{"id":2663,"date":"2014-06-18T06:33:28","date_gmt":"2014-06-18T11:33:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thomrainer.wpengine.com?p=2663"},"modified":"2020-02-07T15:48:32","modified_gmt":"2020-02-07T21:48:32","slug":"dangerous-third-year-pastoral-tenure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/dangerous-third-year-pastoral-tenure\/","title":{"rendered":"The Dangerous Third Year of Pastoral Tenure"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Pastors generally don\u2019t stay long at churches. The average tenure is between three and four years. But, as our research has shown consistently, longer tenure is needed for church health. Longer tenure does not guarantee church health, but a series of short-term pastorates is typically unhealthy.<\/p>\n<p>Why is the tenure so short? The answers are many.<\/p>\n<h2>Uncovering the Mystery of the Third Year<\/h2>\n<p>At least part of the answer to the question above can be found by analyzing the third year of a pastor\u2019s tenure. When I wrote <em>Breakout Churches<\/em> several years ago, I did just that. My book was primarily about long-tenured pastors who see sustained church health after a period of decline.<\/p>\n<p>But in that study to find longer-tenured pastors, I discovered that the largest numbers of pastors were leaving their churches in the third year of their ministry at that specific church. The finding both intrigued me and concerned me. I began to interview those pastors to ask them why they left.<\/p>\n<h2>The Reasons for the Third Year Departure<\/h2>\n<p>Though I found no singular reason for the third year departure, I heard a number of common themes:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The honeymoon was over from the church\u2019s perspective.<\/strong> The church began seeing the imperfections in the pastor\u2019s ministry. Many brought concerns about those imperfections to the pastor.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The honeymoon was over from the pastor\u2019s perspective<\/strong>. Some of the promises made by those who first sought the pastor were unfulfilled. Some of the pastors indeed felt they were misled.<\/li>\n<li><strong>When a new pastor arrives, most church members have their own expectations of the pastor<\/strong>. But it is impossible to meet everyone\u2019s expectations. By the third year, some of the members become disillusioned and dissatisfied.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Typically by the third year, the church has a number of new members who arrived under the present pastor\u2019s tenure<\/strong>. Similarly, some of the members who preceded the pastor have died or moved away. The new members seem great in number to existing members. Some are threatened by these changes.<\/li>\n<li><strong>In any longer term relationship, that which seems quaint and charming can become irritating and frustrating<\/strong>. The pastor\u2019s quirks thus become the pastor\u2019s faults.<\/li>\n<li><strong>All relationships have seasons<\/strong>. None of them can remain on an emotional \u201chigh.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Possible Ways to Address the Third Year<\/h2>\n<p>Here are a few ways to address that dangerous third year of a pastor\u2019s ministry. None are a panacea; but some may be helpful.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Have an awareness of the possibility of a third year letdown<\/strong>. It is not unusual, and you are not alone.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Be prepared for the down season to last a while<\/strong>. The dropout rates for pastors in years four and five were pretty high as well.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Surround the pastor with prayer<\/strong>. Be intentional about praying for the pastor\u2019s emotional, physical, and spiritual strength during this season.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Keep the church outwardly focused as much as possible<\/strong>. Church members who are focused inwardly tend to be more critical and dissatisfied.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Be aware that pastors who make it through these seasons are usually stronger on the other side<\/strong>. Their churches are as well.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Church members need to be highly intentional about encouraging the pastor and the pastor\u2019s family<\/strong>. While they always need encouragement, they really need it during this season.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The third year of pastoral tenure does not necessarily have to be dangerous; but it is many times.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What are your observations about pastoral tenure? What insights do you have?<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Longer pastoral tenure does not guarantee church health, but a series of short-term pastorates is typically unhealthy.","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2664,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"publish_to_discourse":"","publish_post_category":"","wpdc_auto_publish_overridden":"","wpdc_topic_tags":"","wpdc_pin_topic":"","wpdc_pin_until":"","discourse_post_id":"","discourse_permalink":"","wpdc_publishing_response":"","wpdc_publishing_error":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,177,194,196],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-church-answers","category-lead","category-preaching","category-staff-and-organizational-issues"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Dangerous Third Year of Pastoral Tenure | Church Answers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Longer pastoral tenure does not guarantee church health, but a series of short-term pastorates is typically unhealthy.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/dangerous-third-year-pastoral-tenure\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Dangerous Third Year of Pastoral Tenure | Church Answers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Longer pastoral tenure does not guarantee church health, but a series of short-term pastorates is typically unhealthy.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/dangerous-third-year-pastoral-tenure\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Church Answers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-06-18T11:33:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-02-07T21:48:32+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/The-Dangerous-Third-Year-of-Pastoral-Tenure.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"750\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"343\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Thom S. 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