Another Reason to Consider a Longer Pastorate: Your Children

Though the average tenure of a pastor in the same church continues to be anywhere from 2-6 years (depending on which dominations surveyed), in recent years several voices, including 9Marks, Brian Croft, Reformation21, and plenty of others have been calling for pastors to consider the benefits of longer pastorates.  Not only is the longer pastorate the historical norm, a pastor remaining at the same church for the long-term provides a congregation with a more consistent theology and philosophy of ministry, greater stability in leadership, a more intentional preaching diet, gives pastors the opportunity to truly minister to their sheep through thick and thin, and allows pastors to model godliness through different seasons of life.  Though sometimes it is clearly not the will of the Lord, in so many ways, longer pastorates are generally better for everybody.

In today’s post I’d like to consider one additional reason to consider staying at your post, even if it’s a difficult one, as opposed to taking that next good offer that comes across your desk: consider a longer pastorate for the sake of your children.

About a month ago I was asked to officiate at a wedding and traveled there with one of the groomsmen.  I did not know this young man from Adam, but as we chatted, it became obvious that he was a devout Roman Catholic and actually pursuing training for the priesthood.  As we continued to talk he casually mentioned that his father was a pastor in a particular Protestant denomination and that he had grown up in a pastor’s home.  Now if you know me, you’ll know that I couldn’t let those facts lie dormant.  I simply had to pry.  “How did you, the son of a Protestant pastor, wind up not only a Roman Catholic but pursuing training for the priesthood?”  The young man’s answer was in some ways typical of those who cross the Tiber from Nashville to Rome.  He mentioned the history of the Roman church, the beauty of the liturgy, and the awe of eating Jesus’ flesh and blood in the mass.  And yet these were not the primary and deepest reasons for converting to Catholicism.  Continue at Timothy Raymond