For a while now, Barna has been reporting on the credibility crisis America’s pastors are facing. Overall, U.S. adults are unsure whether pastors in their local community can be trusted, are in touch with their community’s needs and are reliable sources of wisdom and leadership.

Amid lukewarm feelings about their credibility, pastors may wonder how they can regain the trust of their communities in the current climate. Below, we’ll share data from The Resilient Pastor—a newly released book from pastor, author and Barna senior fellow Dr. Glenn Packiam—to explore current perspectives on the credibility of America’s pastors as well as insights from Packiam on pastoral trustworthiness and reliability.

Just Half of Americans See Pastors as a Trustworthy Source of Wisdom Recent Barna data collected amid the pandemic show that just 57 percent of all U.S. adults agree at least somewhat that a pastor is a trustworthy source of wisdom. Christians, naturally, are far more likely to agree (31% definitely, 40% somewhat), while non-Christians tend to disagree (18% not really, 29% definitely not).

Still, many Americans—including one in five Christians—admit feeling unsure whether pastors are trustworthy (24% all adults, 21% Christians, 31% non-Christians).

Pastors themselves echo what the general population reports, including the sense of a gap in trust outside the Church. While four in five pastors (82%) agree their local community “somewhat” views them as a trustworthy source of wisdom, just one in five (21%) states this is very much the case. On the flip side, all pastors say their congregants consider them to be a trustworthy source of wisdom, 67 percent of whom strongly affirm this.