It makes you wonder...

I know that ministry is hard. I knew that coming into it. But I've really been struggling with the reality that so many who start in ministry don't finish in ministry. I read recently that 8 out of 10 ministers don't make it 10 years in ministry and something like 95% don't make it to retirement. Hmmmmm...

Any other profession that has that high a turnover it seems would seek reform. Yet I hear no calls for reform in how we train, treat and retreat our pastors and spiritual leaders. Unless you count this. I guess as a minister myself that makes me in tune. It also makes me in danger.

If I were to capsulize the reasons of so much turnover, I suppose that would say it is the constant emptying of yourself. Every Sunday it seems in preaching or teaching or counseling or conversations, there is this pouring out of a pastor's emotional and spiritual and physical self. How do we fil back up? How do we restore so that we can re-create/ re-imagine?

This is a problem for so many. I wonder what answers may lie out there???