchwide ‘clergy shortage,’ dioceses experiment with local leadership models”.
I tried to pull key sentences from this rather lengthy article that summarize the statistical trends in the church and the key sentences describing trends in theological education:
On parishes and clergy:
1. The Episcopal Church still has nearly 7,000 congregations. The number of active Episcopal priests, on the other hand, has fallen over the past 20 years to fewer than 6,000. Their tenures can range from short periods to decades of service at the same parish, though local leaders say parish priests in recent years are less willing to relocate to new dioceses to start new positions, often referred to as “calls.”
2. Church leaders also say recent seminary graduates typically prefer full-time parish employment, at a time when about half of all Episcopal congregations offer only part-time calls, often because of financial constraints.
3. Recruitment is particularly difficult in rural communities served by small congregations, which are the majority across The Episcopal Church. Dioceses are increasingly relying on retired priests to help fill parish vacancies and interim roles, and some congregations have looked outside The Episcopal Church to hire ordained ministers from denominations that are in full communion with the church. Neither is seen as a universal or sustainable solution to the church’s local leadership needs.
4. Like Arkansas, Nebraska is a mostly rural diocese, where more than half of its 53 worshipping communities have fewer than 20 people worshipping on a typical Sunday. Two-thirds of its congregations are not staffed by full-time priests. Its larger, urban congregations are more likely to attract priest candidates from outside the diocese, Easton said, while calls in smaller congregations are typically filled by active or retired priests from within the diocese.
5. The scope of these challenges is most evident in the numbers shared by transition ministers on the front lines. In spring 2024, transition ministers from dioceses representing eight of the church’s nine provinces reported an estimated 527 open priest positions, of which about half were full-time openings and half were for part-time work. At that time, the estimated number of potential candidates for those open positions was 122.
6. Although a large majority (71%) of Episcopalians worship in larger churches (those with average Sunday attendance of 51 or more), smaller congregations of 50 or fewer worshipers make up most of the church’s congregations (55%).
7. Parochial report data also showed that in 2022, 12% of Episcopal congregations were served by a priest who is retired. That same year, 54% of priests were listed as part time, more than double the 26% from 2010.
8. Active priests, or those whose employers are actively contributing to the church’s clergy pension fund, peaked in 2004 at 7,886 and have since declined to the current 5,614. During that time, the number of retirees has increased. Retirees first surpassed the number of active priests in 2011 and now total 8,320.
9. About a third of the 61 congregations in the Diocese of Central Pennsylvania are led by retirees, according to Bishop Audrey Scanlan. Another third of the diocese’s congregations are arranged into eight clusters, with a shared full-time priest serving each cluster. “There has been a marked decrease in the number of applicants for open positions, both full-time and part-time,” Scanlan told ENS. “We’re no longer able to support what we used to call the one-parish-one-priest model.” Instead, congregational collaboration is becoming the norm. Scanlan gave the example of one small Central Pennsylvania church that had advertised for a half-time priest position. It received zero applicants. That congregation decided to shift gears and is partnering with another small church nearby to share a priest.
On theological education:
1. Historically, most Episcopal priests were ordained after attending a three-year residential seminary and earning a Master of Divinity degree. Attending one of The Episcopal Church’s eight seminaries remains a common path to the priesthood…
2. Though many aspirants are now following alternative paths through diocesan-based training programs and collaboratives, those programs still meet diocesan requirements for ordination but are more economical and less disruptive to aspirants’ daily lives. (Central Pennsylvania provides its own training at the Stevenson School for Ministry. Nebraska is one of the numerous dioceses training future priests through the Bishop Kemper School for Ministry, based in Topeka, Kansas.)
3. Another popular option is the curriculum offered by the Iona Collaborative. It is based at the Seminary of the Southwest in Austin, Texas, but offers courses on Zoom to train clergy and lay leaders from 36 supporting Episcopal dioceses, with a particular emphasis on bi-vocational priests, those who will serve as part-time parish priests while also working at secular jobs.
Some observations:
1. There are parishes and clergy that buck the trends described in the article.
2. But there are no factors on the horizon that suggest that the general trends will change.
3. The dominant strategies for addressing the trends described in the article seems to be:
a. bi-vocational ministry;
b. parish clusters;
c. an expanded role for lay leadership;
d. and a return to an emphasis on Morning Prayer as the dominant model for Sunday worship.
4. Issues that don’t figure prominently in the article include a discussion of:
a. The factors that have contributed to the decline in church attendance
b. The factors that contribute to the growth of parishes and the strategic placement of new congregations
c. The strategies that might accelerate and maintain the growth of larger congregations, including a new approach to the deployment of clergy
d. The viability of small congregations
e. The very real limits to the kind of growth that parishes can experience with a lay-led model
f. The challenges of attracting candidates for the priesthood, who are expected to have a second career
g. And the challenges of attracting candidates for the priesthood in the current environment
By the time I finished reading and re-reading the article, I became convinced that the title of the article said more than the author might have intended. The word, “amid”, suggests a reality that is a given – something we take for granted – something that can’t be changed. The rest of the title, the attention to “local leadership models”, suggests that what we are doing is managing the moment; and by all means, ministry involves responding in the moment.
But I also wondered, where is the vision for the church’s future?
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