Why Your Pastor Is Thinking About Leaving Ministry

We’ve all heard the overplayed jokes and assumptions about pastors. They only work on Sundays. Pastors don’t pay taxes. They make tons of money. All they do is write and deliver one sermon each week, shake hands on Sunday mornings, and collect a check. The reality pastors live, however, couldn’t be any more unlike these descriptions. If it’s such an easy job, then why are so many pastors struggling across every facet of their lives? His smiling face may be hiding the truth. It’s possible your pastor is thinking about leaving ministry.

The Numbers Don’t Lie

If your pastor is thinking about leaving ministry, he’s not alone. According to a Barna study from March 2022, 42% of pastors have seriously considered quitting full-time ministry within the last year. For reference, in January 2021, that number was at 29%.

In 2024, Lifeway offered us a little more clarity on the subject. For instance, there is some good news here. There is no known statistically significant difference in how many pastors actually leave the ministry today compared with several years ago. Therefore, just because your pastor might be thinking about leaving, it doesn’t mean he is necessarily more likely to. Lifeway did offer a little bad news for smaller churches, though. Pastors of churches with fifty or less attendees are, in fact, more likely to leave their ministries than others.

Why Leave?

We are going to get deeper into the reasons why pastors think about leaving ministry, but it’s worthwhile to take a quick look at the biggest reasons, according to Barna. The top three reasons respondents gave for thinking about leaving ministry were stress, feeling lonely/isolated, and political divisions. I’ll be totally transparent, I’m shocked to see political division in the top three.

Before diving too deep, I think it’s important to mention that the Barna study reported those top three issues as being negatively impactful for pastors even if they weren’t considering leaving ministry. So, it’s imperative for church congregants to remember that whether a pastor is thinking about leaving ministry or not, he is probably battling with something related to pastoral work. The easy breezy picture of pastoral life is a farce, and as church members, we can take notice of our pastors’ needs and be a help to them.

8 Possible Reasons Your Pastor Is Thinking About Leaving Ministry

Let’s step back for a moment and think about facts. If 42% of pastors seriously considered leaving ministry in the last year, then 58% have not. I know…these math skills, right?!

So, I’m not saying that your pastor is creating an exit plan right now, but I want to acknowledge that the number of pastors who are doing so is higher than we want. In my opinion, we ought to know what leads to pastors choosing to walk away from the pulpit so we can be an encouragement. Sometimes, we’re part of the problem. The best way to help is to begin by understanding our pastors better. Let’s jump in.

1. Stress And Burnout

Pastors don’t have working hours. Sure, they may have office hours, but they’re never off. I’ve had the privilege to, like a fly on the wall, listen to pastors talk shop. These men leave vacations, miss out on their children’s big moments, spend hours sitting at hospitals with people they hardly know, minister at weddings in which multiple people hate Christians (and by extension hate the pastor), lead various ministries with little to no help, undergo constant evaluation, receive “constructive” criticism every week, get blamed for not knowing things no one told them, etc.

Pastors are also pulled in a million directions, and hardly anyone stops to think that these pastors are just men. Jesus needed rest as He ministered on Earth, why wouldn’t our completely human pastors need the same thing? People don’t think about that, though, when they have a need. Suddenly, a completely normal person will have figurative blinders on and only be able to think about the problem at hand and seek out the pastor without consideration for the big picture. Everyone’s emergency, whether it really is one or not, is the pastor’s emergency. It’s no wonder these men, and their families, experience burnout.

What Can We Do?

Being married to a pastor and having met many more, I feel confident in saying that pastors are happy to help. They didn’t become pastors because they feel bothered when someone comes to them in need. They serve Christ by serving us, and they want to serve. That said, we can be more thoughtful about how and when we ask for help and/or give our thoughts.

