Why Church of God Pastors Need Pastoral Covenant Groups

James P. Bowers, Ph.D

"Why didn't we have these groups 25 years ago!"
--- pastoral covenant group pastor

Why would a seminary -- the Church of God Theological Seminary -- devote considerable resources and energy to launching a national network of pastoral covenant groups? Conventional wisdom says the business of seminaries is simply to train ministers and offer degrees. Why seek to impact practicing pastors? Why this pastoral excellence project? Why now?

Stories tell the answer to those questions. For over 30 years, pastors have been telling their stories of ministry challenges, personal struggle, and spiritual faithfulness to seminary faculty in the "Pentecostal Foundations for Christian Ministry and Study" orientation course. Then, in 2002, administration of the U.S. Congregational Life Survey to over 2000 Church of God pastors further corroborated what many at the seminary and elsewhere suspected -- pastors needed greater care, affirmation, resourcing, and connectedness.

As General Overseer Dennis McGuire's motto -- "healthy, growing, praying ministers building healthy, growing, praying churches" made clear, a healthy church can only be had with healthy pastors. Data collected about pastoral practice, leadership, and health pointed to common pastoral needs demanding intervention and a new paradigm of pastoral support.

Pastoral Practice

Initially, survey data revealed Church of God pastors differ little in practice from their peers in other traditions. They engage in preaching, administration, prayer, counseling, visiting, teaching, and community ministry in similar fashion to other pastors. Seemingly greater attention, however, is being given to "institutional maintenance" functions. Surprisingly, Church of God pastors spend less time preaching and teaching, planning and leading worship, and in prayer than their non-Pentecostal peers. Pastoral reading lists saturated with popular "leadership" literature has apparently left many pastors with identity confusion while they try to "cast vision," "innovate," and "market" ministry.

Pastoral Leadership

Finding the complexities of congregational ministry untamed by such practices, 64% of Church of God pastors still have relatively brief tenures. Almost 75% reported serious conflict present in their churches. Highly directive leadership by nearly 40% and lack of personal evaluation and development by 88% no doubt contributes to the level and intensity of conflict. With such conflicts focused on worship style, finances, leadership approach, or differences in vision, it isn't surprising most pastors (72%) report low levels of vision development and implementation.

Pastoral Health

Church of God pastors do not seem, given the survey findings in relation to health and satisfaction, to have found the formula for pastoral bliss. The most disturbing findings concern the level of isolation, poor physical health, and relational dissatisfaction present among these pastors. Fully 87% of pastors were overweight (compared to 78% of Protestants) and Church of God pastors were more likely to adjust ministerial workload because of health concerns (47% vs. 19% of Protestants).

They were also more likely to see a negative effect of their emotional health on pastoral functioning (47% vs. 20% of Protestants) and had a higher incidence of depression than their pastoral peers (75% vs. 46%). Most were less satisfied with their relationships (family, peer, lay) than their peers, and Church of God pastors were much more likely to feel isolated and alone (18% vs. 6%). While Church of God pastors exhibited a somewhat stronger tendency to think about leaving ministry (6% vs. 2%), most do not doubt their pastoral call.

Common Pastoral Needs

Arising from these realities of pastoral life is a predictable and common set of pastoral needs. Significant personal health needs are found among practicing pastors. Church of God ministers need assistance with personal financial / retirement planning, personal health management, emotional wellness, and health insurance. Survey findings suggest that approximately 50% of all pastors are less healthy and, therefore, less effective because of unmet needs in one or more of these areas. The unavoidable conclusion is that a major part of any reality-based strategy to enhance congregational or denominational health must involve great focus on the personal health issues of Church of God pastors.

Another area of need suggested by survey data concerns the educational development of pastors. With only a small percentage with formal theological training (16% in the Church of God and 20% among all Pentecostals) and many desiring further education but lacking financial resources and educational backgrounds needed for conventional training, accessible, context-based development opportunities are a strategic need. Several areas of focused development and training were surfaced as relevant for Pentecostal pastors. Most need better skills and support for conflict mediation given the high incidence and intensity of conflict in their congregations. Other areas of need include training in community ministry and development, discipleship and leadership development, church financial management, and in leading celebration of sacraments in worship.

