Sustaining Pastoral Excellence

This article originally appeared on the Sustaining Pastoral Excellence website. Dan Pietrzyk is director of the Sustaining Pastoral Excellence program for the Evangelical Covenant Church.

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by Dan Pietrzyk

In all the learning that we have experienced in the Sustaining Pastoral Excellence program of the Evangelical Covenant Church, one of the most powerful has been the recognition that the life cycle of pastoral ministry takes place in fairly predictable stages. This “aha” moment was gleaned through general readings on church ministry, work being done by other denominations, books about clergy, discussions with retired Covenant pastors, our own anecdotal evidence, and statistical research that we conducted about our ministerial community.Our findings, presented below in broad brush strokes, have clearly resonated with our pastors. In sharing this ministerial life cycle with more than 400 Covenant pastors, we received no words of dissent, only affirmation. The discussions around this life cycle have been so compelling that we have been asked by pastors to do presentations at their fall conference gatherings. One pastor, with 10 years of history in a particular district, told us their district cluster used the life-cycle for discussion and it created the most open, honest, and personal discussion they had ever had. Frankly, we have been surprised at the kind of chord this has hit.

Generally, we have found that the ministerial life cycle occurs in three predictable formational stages. Individual pastors may enter any of these stages earlier or later, depending on their particular life circumstances, but overall we find that these transitions take place in Years 5-8, Years 13-15, and Years 20-25. Whether a pastor is called to ministry as either a first- or second-career does not appear to make any difference in how these stages are encountered. Each stage is defined by a key question and a key word. Like rapids in a river, where the water moves faster and more intensely, these formational stages are filled with turbulence, unfolding quickly for pastors paddling in the river.

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