A Lutheran pastor was fuming.
“I can’t believe the number of clergy who think they are entitled to jobs,” she said. Whether they are newly ordained or veterans like herself, they think the church owes them employment, she said. They ask denominational executives, “Where is my next job?”
The term “entitlement” has become pejorative, of course, and using it in this context is negative. She was seeing some of her fellow clergy as passive, risk-averse and lazy. A fair assessment for some, no doubt, but not fair or helpful for others.
What if we used a different term, from the academic world: Tenure. I think this word more accurately reflects some current systems.
In effect, many clergy have made a deal. In exchange for being underpaid (earning less than half the pay of a regular job with comparable skills and expectations), overworked (six-day weeks, 12-hour days, on call 24/7, minimal staff), and subject to occupational stress that lands many in divorce court and in treatment for depression and addiction, clergy have been granted tenure.
They couldn’t be fired on the whim of a few strong-willed laity.
They couldn’t be held accountable for the work of others over whom they have no control. Their reliance on employment couldn’t be used as a weapon to make them soften the gospel, favor certain viewpoints, or reward certain constituents.
In the way that tenure undergirds academic freedom at colleges, tenure would undergird the freedom of clergy to proclaim the gospel and to lead congregations in a process of change and growth. In theory it works. In practice, however, the positive intentions of this system seem to have been lost. The demands of the job still pertain. But protection from bullies is gone, protection from one-sided accountability is gone, and clergy who dare to proclaim the full gospel and its transformative implications and who manage institutions to meet changing conditions feel under constant threat.
I doubt that we can make the tenure system work any longer. It has been too widely abused and compromised. The way forward seems to lie in a term from the marketplace, not the academy: Entrepreneur. When clergy see themselves as entrepreneurs, they seem to function more effectively and with increased job satisfaction.
Typically, an entrepreneur owns the enterprise, is invested in its success, has freedom to innovate, accepts accountability, expects rewards, and is driven by opportunity and challenge, not by safety or fear of failure.
Many entrepreneurs are founders of new enterprises. It’s no surprise that the huge successes of megachurches stem from their highly motivated founders, who weren’t weighed down by the overhead of denomination, tradition, committees or inherited facilities. They built from scratch to meet emerging needs and opportunities, and they change constantly.
But even mature enterprises can have leaders who act as entrepreneurs. It takes some rethinking and humility but it can be done and, in my opinion, needs to be done.
Mature congregations would be amazed at the productivity, effectiveness, exciting ideas and enthusiasm they would engender if they encouraged their clergy to be entrepreneurs, rewarded for nimble response to changing conditions, rewarded for seeing opportunities, rewarded for taking risks and learning from failure, and rewarded for success.
For this happen, many lay leaders would need to stop seeing their role as reining in the clergy.
(EDITOR’S NOTE — Ehrich is a writer, church consultant and Episcopal priest based in New York. He is the author of Just Wondering, Jesus, and the founder of the Church Wellness Project.)