>The dire economic situation faced by many Americans today has hit seminary students. The New York Times has published an article detailing the problems seminary students graduating this year are facing as they look for places of ministry after graduation.

According to the article, the national economy has forced many congregations to cut or downsize the number of full-time ministers employed by these congregations. As a result, churches are hiring part-time lay people instead and are delaying filling or are eliminating these vacancies. In addition, pastors and ministers whose retirement accounts are diminishing, are postponing their retirements. The article continues:

The anecdotal evidence collected by the Association of Theological Schools, which covers 250 graduate institutions in the United States and Canada, has found job listings for ministerial positions down by about one-third at major seminaries serving both evangelical and mainstream Protestant denominations. The Jewish newspaper The Forward reported last month that Jewish seminaries accustomed to placing nearly all their newly minted rabbis were finding jobs this year for only about half.

Denomination by denomination, the severity of the current downturn does vary. While evangelical churches tend to see it as a temporary reversal in a continuing boom, the Conservative Jewish movement and mainline Protestant denominations like the Presbyterians had been retrenching well before subprime mortgages and credit-default swaps intruded into congregational finance.

Only the Roman Catholic Church, with a well-known shortage of priests, has more openings than applicants. And that, in turn, has led to a round of mordant jokes among seminarians about converting to get a job.

Another problem graduating students are facing is the reality that many congregations are small and unable to pay a decent salary to their pastors. Although seminary students are not in the ministry to make money or to become rich, they need a decent salary to pay their student loans, to maintain a decent lifestyle, and just to survive day by day.

Many churches fail to recognize the great sacrifice seminary students make to prepare themselves to serve the Lord. Churches must remember the word of Paul: “The laborer deserves to be paid” (1 Timothy 5:18), and I hope they get paid well.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Pastoral Salary, Seminary Students, Wages

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