Several findings suggest that Church of God pastors have a great need for focused experiences of theological formation for ministry. Many innovative pastors redirect and/or create new ministry initiatives in the local congregation with little theological reflection. Most of these pastors have little opportunity to join together with pastoral colleagues to consider the deeper issues and values of ministry practice options. Helping such pastors move beyond "the latest fad" or undiscerning imitation of high profile ministries requires a user-friendly process of theological formation. An effective model will combine a peer-based process of theological formation, ministry "supervision," and supportive care. Such a process will enable pastors to respond constructively to emerging ministry challenges, safely navigate issues of doctrinal and moral deviance, and address personal spiritual development concerns. This is happening in the pastoral covenant groups.

Church of God pastors are also found to have certain ministry resourcing needs. Given the size of most Pentecostal churches, pastors need more resourcing and development opportunities focused on the nature and dynamics of the small church. There is good reason to believe well-intentioned strategies of bringing small church pastors to conferences with "superstar pastors" of larger congregations has actually cultivated much low self-esteem, feelings of inadequacy, and guilt among the attendees. One reasonable conclusion to draw from the survey data on the negative emotional state of many Church of God pastors is that these pastors need more encouragement to identify, celebrate, and expand their strengths and that of their congregations rather than being led to make discouraging comparisons of their small church ministry efforts to those of "mega" ministries. Church of God pastors need help knowing how to be effective pastors leading effective small congregations.

A related need concerns the unique challenges faced by bi-vocational pastors. Some 26% of Church of God pastors and 34% of other Pentecostal pastors are involuntarily bi-vocational. This much is clear. Very few if any resourcing and pastoral development initiatives commend or offer support for such pastors. Most cannot attend conferences and other opportunities to connect with their full-time peers because of their work schedules outside the church. This is a challenging but essential area of resourcing for Pentecostal pastors and may increasingly become the model of pastoral ministry in other traditions.

Pastoral Support

Making a difference in these identified areas of need for Church of God pastors requires more than a sporadic or episodic response or strategy. What's needed to sustain healthy and effective pastoral functioning is an ecology, a system, of support, development, and care. Within the context of the Church of God denomination, but likely in other Pentecostal communities as well, certain processes and structural adjustments are needed to build such a resource.

As I suggested in the initial published report on these survey results, a proactive process of holistic care is needed for pastors. Survey findings clearly suggest Church of God pastors have not had the emotional support, mutual care and accountability, and opportunities for healthy and collegial theological reflection needed for effective ministry. A better support system -- such as provided by a pastoral covenant group of 6-12 pastors meeting together monthly -- is needed to combat the stress, isolation, and loneliness of ministry.

Clearly, the need exists for a holistic pastoral leadership development strategy. Pastoral needs for spiritual formation, emotional care, physical health adjustments, and relational development reflected in the survey data indicate the limitations of a "skills only" approach to leadership development. Church of God pastors need an integrated process of development and support consistent with the holistic nature of Pentecostal spirituality. Pastoral covenant groups provide a context for such development.

Survey results further indicate a need for a more process-oriented approach to pastoral development and support for pastors. As helpful as special conferences and seminars are for pastoral inspiration and information, facilitating effective change requires continuing and context-based processes of pastoral development. A crisis intervention or "event" model of pastoral development is not the best approach for strategic leadership support.

Obviously, the crisis model requires that stresses and issues reach critical mass - when negative consequences are much greater for church and pastor - before action is taken. Or, the "event" approach to ministry development and improvement frequently leaves pastors with considerable reluctance to initiate new ministry directions given their lack of continuing support and guidance. Stresses and challenges faced by pastors dealing with change and its conflicts suggest the need for a more proactive and regularized process of development such as is found in pastoral covenant groups.

Within the Church of God, a reformation of the denominational district system may provide the vehicle for a new formational process. A new paradigm of oversight for church leaders will also be needed. Overcoming the cynicism, distrust, and loss of relational intimacy revealed in the 2002 survey will require a model of leadership marked more by coaching, mentoring, facilitating, and resourcing and less by dictating, mandating, and regulating. Again, the pastoral covenant group connects pastors to one another, to their state leadership, and to the denomination in just this way.

Lastly, Church of God pastors need contextually relevant resources and pastoral development that incorporates the benefits of good research and healthy processes of evaluation. Pastors do not so much need more resources as they need more guidance choosing appropriate resources for the distinctively Pentecostal nature and mission context of their congregations. Pastoral covenant groups -- pastors learning, growing, discerning together -- offers the best hope for such continuing discernment to result in effective practice and faithful mission.