Baptist Churches Launch New Pastoral Recruitment Effort

Representatives from about 40 Baptist churches across the South gathered at Duke Divinity School last week to launch the Shiloh Network, a cooperative effort to encourage young people to enter pastoral ministry.

The churches committed to establishing a "culture of call" within their congregations aimed at cultivating the next generation of pastors.

Curtis Freeman, director of the divinity school's Baptist House of Studies program, which hosted the meeting, said the network is intended to head off a looming clergy shortage and revive the congregation's role in helping to form pastors.

Most moderate Baptist congregations -- like their counterparts in many other Protestant denominations -- are like "mules," Freeman said. "They are strong, but they don't reproduce. What we're trying to do with the Shiloh Network is to help teach strong churches how to reproduce."

The Rev. George Mason, pastor of Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas and a member of the network's organizing committee, said the group represents an effort to ensure the church's future vitality.

"More than just issues of clergy supply and demand, we want to address the larger questions of vocational discernment and the role that congregations should play in that process," he said.

In the past, Baptist and other Protestant congregations made an intentional effort to identify, recruit and encourage young people who showed promise for pastoral ministry, Freeman said. Over the past generation or so, however, that practice has lapsed, with would-be pastors left largely on their own to decide whether they have been called to ministry. At the same time, many young people who might have once considered the clergy as a possible vocation look instead now to higher paying fields, such as medicine and law.

As the average age of clergy increases, the situation will only worsen, Freeman said. In 2001, 33 percent of pastors serving congregations in the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina were 55 or older, while only 7 percent were under 35.

"This means that in the next decade, there will be almost five times as many experienced leaders retiring as there will be young leaders to take their place," Freeman said.

Representatives at the meeting discussed mentoring programs, fellowships, summer retreats, seminary scholarships and loan assistance programs. Each church also pledged to provide ongoing financial support to the network of $500, or 0.1 percent of the church's annual budget, whichever is less.

The group's name refers to the Old Testament account of Samuel's call to ministry in the temple at Shiloh. After the young Samuel is repeatedly awakened by a voice that he is unable to identify, the old priest Eli named the voice, recognized God's claim upon the boy and encouraged him to respond.

In addition to Baptist House, other partner organizations supporting the network include: Baptist Theological Seminary, Richmond, Va.; the Center for Congregational Health, Winston-Salem, N.C.; the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, Atlanta; the Fund for Theological Education, Atlanta; and the Virginia Baptist Mission Board, Richmond.

Congregations interested in joining the network should contact Freeman at (919) 660-3401 or by email at cfreeman@div.duke.edu; or David Odom at the Center for Congregational Health at (336) 716-9722 or by email at dodom@wfubmc.edu.