Let’s consider timing. Does the pastor need to know the men’s room is out of toilet paper as he makes his way to the pulpit? Like, is he going to delay the church service in order to get a fresh roll? After the final song before the message, should you whisper in his ear that someone isn’t at church because they’re mad at him? Bad timing can elevate the moment’s stress exponentially. So, choose your moment well.

Must you say anything at all? Timing isn’t always a problem. The message itself can be the issue. As is true with anyone we speak to, let’s think about what we say before we say it. Is it helpful? Is it kind? Believe it or not, your pastor doesn’t need to hear every thought that passes between your ears. Congregants seem to forget that pastors are people with feelings, and mean-spirited critical words with no real purpose do, in fact, hurt him. If the only net positive is that you feel better for having unloaded on him, keep your mouth shut.

Essentially, if we remember our pastor is a person, keep our words civil, and consider when we approach him, we’ve immensely helped him regarding stress and burnout.

2. Political Disagreement

What? Why is politics coming between church members? How in the world did politics end up taking such a prominent position in some churches? Yes, political discourse is important, but church, of all places, is where the Lord should have preeminence. Right? Besides, conservative political leanings don’t automatically make someone Christian. Those leanings just make them politically conservative. And let’s be honest, most political conservatives aren’t nearly conservative enough to represent Christianity.

Did you notice what I just did there? If I came to church spouting off these thoughts, I’d probably end up causing a bit of a stir with some people. If my husband, the pastor, got behind the pulpit and used the short time he has each week to talk about politics rather than sharing the gospel, our church would get into some trouble with the community and lose focus on what matters most. (You know I’m talking about Jesus, I hope.)

What Can We Do?

This is easy. Don’t try to make your church a political soapbox. Avoid harassing your pastor with concerns about his lack of political speeches from the pulpit. His job is to lead and teach his flock about God. He’s training up his congregation to fulfill the Great Commission and to grow in their own walk with Jesus. If he’s a wise man, he understands that no politician or political party is going to save us. The only way to save our nation is Jesus Christ. Let the man preach from the Bible and leave politics for another time.

3. Low Income

It could be that your pastor is thinking about leaving ministry because he doesn’t make enough money. I understand that might sound greedy or unspiritual, but your pastor lives in a world that requires money. Does he have a family? Is he paying a mortgage loan? How much driving does he do? Have you considered his insurance and medical costs? Churches often don’t offer an insurance plan, so he’s paying that out of pocket.

Sadly, pastoral work doesn’t always make ends meet, and pastors have to make some hard decisions. They might choose to be bi-vocational, but that will impact their pastoral ministries and families. When weighing the options, sometimes pastors believe they need to walk away and take a more traditional job to provide for their homes.

What Can We Do?

I’m aware of the debate surrounding paying pastors. That’s a whole other conversation. For now, let’s operate off the assumption that your church has agreed to pay your pastor a salary. Well, this can be a touchy subject. Money is personal and finances sometimes come with baggage and shame. First things first, the church needs to be open and honest with your pastor about what it can do.

Second, don’t withhold money from your pastor because you don’t think he “needs” it. The congregation doesn’t decide what he needs or how he spends it. Don’t moralize money. If he buys a car, that’s his business. When his family takes a trip, be thankful your church could provide for him well enough that he and his family could take a break and get away to rest.

Third, don’t stop him from taking on a second job if the church can’t afford to pay him what he needs. Your church can only do what it can do. If it isn’t enough, your church’s wish to have a full-time pastor may need to shift to the reality of having a bi-vocational one. If the church can’t make that shift, it might find itself without any pastor at all.

4. Unappreciated

Imagine a man comes in for counseling from his pastor for weeks. This man’s girlfriend is pushing to move in together, but he’s feeling conflicted. He’s trying to remove the sexual sin from their relationship while she keeps pushing them forward, and now she’s insisting they get a place together. The man agrees with the pastor’s assessment, and they make a plan for him to create and enforce boundaries with his girlfriend. A few weeks go by, and the man is MIA. When the pastor finally gets a hold of him, the man says he decided to move in with his girlfriend and is rethinking going to that church any longer.

