Pastor

An illustration of a red cartoon heart with black streams flowing from it against a blue backdrop. Diamond-shaped stars and circles in green, red, yellow, and purple sparkle all around the heart.

Muharrem Huner / iStock

SOON I WILL be stepping away from the church I co-founded 15 years ago. After the beautiful struggle of seeing it get rooted, Metro Hope Church remains a small but vibrant, justice-minded, multicultural community in the heart of East Harlem. Our reach continues to extend beyond our neighborhood throughout the city and to other parts of the country.

My reason for stepping away isn’t, thankfully, some scandal or health concern. Nor is it burnout (I’ve been there) from the pressures of keeping a church sustainable. Nor is it managing the diversity of cultures and personalities, nor even the heartbreak of seeing people leave. Nor is it even how pastors must, at the same time, draw from the resources of theology; management and leadership thought; and diversity, equity, and inclusion — all while navigating a dicey political climate.

Pastoral expectations can be flat-out overwhelming. But my reason for stepping aside is simply because the time feels right. Today, I’m able to pass the baton with much hope through a community that will continue to live out and pursue the good news of liberation and wholeness.

Liz Bierly 6-08-2022
A headshot of Peter Chin

Credit: Candace Sanders

In the July issue of Sojourners, Peter Chin of Rainier Avenue Church in Seattle discusses why so many pastors are stepping away from ministry in the wake of the pandemic, and how this phenomenon could fundamentally change the landscape of the American Christian faith. Editorial assistant Liz Bierly spoke with Chin about the current pressures on pastors, God’s loving-kindness, and how we courageously move forward. Read Chin’s full feature, “Here Is the Church, Here Is the Steeple – Where Is the Pastor?” in the July issue.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Liz Bierly, Sojourners: What drew you to pastoral ministry?

Peter Chin: I think pastoral ministry was definitely a call out of the blue. I had been preparing for medical school all throughout my adolescence and was taking the MCAT and doing all the pre-med requirements, and then just felt a very stark and sudden calling to ministry, which was very unexpected for me and for my family. But it did feel like a calling, and it remains that way. I don’t often feel fitted for it, to be honest, but I do feel like it’s a calling that I’m continuing to be faithful to.

Caroline McTeer 2-07-2022
The main characters in 'The Righteous Gemstones' stand on a stage surrounded by a large crowd.

Danny McBride’s HBO show "The Righteous Gemstones" is a dark comedy about corrupt, hyper-wealthy Christian pastors. 

Danny McBride’s HBO show The Righteous Gemstones is a dark comedy about corrupt, hyper-wealthy Christian pastors. The Gemstone family runs a famously successful megachurch in South Carolina, but behind the scenes, they evade taxes, snort cocaine, pull knives on their friends, bicker like filthy-mouthed children, and say things like, “You are forgiven for my suspicions of you.” And though they all live in mansions on the same compound, patriarch Eli Gemstone and his three adult children — Jesse, Judy, and Kelvin — generally only come together in spirit when they need to ward off blackmailers, snoops, and evil grifters from their past: anyone who might reveal their secrets or jeopardize the family’s wealth-hoarding.

Jenna Barnett 11-05-2021

Happy birthday, darling. So sorry this post comes 11 days after your actual birthday.

Rev. Denise Anderson pours the cup of Communion during the 223rd GA of the Presbyterian Church (USA).

The Bible has more to say about women in leadership positions than we are often led to believe, and with the exception of that pesky little 1 Timothy passage, the biblical narrative about women leaders is overwhelmingly positive. Let’s take a look at 10 examples.

Mitchell Atencio 2-05-2021

Willie B. Smith III.

On Feb. 11, the state of Alabama intends to execute Willie B. Smith III without his pastor by his side — which Smith alleges is a violation of his religious freedom.

Image via RNS/Creative Commons

The neighborhood has long been home to numerous historic and not-so-historic houses of worship of nearly every size and type. Here you can find congregations of Muslims, Hebrew Israelites, AMEs, Baptists, Presbyterians, Pentecostals, and everything else in between.

So who cares if a few churches have to be razed to make Harlem “great again,” right?

I do.

Image via RNS/Emily McFarlan Miller

In January 2016, the Rev. Cynthia Meyer told her United Methodist Church congregation she felt “called by God to be open and honest” about who she is: “a woman who loves, and shares her life with, another woman.”

Image via RNS/Election Day Communion 2016

The idea for an Election Day church service came to the pastor as he was pouring juice into little plastic cups.

