Sarah Catherine Martin, the daughter of a baronet wrote a nursery rhyme which went on to have legs of its own. First written to entertain guests, it was published in 1805 and the rest is history. You may recognise the first two verses:

Old Mother Hubbard

Went to the Cupboard,

To give the poor Dog a bone;

When she came there,

The Cupboard was bare,

And so the poor Dog had none.

She went to the Baker’s

To buy him some Bread;

When she came back

The Dog was dead!

Rhymes have gone out of fashion in contemporary times, but this one has stuck in my mind. When contemplating the problem facing churches looking for pastors in Queensland this one always comes to mind. I’m told by insiders that within Queensland Baptist churches there are more vacancies than pastors, or more honestly, more vacancies than viable candidates.

A look at the adverts listing current vacancies in Queensland shows a two-tier scenario, with highly functional churches having the luxury of advertising for associate positions or ‘worship pastors’, youth & young adult pastors, small group pastors, etc, whilst other smaller churches are looking for solo or solo senior pastors. 

Combine this scenario with the crisis facing our theological colleges with fewer full-time ministry students coming through the doors, and you can see that Mother Hubbard’s cupboard is bare.

Larger churches don’t need to go to the open market as they have a development pipeline from within. One of our largest churches until a few years ago hosted a campus from a non-Baptist theological college where they developed their talent.

The write-up in some of the church job listings gives you a clue about the challenges many churches (especially regional ones) face.

XXX XXX  Baptist Church is looking for a Solo Pastor at 50% time. We would like a pastor who can encourage our small congregation in living righteously before the Lord.

XXXXXX is a remote … community. It is a long way from anywhere, …our community can at times be transient, but we also have a solid stable base of long-term congregation members. Our church is characterized by conservative evangelical theology and practice.

The church has been through difficult times in previous years. 2023 has been a time to regather and seek God’s direction for the future…the congregation averages about 15-20 weekly (max so far 26?). Most people are retired but still are very active.

Currently, we have 22 members and usually about 35 attend our Sunday services. 

Our position is for a full-time, Solo Pastor, retained by Spiritual Appointment.

XXXX  Baptist Church is seeking to call a senior/solo pastor for a 3 days per week…XXXX has been through a transition process and will need guiding into the next God led season of the Church’s life journey. XXXX  is a theologically conservative church with very long and interesting history.

Up Your Game

To attract and keep great pastors churches need to up their game. The traditional market of available pastors graduating from theological college just doesn’t exist anymore.  Unlike professional sporting codes that can rely on an annual draft filled with richly talented rookies looking to get a chance at playing professionally, Baptist churches don’t have a line of people beating down the door to get a guernsey.

If you are after an experienced pastor remember that they are likely to have been burned already by the vagaries of pastoral life. Once bitten twice shy.

Here’s my cheat code for churches to consider when rising above market factors to attract and keep good-quality pastors:

1.  Get Your House In Order

If your church has been through a difficult period, it is better to have an interim pastor, or if possible, a trained ‘intentional interim’ pastor before you start looking for your new pastor. If not, you are setting your new pastor and their family up for a potentially bruising if not traumatic time at your church.

Don’t buck-pass your issues onto an unsuspecting new pastor. Deal with your problems first, to the point where you can confidently say that you are ready to receive a new pastor without them inheriting a poisoned chalice. If you don’t do this, you may well perpetuate a long cycle of dysfunction and pain for many people.

Don’t leave facing down difficult people to a new unsuspecting pastor. Don’t leave critical changes to them either.

A great example of a church getting itself sorted is reflected in this advert for Mundubbera Baptist Church who write this honest assessment:

“The church has been through difficult times in previous years. 2023 has been a time to regather and seek God’s direction for the future. The church has had an interim pastor travelling from Brisbane once a fortnight and together we have been able to move forwards. We believe that the church is now in a good place to pursue the call of a pastor for the future, 2024 and beyond.”

Not only are they being upfront about their struggles but they are demonstrating that they have taken concrete steps to address their issues and they are satisfied that it is safe to call a new pastor. Full marks from me on this issue. Unfortunately they get marked down for wanting to offer employment ont he basis of a ‘Spiritual Agreement’, which I deal with next.

2.  Be Generous, Just and Fair

How you draft your employment contract will be one of the biggest determining factors in attracting a good pastor. Don’t try and leverage the fact that a sense of call will drive your new pastor as an opportunity to exploit them with an employment contract that is high on expectation and low on protection, fairness and generosity.

If you are a Baptist church in Queensland avoid offering the Queensland Baptist ‘Spiritual Agreement’ model at all costs. This employment contract is a dumpster fire in a train wreck, in the middle of a cyclone. I write it about at length here.

The construct relies on the suspension of credulity and requires an elasticity of semantics that could give the aerial acrobats of Cirque du Soleil a red-hot run for their money. But unlike the circus, there’s no safety net in case of a fall.

