Calling

A majority of pastors says they felt their call to ministry between the ages of 14 and 21 (53%)—but do they still feel it? How confident are church leaders in their calling from God to shepherd his people?

Very confident, in large measure. Three in 10 report they are “just as confident” today as when they first entered pastoral ministry (31%), and two-thirds say they are even “more confident” now than then (66%). Just 3 percent admit they are “less confident,” and these leaders tend to be younger, part of a mainline denomination or, most often, leading a church with declining attendance.

A pastor’s confidence in his or her calling is correlated to how satisfied they are with their work and with their current church ministry. Pastors who are very satisfied in one or both areas are apt to express increased assurance, while those who are less satisfied tend also to be less confident.

While confidence in pastoral calling remains robust overall, roughly six in 10 pastors (58%) say they have felt “inadequate for [their] ministry or calling ” during the past three months, either frequently (12%) or sometimes (45%). Leaders of churches with declining attendance feel this inadequacy most acutely.

Researchers examined the relationship of confidence in one’s calling with feelings of ministry inadequacy and of being “energized by ministry work.” As one might expect, the small percent-age of pastors who feel less confident in their calling today than when they started their ministry do not feel energized by ministry work as often as those who are more confident. Similarly, leaders who are less confident today in their call to ministry feel inadequate for their calling much more frequently than those who are just as or more confident than when they began.