Updated Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Lack of time top concern of small church pastors

By Jerry Higgins

Special to the Recorder

LEWISVILLE - An upcoming LifeWay Research study on small-church pastors reveals that the top challenge pastors face is finding enough hours in the day to do the Lord's work.

Brad Waggoner, vice president of B&H Publishing Group, shared the findings at "Impact 2008," a conference for the small-church pastor held at Lewisville Baptist Church in March. Some of the best information from the study of nearly 400 small-church pastors - which are defined as those who pastor churches with attendance of 100 or fewer on Sunday - came from the comments section. Fifty-five percent of North Carolina Baptist churches have 100 or fewer in attendance on Sunday morning.

Waggoner said comments showed the top 10 challenges of small church pastors are:

1. Time. Thirty-two percent of responders said they were bivocational and didn't have enough hours in the day to do what they were called to do.

2. Resistance. Small-church pastors said their church doesn't want to change, which leads to stagnation.

3. Lack of commitment from members. Many pastors said they deal with apathy and indifference. Waggoner said small churches feel it more.

4. Too few workers. Waggoner said if the church's philosophy is that the pastor is a hired gun, the professional, it will wear the pastor out. He also said most churches do not have a strategy to equip the laity for ministry.

5. Age of the congregation. As the church gets older, young people do not feel attracted to the church.

6. Lack of money. Waggoner said he had no easy answers but pastors have to do a better job of teaching about tithing and the importance of it.

7. Worldliness. Waggoner said he saw in the survey something he called "cultural seepage. We allow the world's standards to come into the church," he said.

"Sometimes we have propagated that through our arrogance," he said. "We're dictatorial, self absorbed. Often preaching becomes a performance. Preaching is not an end but a means. Have we allowed the world to permeate how we think?"

8. Age of the pastor. Several said they were getting too old in the survey.

9. Too few people. Pastors said they couldn't get things done because they didn't have enough help.

10. Demographics. The community around the church changes but the church isn't growing.