Clergy shortages and dying congregations and bears, oh my!

“Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!” is one of the most famous lines from The Wizard of Oz. It’s turned into a cliche that can express the fear of three things all occurring at the same time. In the case of the institutional church we know about clergy shortages and struggling congregations. I’m not sure what would be on par with those, but I’m sure there are plenty of candidates.

Frederick Schmidt posted an article on Patheos on March 4 titled, “ The Clergy Shortage and Congregational Survival. “ It’s a common topic in church circles. An article about congregations trying to figure out how to survive and about the clergy shortage that exists which also impacts the situation. And he points out many truths — the congregations, the larger church, seminaries, and it seems like everyone else is trying to figure out what to do because no one really knows. At the very end of the article he lists things local congregations should so to help their survival and concludes with this: “The worst thing a parish can do now is follow the maxim, “Trust the process”, because the process is broken.” Indeed, the process is broken. Schmidt has some other good points in the article and it is well worth a read. And I disagree with some of what he writes too, but I give him credit for tackling this issue. There isn’t a person out there that knows “the” answer.

And I’m not convinced that there is an answer either. Maybe we’re trying to “fix” something that isn’t fixable. I suspect that fixing things isn’t the…