The following is a video from youtube that most of us have probably watched at some point or another but it raises major questions that I feel the church needs to be addressing.
Throughout the YouTube, video it shows information tidbits that are fascinating. One of which that I found interesting was that people now will have 13 -14 jobs before they are the age of 40. This raises the question of continuity with our parishioners and with the leaders of the church. Here are the few questions I have. One is if we are currently training pastors in the traditional way that has been done but they will have many upon many jobs before they are 38, is there any guarantee that they won’t continue that pattern to a certain degree as they continue in their life journey? Another question is what about our parishioners? There is still a thought out there that people come back to church when they decide to have kids, yet with all of this change people on average seem to be taking longer to decide to have kids in our culture and there has been at least in my experience a push for those people who do not want kids to not have them. Not to mention that they have everything changing with all of these jobs. Shouldn’t the church should start to discuss ourselves as a place of stability for some and how we have to help people to see the movement of the Holy Spirit and the ability of the church to meet people where they are as God calls us to do? I truly wonder if we are training leaders in the church in seminaries that will not be in the ministry for long because of the trends in jobs and how many we now on average have. I would be interested to hear others thoughts and what the video said to them.
Reaching Up, and Growing 
Cara, thanks for posting this video. I had not seen it before, but I’ve come across some of those statistics previously.
Regarding changing jobs, in the context of parish ministry, it seems to me that this takes the form of pastors moving from one church/ministry to another, i.e., taking a new call. I’ve heard that in the ELCA, on average, pastors change calls every three years. If this is/was accurate, then perhaps the video indicates that this average will decrease in time. And perhaps the days of a pastor serving at a particular parish twenty plus years until retirement are coming to a close. In my estimation, this isn’t a bad thing. I think that it would tend to put the onus on the church members to lead the church’s ministry (instead of leaving it to the pastor).
The meaning of power and control is tricky. We can have power and control to farther the interest of the person or the country in control. On the other had we can have power and control that lift-up all that come in contact with that control and power. Our greatest example of power and control is God grace toward us found in Jesus Christ. This Christ-like example is hard for some in humanity to follow, because of the influence of Satan.
Cara, I had not seen this so thanks for posting it. The fact that most people do not keep the same job for very long today explains yet another reason why churches are struggling to keep members. Instead of worrying about membership, maybe the church needs to figure out ways to let people know they are welcome even if they don’t want to join. By creating safe places for people to talk about their faith without fear of being judged, we can help them find a sense of community where they can discover the love of God that they can carry with them into whatever future they encounter.
Thanks, Cara, for posting this. I had seen this video a few years ago at a continuing education session for teachers. The statistics are startling, and you are wise to bring up how these might affect the church. In our culture, people are bombarded with information and constant change. This is emotionally exhausting. The church offers an anchor, a compass, and a steady deck amidst the waves of change. So in the essential things, the church must remain firm, but we must also look to how the church can change for the sake of ministry…People often look at the church as one more commitment on a list of equally valuable commitments. How do we move from “membership” to “discipleship”?