The pastor had put it in time, prayer, and other resources to help this man find a biblical way to handle his romantic relationship. What’s the man’s response? He ignores everything the pastor taught him! This isn’t an uncommon scenario. The pastor gives and gives to only be ignored, avoided, and dismissed. And it isn’t just visitors. Church members do this, too.

A pastor’s 24/7 is about being the pastor of his church, and time and again congregants take him for granted or focus on the things with which they’re dissatisfied. Maybe your pastor is thinking about leaving ministry because he believes no one would care if he did.

What Can We Do?

Thank your pastor if he did something for you. It doesn’t have to be a grand gesture. Just say something like, “Thanks for coming by to help me move that new refrigerator I bought.” This is in no way a groundbreaking piece of advice. Yet, a lot of pastors are met with silence or negativity while “thanks” is a rare sentiment.

5. Mental Health

Pastors are not immune to the same struggles we all go through, and that includes mental health. A 2024 Barna study reported that nearly one in five pastors said they had contemplated self-hard or suicide in the past year. By the end of 2020, 59% of pastors reported feeling depressed at least once throughout their ministries. (This was a self-reported admission, not a diagnosis.) When 43% of pastors feel isolated and lonely, 21% feel disrespected by their church, and 19% feel ill-equipped to meet their job’s demands, we can’t be surprised that pastors’ mental health is taking a dip. A nosedive in some circumstances.

What Can We Do?

A lot of what a pastor needs can’t be directly addressed by those of us in the pews. However, we can encourage our pastors and form a relationship with them. I have the hot take that pastors and their wives can be friends with people in the church. Ideally, it would be wonderful to be truly friends with everyone, but not everyone wants to be friends with the pastor and his family. Reality strikes again, I suppose.

Something a lot of churches overlook is a pastors’ retreat. Pastors need other pastors. They have a sweet fellowship with one another that is unlike any they can have with men in different professions. Give them the time to go to a retreat, and if you can, pay for it. Send your pastor away for a week to be edified by other men going through the same things. He’ll come back better for it, and his time away will help him come back rejuvenated and better for you, too.

6. Low/Decreasing Attendance

As a child, I followed the Chicago Bulls. I witnessed them “repeat the 3-peat.” Y’all, it was quite a time to be alive. Chicago and all its suburbs were one big happy family whenever Jordan and Pippen earned that NBA money by taking home another win. I’m not all that into sports, but I did pick up on a few things during those golden years of Chicago basketball. 1. When the team loses, everyone blames the coach. 2. When the team wins, everyone gives credit to the players.

That’s interesting to me. How come the coach is to blame for losses but doesn’t receive credit for wins? It seems to me like being the coach is a lose-lose scenario. And the same goes for pastors. When the church is growing, credit goes to God (where it belongs), the pastor, the church members, the people choosing to begin attending. There’s credit to go around, but when attendance decreases there is one man to blame…the pastor.

No one blames the pastor for low attendance more than the pastor himself. Most of the time, the reason for low attendance is much more complicated and intricate than one guy. Moreover, attendance isn’t the measure of a successful ministry. The problem is that attendance is the most visual thing by which people can measure and judge a church. Like it or not, low numbers deter new people from attending and can discourage members about the health of the church. Plenty of pastors are thinking about leaving ministry as they look out at a handful of people in an auditorium that used to be filled with faces.

What Can We Do?

Of course, we can be out in our communities enthusiastically inviting people to church. We can’t force people to come, though, unless we’re looking to get into a hostage situation. And let’s not if we can avoid it. On the other hand, we can control ourselves. We can choose not to complain about the low attendance or cast blame. Also, we can serve in our church to the best of our abilities and give thanks for the church God has given us.

