Low pay and benefits. Overly demanding leaders. Unrealistic expectations. Full-time ministry often doesn’t have the best reputation, contributing to a shortage of candidates to fill pulpit openings. John and Carla Moore began work at Bear Valley Bible Institute six years ago with a goal of reversing the trend.
Read MoreAbout 18% of the leaders of Christian nonprofit ministries are women, according to a recent MinistryWatch survey of the country’s largest 1,000 ministries. The disparity in the business world is about three times greater. According to the Pew Research Center, only 5.4% of Standard & Poor’s 500 companies have women as their CEOs.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Are nearly 40% of clergy really about to leave the ministry? It’s a question that has come up regularly in conversations among sociologists of religion since the Barna Group, a research firm that focuses on religion, found last year that 2 in 5 Christian pastors had considered quitting full-time ministry in the past year.
Read MoreIn Franklin County, Florida — where 19% of the 12,451 residents lived below the poverty line in 2020 — children ages 3 to 11 flock to the the Eastpoint Church of Christ van driven by Jenny Johnson each Sunday while her husband, Mike, the church’s minister, cooks breakfast at the building. For some kids, it’s their first meal since school on Friday.
Read MoreThe pandemic amplified existing ministerial stress. An October poll by the Barna Group found that 38% of U.S. ministers had considered leaving full-time ministry within the past year — a 9% increase from a poll in January. Sabbaticals, extended time away to focus on spiritual growth, may be the key to avoiding burnout.
Read MoreSupporting a full-time minister requires an average of 130 or more in worship, but 65% of American churches count an average of fewer than 100 in worship. So, from flight attendant to funeral director, secular jobs help pay the bills for bivocational ministers.
Read MoreKen Beck of Alexandria, Tennessee, had made over 2,000 carrot cakes since 2005. He gifts them to a wide variety of people, ranging from friends on their birthdays to families mourning the death of a loved one to charities for fundraising events.
Read MoreWhile many churches have resumed in-person services, the Jehovah’s Witnesses remain completely virtual in their operations with no plans to reopen. While the deaf-blind make up a tiny portion of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the organization has innovated ways to minister to this group, using everything from advanced electronic readers to macaroni.
Read More(OPINION) Billy Graham’s daughter buried her husband in 2015 and then battled breast cancer. Now that things have stabilized, she’s thinking about the evangelical movement’s health and future, and her place in it.
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