Elizabeth Drescher teaches religion and pastoral ministries at Santa Clara University. She is the author of Tweet If You ♥ Jesus: Practicing Church in the Digital Reformation (Morehouse, 2011) and, with Keith Anderson, Click 2 Save: The Digital Ministry Bible (Morehouse, 2012). She was recently awarded a journalism grant from the Social Science Research Council and the Templeton Foundation to study prayer practices among religious nones.
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Between a Rock and a Hard Place in Today's Church
Recently, Keith Anderson, my friend and co-author on Click 2 Save: The Digital Ministry Bible, wrote a post that’s been stirring a good deal of interest — and concern — across the blogosphere.
Anderson’s piece, “What Young Clergy Want You to Know,” has, I suspect, attracted so much attention because it dives right into the middle of the frustration, anxiety, and discouragement one increasingly finds among clergy of all ages and levels of experience, but that is amplified among younger clergy because they’ve made a vocational commitment to the Church at a time when such a choice seems crazier than ever.
This, as Anderson points out in the post, is because younger clergy “understand they are presiding over the death of American Christendom.”
Younger clergy, says Anderson, “are worried about job security — not just about getting paid (which is not always a given) — but whether they can do the job they feel called to do in congregations that don’t want to change.” He continues, “Being prophetic is an attribute we laud in seminary, but it can get you fired in the parish.”
Well, there you have it. The unvarnished truth of vocational experience in institutional contexts that over time wears out even the most patient, most tolerant, most enthusiastic of clergy. The wrenching responses to the post make clear that Anderson struck a nerve among his clergy colleagues.