Expectations of the Pastor’s Family

Here’s an excerpt from Expectations of the Pastor’s Family, Brian Croft's contribution to the May issue of Tabletalk:

Pastoral ministry today is especially challenging. The most recent figures show that 50 percent of current pastors will not be in the ministry in five years. This number rises to a staggering 80 percent at the ten-year mark. Pastors already face a constant barrage of unreasonable, unrealistic expectations on their limited capacity. This alone is often too much to bear over time. It gets worse. Add to this the challenges and expectations a church places on a pastor’s family, and these attrition rates should be no surprise. Eighty percent of pastors say the ministry has had a negative effect on their families. One statistic that should trouble us the most if we truly care about a pastor’s family is that 66 percent of church members expect their pastor and his wife and children to live at a higher moral standard than they themselves do. In my experience, that percentage is too low.

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