(From material shared in Bennie Hill’s Homiletics Class, KentuckianaBibleCollege)

(1) Facts about Pastors / Preachers and their families:

In Regard to: Pastors / Preachers

• Fifteen hundred pastors leave the ministry each month due to moral failure, spiritual burnout or contention in their churches.

• Four thousand new churches begin each year, but over seven thousand churches close.

• Seventy percent of pastors constantly fight depression.

• Fifty percent of pastors are so discouraged that they would leave the ministry if they could, but have no other way of making a living.

• Eighty percent of seminary and Bible school graduates who enter the ministry will leave the ministry within the first five years.

• Ninety percent said the hardest thing about ministry is dealing with uncooperative people.

In Regard to: Pastor’s Wives

• Eighty percent of pastors’ spouses feel their spouse is overworked.

• Eighty percent of pastors’ spouses wish their spouse would choose another profession.

• The majority of pastors’ wives surveyed said that the most destructive event that has occurred in their marriage and family was the day they entered the ministry.

In Regard to Pastors’ Children

• Eighty percent of adult children of pastors surveyed have had to seek professional help for depression.

(2) MAYBE YOUR CHURCH is looking for The PERFECT PASTOR (adapted)

  • The      ideal pastor preaches exactly 20 minutes. He condemns sin, but never hurts      anyone’s feelings.
  • He works      from 8 AM to midnight, and also serves as the church janitor.
  • He      makes $40 a week, wears good clothes, and donates $30 a week to the      church.
  • He is      29 years old and has 40 years of experience.
  • He is      both tall and short, thin and heavyset, and has one brown eye and one blue      eye.
  • He      makes 15 house calls a day and is always in his office.

If your pastor does not measure up to these criteria, send this list to six other

churches that are also dissatisfied with their pastor. Then, bundle up your pastor and send

him to the church at the top of the list. In one week you will receive 1,643 pastors.

Surely one of them will be perfect. Have faith in this letter. One church broke the chain

and got its old pastor back in three months. (copied)