Nearly every pastor carries a narrative of vocation, a time they once whispered “yes” to the beauty and mystery of God’s grace. But over 40 percent are now contemplating retreat, the disillusionment most profound among young and female pastors. Outside the church, culture often shrugs with indifference, or worse, hostility. Within the church, cracks continue to spread, fracturing communities and amplifying loneliness.
The weight of the present relentlessly pushes. The question hangs heavy: How did we arrive at this precipice?
Clergy in Crisis
Church leaders, as spiritual paramedics, have borne the brunt of crises in recent years. From beloved congregants dying without funerals to the heartbreak of mass shootings and the rising tide of social unrest, pastors found themselves in perpetual triage, their phones abuzz with another news alert, prayer request, suggestion, or question.
The world has grown angrier, and that anger often targets Christianity. Scandals and abuses have tarnished the image of faith and fueled public disillusionment, reflected in the record low number of Americans claiming religious affiliation.
But most church leaders began their ministry in a different social landscape. “Being a pastor used to mean people assumed you were probably a moral person,” says Anglican deacon Ben Lansing of Our Church Speaks. “Now the assumption is often the reverse.” Lansing is conscious of wearing his clerical collar in public, aware it “can trigger people who were abused in the church, and that’s not a small group.”
Though pastors grapple with increased scrutiny and rising skepticism, contemporary issues carry past expectations. Cultural commentator and pastor Mark Sayers suggests that apolitical pulpits are actually a recent anomaly. “If you go back to, say, the 1600s, or the American Revolution, pastors were expected to weigh in on certain issues,” says Sayers, “because often the reverend was the most educated person in the room.”
This pattern is reemerging as congregations again are looking to pastors for guidance on a range of issues, from foreign strategy and presidential endorsements to Christian celebrities and birth control. These expectations mirror the broader societal polarization: “Because we are inundated with information,” Sayers says, “we look to our leaders to simplify it for us with this attitude of, ‘Just tell us who’s good and who’s bad.’”
Contemporary demands may create unique pressures for pastors, but Christianity is no stranger to clergy in crisis. Dating back to the Reformation and Great Awakening, seismic shifts fundamentally transformed the church’s role, reshaping both eras and laying the groundwork for the ongoing evolution of faith.
From Royalty to Reformation
The 16th-century Reformation, spearheaded by figures like Martin Luther and John Calvin, emerged as a direct response to clerical power and privilege while aiming to democratize access to God. Archbishop Thomas Zinkula describes the preceding period as one of “clericalism,” where priests were “put on a pedestal” and the laity expected to be “overly deferential and submissive.”
Medieval priests often functioned as religious professionals, exuding an air of authority akin to royalty. Under their oversight, prayers and Scripture shifted from familiar languages to esoteric tongues, becoming inaccessible to the common people. Even the Eucharist was transformed, writes Catholic deacon Jerome Buhman, from “a meal-like setting in house-churches” to “a more ritualized form in the basilicas” which were given by the Roman government.
In response, the Reformation dismantled clerical gatekeeping and fought to restore direct access to God for all believers. While this reform was essential, it also inadvertently led to certain challenges.
The first issue is the dilution of communal faith. The Reformation’s emphasis on a “priesthood of all believers,” a concept pulled from 1 Peter 2, was intended to empower individual faith. However, in the context of Western hyper- individualism, this focus can lead to isolated, lone-wolf spirituality, where communal aspects of faith are neglected.
Second, the problem of clericalism persists. While 16th-century priests withheld sacraments and spoke in esoteric tongues, modern-day clericalism can manifest in the undue loyalty expected by church elders, sometimes preventing necessary scrutiny or challenge. It can also appear in the reluctance to thoroughly investigate abuse allegations, under the assumption of a leader’s infallibility.
The juxtaposition in today’s church, where congregants entrust pastors with spiritual duties yet often reject teachings that don’t align with their own views, mirrors a tension that has been evolving since the Reformation. This movement, while liberating theology from clerical confines, planted the seeds of individualistic interpretations of faith. It also set the stage for another significant shift in Christian history: the Great Awakening.
From Tent Revivals to Televangelists
The Great Awakening, as described by historian Clarence C. Goen, emphasized “a meaningful relationship of the individual to God . . . stress[ing] personal repentance and faith, warm devotion, and assurance that they were in truth the children of God.” This movement, spanning from the 1730s to the 1740s, marked a pivotal period in American religious history, profoundly influencing the fabric of American Christianity.
During this era, George Whitefield emerged as one of the Great Awakening’s most charismatic preachers, rousing the colonies with drama and verve. He attracted enormous crowds, sometimes numbering up to 30,000 people. Benjamin Franklin, one of his contemporaries, was overwhelmed by Whitefield’s powerful delivery. He observed that “every accent, every emphasis, every modulation of voice, was so perfectly well turned and well placed that . . . one could not help being pleased with the discourse, a pleasure of much the same kind as that received from an excellent piece of music.”
Theatrics in worship weren’t born in the modern megachurch. Whitefield’s sermons, captivating and stirring, drew out laughter, tears, even swoons, all fueled by a profound call to action. As the Great Awakening winds swept through the colonies, folks flocked to open fields to hear preachers like Jonathan Edwards, Samuel Davies, and Gilbert Tennent. Going to only one or two tent revivals a year, they craved lasting impact. So demand grew for emotionally charged preaching, dramatic conversions, and intense personal encounters with God. Pastors and music leaders became entertainers of sorts, hoping good programming could spark the Spirit if he wasn’t already moving. This performance-driven approach laid the groundwork for the later rise of televangelists, who further blurred the line between entertainment and spiritual experience.
