May 4, 2024 6 min read

Clayton LaPosta’s family was not church going until he was a teenager.

LaPosta, who grew up in Washington’s Tylerdale neighborhood, began accompanying his grandmother to services at the city’s Fourth Presbyterian Church. It was through these trips to the house of worship on Jefferson Avenue that LaPosta decided he wanted to become a minister. He describes it as being called to “a genuine saving faith.”

After getting a degree from the Presbyterian-affiliated Geneva College in Beaver Falls, LaPosta did work as a youth minister and then received a divinity degree from the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary in Iowa. He now splits his time ministering at the North Buffalo and Taylorstown Presbyterian churches, both of which have a combined membership of about 140 people.

“It’s a unique calling and you’re giving your life to it,” LaPosta said.

He is something of a rarity among millennials. The 31-year-old husband and father of a 4-year-old son has opted to step into the pulpit when most of his peers are sidestepping careers in the ministry. This has led to a nationwide shortage of pastors, and it has resulted in churches relying on laypeople to fill gaps, or the ministers who are out there working at more than one church, like LaPosta. Some churches have also taken on a rotating cast of retired ministers to carry out duties that would have once been fulfilled by one, full-time minister.

It’s been called an “empty pulpit crisis.”

“It’s a trend that’s been seen among all denominations,” said Liz Lennox, director of communications for the Western Pennsylvania Conference of the United Methodist Church. “Few people are going into the ministry.”

The Rev. Canon Kim Karashin, of Pittsburgh’s Episcopal diocese, which includes Washington, Greene and Fayette counties, explained that the number of parishes in the Episcopal Church looking for priests and the number of priests available to be hired “is always very lopsided.”

As of 2022, the median age of a Protestant minister was about 54 years old. According to the Barna Group, a Christian research organization, there are now more pastors over age 65 than there are who are under the age of 40. A wave of clergy retirements is expected over the next couple of decades. Potentially exacerbating the empty pulpit crisis is the reality that many ministers who are in the profession are feeling stressed and are considering other lines of work. Another Barna Group study found that about half of pastors had grappled with feelings of depression at some point. Last fall, the Hartford Institute for Religion Research found that 53% of ministers had considered leaving the profession, citing the burdens of COVID-19, political polarization, and burnout that comes with having to juggle so many different duties as a pastor, from administrative chores to hospital visits.

Ashley Emkay, a Barna Group researcher, told Scripps News, “When you work in the medical field and you make a mistake, it could be life or death. For a pastor, their job isn’t life or death – it’s eternal life.”

And while the demands of their jobs have taken a toll on ministers, there are other factors that have prevented the ranks of ministers from being replenished. A divinity degree has been a necessary credential in many denominations to become a minister and the price tag to the degree is often steep. Then, once they get the degree, salaries for ministers are lower than they are in other professions – the starting salary can be as low as $35,000 per year. The average salary for a full-time minister in the United States is about $58,000 per year, though some congregations provide housing allowances, and also cover health insurance.

“The amount of debt that seminarians take has been a deterrent for some,” said the Rev. Kurt Kusserow, bishop of the Southwestern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America.

Karashin agrees: “It’s certainly a less lucrative career path and it’s just not feasible for some people.”

Some of the faithful are interested in studying theology “as a sideline,” according to the Rev. Craig Kephart, the just-retired executive presbyter of the Washington Presbytery, but “we don’t have people who want to pursue a career full-time.”

An additional complication is that some congregations are confronting dwindling attendance – in 2021, the number of Americans who belong to a house of worship fell below 50% for the first time. This means a substantial share of congregations simply can’t afford to hire a full-time pastor.

Many churches are taking steps to make sure they have someone in their pulpits on Sundays, even if it is not a full-time minister. Some have opted to have a rotation of retired ministers conduct services on Sundays, while laypeople conduct pastoral duties like hospital visits or handle the administrative aspects of keeping a church functioning. Others have taken on part-time ministers, or have allowed nonordained individuals to conduct services.

The Episcopal Church encourages some of its members to be “bivocational” – they may have full-time employment in another field, Karashin explained, but they nevertheless feel pulled to the ministry. In fact, over 50% of the Episcopal parishes in the United States have ministers who work at other jobs. Meanwhile, the United Methodist Church has a tradition of empowering its laypeople, Lennox explained, and that has allowed some of its congregations to rely less on ordained ministers.

“We really value our laypeople, and we know they have these gifts to lead our denomination,” Lennox said.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church is trying to lure more young people into careers in the ministry by offering less expensive online classes and much larger scholarships for those working toward divinity degrees. They are also using retired and part-time ministers at some churches.

“Everybody is doing everything they can to figure this out,” Kusserow said.

And since LaPosta has bucked the trend among young people and gone into the ministry, what would he tell any of his peers – or anyone a decade or so younger – about why they should enter the ministry?

“I would tell them that it is the most incredible thing to spread the word of God as much as you can to other people each Lord’s Day,” he said.