Mark Schloneger was preparing for Communion that day in 2008, in the kitchen of Waynesboro Mennonite Church in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. The phone rang. It was a robocall from Sarah Palin, the GOP’s vice presidential nominee that year. She was imploring Christians to go to the polls, vote for her party, and take back the country.

Meghan Florian 6-01-2016

Image via REUTERS/Bruno Domingos/RNS

The Virginia Mennonite Conference suspended a pastor’s ministerial credentials May 25 because he officiated at a same-sex wedding.

The Rev. Isaac Villegas of the Chapel Hill (N.C.) Mennonite Fellowship and my pastor, is “at variance” with the conference, which belongs to the Mennonite Church USA. The denomination, with some 100,000 members, holds that marriage is “a covenant between one man and one woman for life.”

Timothy Morgan 5-11-2016
ABWE / RNS

Photo via ABWE / RNS

The Association of Baptists for World Evangelism has released a 280-page report revealing how its leaders failed to stop a leading missionary surgeon from sexually abusing 22 women and girls.

the Web Editors 2-01-2016

Your pastor doesn't have it all figured out. We promise.

They get scared. They get angry. They get lonely. And they doubt whether any of it's worth their time, or their faith.

Image via /Shutterstock.com

The White House has announced plans to add an evangelical-turned-Episcopal blogger, a Ferguson, Mo., activist, and a Methodist megachurch pastor to President Obama’s list of faith-based advisers.

Image via Katherine Davis-Young/RNS

Alongside programs like Orange Is the New Black and House of Cards, Netflix now offers users another type of content: Christian sermons. The online video streaming service added lectures by four popular Christian pastors in early December.

“I believe if Jesus were on planet Earth today in the flesh he’d be on Netflix,” said Ed Young, one of the pastors, in a phone interview.

Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, Pa. Image via Lutheran Theological Seminary/RNS

Two Lutheran seminaries in Pennsylvania are planning to close and launch together a new school of theology in 2017 with hopes of slashing costs and reversing years of declining enrollments. The decision came this week from the governing boards of Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg and Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. The plan will cut the number of seminaries affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America from eight to seven.

Image via LifeWay Research/RNS

Sometimes a call from God is not enough to keep a pastor in his post.

Many evangelical pastors who quit before retirement age found “another calling” either off the pulpit or out of ministry altogether. But many also say they were driven away by conflict and burnout. So says a new survey of former pastors from four denominations.

9-04-2015

Gerald Harris. Image via Clark County Detention Center / RNS

A Sellersburg, Ind., pastor and fellow church workers are accused of beating multiple children in their care with a wooden paddle.

Clark County Prosecuting Attorney Jeremy Mull said the alleged abuse occurred at Crossroads Baptist Church, led by Pastor Gerald Harris. It operates a boarding academy complete with dormitories and classrooms for mostly out of state students, he said.

While parents, teachers and caretakers are allowed to discipline children “in a legal way,” Mull said, the bruising allegedly seen on the children constituted criminal abuse.

Laura Griffin 6-08-2015

Mosaic of resurrected Christ (Renata Sedmakova / Shutterstock)

[W]hen I was in junior high, I decided I wanted to become the first black woman ordained in the Lutheran Church. ... At Wesley I enjoyed being a student again, until one of the black seminarians asked, “How can you be black and be Lutheran?” I didn’t know. I had never thought about it. The Lutheran Church is predominantly white, ethnically German and Scandinavian. It is highly structured and without the display of lively emotions most blacks are used to in their religious experiences. The Lutheran Church was the only church I had ever really known, and yet suddenly I was thrust into an identity crisis that really rocked me.

Photo via Adelle M. Banks / RNS

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. Photo via Adelle M. Banks / RNS

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is no stranger to the pulpit — or politics. The former Fox News Channel host announced May 5 his bid for the GOP nomination for the White House. Here are five facts about this Southern Baptist’s perspectives on faith.

Bishop Yvette Flunder, pastor of City of Refuge United Church of Christ in Oakla

Bishop Yvette Flunder, pastor of City of Refuge United Church of Christ in Oakland, Calif. Image via RNS.

By her own count, Bishop Yvette Flunder has officiated at 149 funerals for victims of AIDS and HIV. Her office in Oakland, Calif., contains the ashes from some of those funerals after family members refused to claim them.

In recent weeks, she’s been celebrated and castigated for being an African-American bishop who’s legally married to another woman.

But when the time came for her to speak at a small Baptist college in this Bible Belt city, she chose to forgive the black clergymen who called her appearance a “travesty of the highest order.”

“I’m not using my energy for useless fights,” the third-generation preacher said at the end of a rousing sermon on March 17. 

“I’m using my energy to find peace. Let there be peace on earth.”