The Changing Landscape of Ministry

In this short excerpt, professor and pastor Tod Bolsinger describes how the changing world of ministry (in the West) has led some pastors to simply give up trying:

About twelve years ago, I heard a whisper for the first time. It was a pastor who was deeply discouraged and trying to make sense of why so much effort and faithfulness seemed to bear such little fruit. Over the years I would hear it over and over again: “Seminary didn’t train me for this, Tod.”

Back then, I was serving a congregation as their senior pastor and on a commission to prepare my denomination…