Across several denominations, pastors are leaving congregations at accelerated rates, citing burnout, conflict and misalignment between their sense of calling and the realities of congregational life.
Much of that conversation has focused on workload, compensation and leadership fatigue — all real concerns. Over the last few weeks, I’ve spent a lot of time talking with pastors across the country. I’ve heard their hopes and dreams for their congregations, we’ve shared feedback on the Lectionary, and I’ve lamented with them as they share their deep fears and hurts.
Braxton Wade
In these conversations a less examined, quieter, more revealing question continues to surface: Would pastors attend the churches they are currently serving if they were not employed to be there?
This question does more than surface personal dissatisfaction. It exposes a deeper theological and ecclesial tension about how the church understands calling, vocation and who is authorized to embody leadership in the first place.
In many congregations, especially within Baptist life, calling has become functionally indistinguishable from employment. When pastors leave a role, it often is framed not as spiritual discernment but as vocational failure or insufficient skillfulness. This collapse of categories has consequences not only for clergy well-being but for the church’s ability to recognize when God may be doing something new.
“In many congregations, calling has become functionally indistinguishable from employment.”
Historically, Christian theology has distinguished between “calling” and “vocation.” Calling names the enduring summons to follow Christ and participate in God’s work in the world. Vocation names the particular form that work takes in a given season.
Yet in practice, many churches treat pastoral positions themselves as “the call.” Leaving the position, then, becomes suspect — especially when departure disrupts institutional stability.
In a recent conversation with Meredith Stone, executive director of Baptist Women in Ministry, she said: “We’ve narrowed the term ‘calling’ to vocation alone. But what happens when a church won’t hire you because you aren’t a man? Does that mean you are not called?”
In many congregations, the imagined “called pastor” remains white, male and culturally familiar. Authority is presumed when it arrives in that form and questioned when it does not. As a result, pastors whose bodies, voices or theological instincts fall outside that norm often find themselves repeatedly asking if they are called at all.
When a female pastor’s leadership is continually scrutinized, is the issue her calling or the church’s theological formation?
When a Black preacher is labeled “too political” or “not a good fit,” is the concern really about gifting or about a congregation’s discomfort with a gospel that refuses to remain abstract?
“A church trained to hear God only through familiar voices may mistake disruption to the status quo for disobedience of who God calls.”
Stone’s criticism about calling breaks something open we often don’t want to name: Churches often speak of “discernment” when rejecting pastoral candidates. However, discernment in many cases isn’t neutral, it is shaped by culture, habit, comfort and power. A church trained to hear God only through familiar voices may mistake disruption to the status quo for disobedience of who God calls.
The question, then, is not simply whether pastors would attend the churches they serve, but whether those churches are capable of receiving leadership that stretches their imagination of whom God calls.
Asking whether a pastor would freely choose their congregation reframes common debates about clergy retention and conflict. It shifts the focus from individual resilience to institutional formation.
Would I attend this church if I were not responsible for sustaining it? Would this community nurture my faith rather than merely criticizing my hermeneutic and spiritual convictions?
For many pastors — particularly women and pastors of color — the answer is shaped less by theology than by the daily experience of being tolerated rather than trusted.
I imagine the clergy shortage we are facing today is less about God not calling people to serve the church, less about pastors’ lack of a support system or loneliness, but more about an institution that is fighting to preserve its history rather than a church embracing her growth.
When churches equate faithfulness with staying and calling with familiarity, they risk confusing endurance with discipleship — and stability with the work of the Spirit.
Braxton Wade is a Clemons Fellow with BNG. He is a graduate of the University of Richmond and Chicago Theological Seminary and lives in Richmond, Va.