7. Unrealistic Expectations For The Pastor’s Family

The first Barna study I mentioned had a very long list of reasons for why pastors are thinking about leaving ministry. I gave you the top three, but the fourth one is a big deal and all too common. Twenty-nine percent of pastors thinking about leaving ministry identified the negative effect the ministry had on their families as a reason to leave. A lot of factors are at play in these cases, but from my observations, I think people’s expectations are a significant piece of the puzzle. Let’s look at what the Bible says.

“He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church?”

1 Timothy 3:4-5 (ESV)

First Timothy outlines qualifications for a pastor, and these two verses have stirred some disagreement among believers. That is to say, some people take this to mean the pastor should be biblically leading his wife and children while others take this to mean a pastor’s family should be perfect. In churches expecting perfection, the pastors’ kids might get corrected for the very same behavior their peers exhibit because they, being the offspring of the pastor, ought to have already mastered behaviors and temperaments most would declare as developmentally appropriate for children years ahead of them.

Not to mention, if the children or pastor’s wife don’t meet these sky high (and often unspoken) expectations, the pastor’s very character is in question. His wife wasn’t ready to receive unannounced guests at 8:00 A.M.? She’s not nearly as hospitable as she should be. Did the pastor’s son get in an argument with another little boy? The pastor must not be teaching his children how to peacefully resolve disagreements. It’s as if every imperfection points to a moral failing rather than the truth. The pastor’s family is just like your family. The kids are learning, but they are still kids. The pastor’s wife can’t be what everyone expects because everyone’s expectations vary. Not to mention, technically, she doesn’t even have a biblically defined role. Her job is just to be married to the pastor and be a Christian woman.

What Can We Do?

Give the pastor and his family some grace. As much fun as navigating marriage, parenting, and ministry in a fishbowl is… Oh, wait. That’s not fun. Everything feels like the stakes are higher with an audience, so your pastor doesn’t need your public disapproval adding to it. Come to him privately, if you have legitimate concerns. And word to the wise, don’t go to his children with your thoughts on his household. Your pastor’s wife will enter the chat, and that won’t be pretty. (Just kidding. Pretty much.) Seriously, if you have a problem, approach the pastor, not his family.

8. Resistance To Change

If you’ve ever been in any kind of formal ministry position, then I know you’re fervently nodding your head already. What is the deal with change? What makes it so difficult for people to let go of “the way we’ve always done it” and try something new? I don’t think I’ll ever fully comprehend this mentality because I’m the kind of person who is willing to change things up if there is a case for change. But this approach to church life seems rare.

Imagine how frustrated, disappointed, and disrespected a pastor might feel if every idea he offers is met with a scrunched up face and a, “no thanks.” Pastors shouldn’t be unilaterally making decisions and ministering with zero accountability in their churches. However, why do we have pastors if we aren’t willing to give them some room to shepherd and challenge their churches to get out of their comfort zones for the sake of the gospel? We can just stream a sermon Sunday mornings if we don’t want any leadership.

What Can We Do?

Take it easy and hold things loosely. When the pastor presents a possible change, come at it with an open mind. If it’s ultimately not something you can support, that’s fine. But make sure you don’t shoot down ideas just because they’re new ideas and might make things you’re accustomed to different than before.

Final Thought

The odds are that your pastor isn’t thinking about leaving ministry, but the difficulties and challenges that make some pastors walk away are negatively impacting pastors who stay, as well. As a congregant, you can help your pastor, even if it’s in a seemingly small way. We can’t underestimate the power of a card, smile, or thanks. And, please, pray for your pastor. He covets your prayers, and he undoubtedly needs them.

As a woman who has a front row seat to a pastor’s everyday life, I would sum up everything we can do for pastors in one sentence. Treat your pastor like a brother in Christ rather than a hired man. How many pastors who are thinking about leaving ministry might feel more positive about their pastoral role if the people in the church saw them as sinners saved by God’s grace just like the rest of us?

Why else do you think pastors think about leaving ministry?

Image courtesy of Josewa Leonard James via Unsplash.