Spiritual Agreements have been developed by QB to enable churches to employ pastors outside of the protections of the National Employment Standards and the protection of Fair Work. The construct relies on the suspension of credulity and requires an elasticity of semantics that could give the aerial acrobats of Cirque du Soleil a red-hot run for their money. But unlike the circus, there’s no safety net in case of a fall.

In the parallel Dickensian universe that is Spiritual Agreements pastors don’t get a salary, instead, they receive money from the church as an ‘act of grace’ to cover living expenses. I kid you not. They aren’t entitled to leave but instead are granted ‘sabbath rest’ (another act of extraordinary grace of course). In fact, they have no entitlements whatsoever. You can read more at this link in case you missed the first. Tip: make sure you are sitting down and have a stiff drink in hand.

If you advertise your pastoral position’s employment basis as a Spiritual Agreement you are raising a large red flag. If that is how much you value pastors and their families then good luck, you’ll need it. Churches must remember that it is a seller’s market out there, and good pastors can keep scrolling once they find out you have an affinity for Dickensian conditions for pastors. There will be better offers than yours if you want to be a Spiritual Scrooge.

Pastoring is a hazardous occupation that leaves plenty of people hurt, morally injured and traumatised. Don’t make it any worse by choosing to employ pastors using standards that are from a bygone era and that contradict our biblical values of justice, fairness and generosity.

3.  Provide Protection

Churches must develop healthy ways of conducting church meetings, conducting pastoral reviews, eldership meetings, change management, and other rub points that can potentially cause stress or trauma.

Have a professional review process that does not rely on public meetings where sensitive and confidential human resource issues are discussed. In other words, dispense with the traditional way of handling pastoral reviews, because they are little more than a 5-yearly review of people’s opinions about the pastor’s popularity rather than a constructive review of the pastor’s performance.

Pastors should expect to have a rigorous, fair and constructive review. Pastors shouldn’t expect the ‘traditional’ review process which is one of the most unprofessional and damaging aspects of Baptist church life.

Demonstrate to your pastor and their family that you value them by ensuring a safe, professional and healthy system church governance. This is our responsibility before God. This will ultimately protect the whole church in addition to the pastor and their family.

Develop a culture of resistance and intolerance to behaviour in church meetings and general church life that is abusive. Resist the desire some have to turn church meetings into kangaroo courts. If you haven’t got a rock solid safe governance policy and practise in place, and a strong enough leadership to ensure it, don’t call a pastor until you’ve got that sorted.

4. Be creative

Think of ways that you can include features in your pastor’s package that also benefit the whole church. Some ideas include:

• Sponsor professional supervision costs
• Sponsor scheduled debriefing counselling and also critical incident counselling following traumatic events.
• Sponsor the pastor’s attendance at a professional development event/conference every 2 years.
• Allow time for a spiritual or pastoral retreat.
• Sponsor the pastoral staff and family to attend the annual convention.
• Provide a book allowance.
• Allow time off for studies that enhance the pastor’s role and ministry in your church.
• Protect the pastor’s spouse from unrealistic expectations, and of course, being a two-for-one bargain deal as far as a salary is concerned.

If you are a church that can only offer a part time role, and you are a regional church, don’t expect that someone will move relocate to your town for a part time job without giving them some kind of help to fill out the rest of their days in order for it to be financially viable. Do some legwork and help find potential solutions for them.

Once again, Munduberra Baptist gets full marks from me for their efforts to attract a bi-vocational pastor:

“Applicants may be interested to know that a school chaplain position is currently available at the local primary school.”

They are providing an idea which many younger pastoral candidates may want ot explore, namely a bi-vocational role shared between church and school chaplaincy.

5. Putting You Money Where Your Missional Mouth Is

Teachers pet Munduberra Baptist impress me again with the flexibility they are willing to offer a new pastor to be missional:

“We don’t want to initially burden a new a pastor with preaching every week. We would rather, in the initial period, see the pastor devote their time to building community relationships and doing/leading mission into the community. We want to see people saved!…The church does not want to just fade away as its members age. It wants to take a very missional approach into the future. There is a strong desire to see people in the town come to know Christ.  The church wants to explore all options that would allow this to happen and are open to change. We would love to see a “Pastor to the Town”.

Plenty of churches want their pastor to be ‘misisonal’, but in reality they want you to look after the flock. As a parishioner once told me, “we don’t pay you to to minister to the people beyond these walls, we pay you to minister to us!”. To find a church that is willing to offer the freedom and flexibility to be genuinely missional is a breath of fresh air.

Things Can Turn Around

Sarah Catherine Martin did pen a third verse to her little ditty, and it serves a reminder when all seems lost it may well not be:

She went to the Undertaker’s

To buy him a coffin;

When she came back

The Dog was laughing.

The current dire situation can be overcome by churches that work hard enough to craft an attractive and compelling offer. The standard offering doth not butter any parsnips anymore, get your thinking caps on, and you may find yourself laughing.