The revivalism that ignited the centuries to come changed American Christianity, shaping society and birthing movements for abolition, temperance, women’s suffrage, and more. However, a worrying shift also arose. Christians began judging preachers on charisma, not character, and evaluating churches on emotional resonance rather than faithfulness.
The reverberations of those arena-style sermons are still felt in today’s consumerist church attitudes. We yearn for an encounter with God, but we expect our pastors and worship leaders to deliver it on demand.
At the Algorithm’s Altar
Our digital world has only amplified the shifts in American Christianity sparked by the Reformation and Great Awakening. Smartphone apps—as tech writers like Andy Crouch, Jay Kim, and Adam Graber argue—are shrinking our attention spans for Scripture, worship, and listening to God. They draw us away from real-life connections and reward negativity. Bombastic video clips and inflammatory comments generate more clicks and profits than thoughtful, grace-filled discussions.
“People’s minds are being baptized not by communal meditation on the Scriptures to have the shared mind of Christ,” says pastor and author David Tieche, “but on the fear-driven, divisive politics of the day. . . . The iPhone really has discipled people.”
Technology, however, also offers a double-edged sword. With it comes customizable access to a buffet of high-quality Christian content. Don’t like your pastor’s sermon? No problem; a YouTube “prophet” with slickly produced videos might be just a tap away.
“We’ve come to this place where some YouTube ‘prophet’ has more influence and authority over you than your real pastor,” says pastor and author Aubrey Sampson in an interview with CT. “We have walked through marriage counseling and miscarriages, sat in hospital rooms and had dinner with you, we know you—but suddenly some guy online has more say in your life.”
Barna Group March 2022 Pastor SurveyLamenting Together
While these challenges have simmered for generations within the evangelical movement, the upheavals of recent years have pushed them to a boiling point. So, how do we move forward? The answer might seem counterintuitive. Instead of scrambling for a grand solution, perhaps it’s time to pause and lament.
Despite the parade of scandals and catastrophes, many of us have simply kept our heads down and soldiered on. Maybe it’s time for a public acknowledgment: We can’t fix the problems of our day, inside or outside the church. We need God’s intervention.
Lament isn’t just wallowing in despair. As Sampson says, it grants us the ability to “speak the weight of these sad times, declare to God the absence of his shalom, and remind him of his promises.” This is why pastors are meant to be community mourners, like Jeremiah, the weeping prophet. We need leaders to guide us in modeling loss.
Many of us haven’t even processed everything we have lost, pushed by a culture that urges us to quickly move on. But as Christian Wiman warns, unaddressed grief will make itself known, showing up in “every kind of crying but the kind you can see.” Our bodies keep the score. Bottled sorrow can metastasize into physical ailments, unexplained fatigue, heartache, weakened immunity, or constant irritation.
Yet, many American Christians are terrible at grieving. We prefer to skip to the “Hallelujah Chorus.” We’re deeply disconnected from our bodies, emotions, each other, and the God we serve. Instead of facing the pain, pressure, and confusion, we work harder or numb ourselves with entertainment and substances.
But shutting down our sadness, silencing our bodies, and isolating ourselves locks the door to the wonder we crave. Lament might be the key. Simple faith is only found on the other side of complete surrender.
When we lament, especially together, we embrace the reality that God is our only hope. We return to the simple truth that he, and only he, will make all things new (Rev. 21:5). This fertile ground is where a renewed sense of wonder begins to take root.
Wonder’s Return
Formal theological training might equip clergy with knowledge, but little prepares them for the essential dance with wonder. As Eugene Peterson reminds us in Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, wonder is “that astonished willingness to stop what we are doing, to stand still, open-eyed and open-handed, ready to take in what is ‘more and other.’” Without it, he warns, we become moral workaholics, malformed by effort rather than shaped by the Spirit.
Absent the prism of wonder, we’re left grasping, spinning the world on trembling fingers. Weariness whispers that the engine of striving sputters and stalls. Disenchantment settles in, heavy as dusk.
“Yes,” echoes Sayers, “platforms have been torn down. Idols have been exposed. Maybe our disenchantment is the opportunity to see things through a truer spiritual vision.” Sayers has glimpsed a different church, forged in the crucible of his wife Trudi’s aggressive cancer diagnosis. The prayers of a global community move him to tears, a chorus of voices that transcends borders and limitations.
Even in the crucible, through the cracks of hardship, “the church is at work,” Sayers affirms. “We are seeing new patterns of prayer, new patterns of knowing your limitations. We are being recalibrated to the kingdom.”
Sobered by our human bounds, yet bathed in the luminescence of wonder, we return to a childlike faith. Awe unwinds the knotted threads of self. Honest lament keeps our hearts tender to joy. In wonder’s embrace, our days sing with gratitude.
Music stirs our souls. Silence humbles. The Bread and the Cup astonish us anew. This is a radical departure from the world’s script, a symphony whispered only to those attuned to wonder’s song.
Whispers of Hope
In a world that prioritizes productivity, weary pastors might be forgiven for succumbing to burnout. After all, they stand between the resonance of past traditions and the clamor of modern challenges, hunched over as they protect a flickering ember of wonder that struggles against the wind.
The Reformation echoes of clericalism and individualism. The Great Awakening yearns for personal encounters. The digital deluge shrinks attention spans and frays connection. In each, there are seeds of both blessing and burden, reminders that the path of ministry is one of both profound joy and crushing weight.
But amid the shadows, there are whispers of hope. It won’t be a quick fix, no divine panacea, but a slow tending of the soul. A patient opening to the whispers of the sacred found in the ordinary. For even the most disillusioned pastor, God is not absent. He has not left. He is still the ever-present companion, as silent and steadfast as the ancient trees themselves.
