Abstract
Training requirements for ordained clergy vary widely between US denominations, but the most common qualifications include the Master of Divinity (MDiv), a 3-year professional degree typically earned in residence full-time at a seminary or school of theology following completion of an undergraduate degree. However, past research has found that denominations with more limited formal training requirements for clergy tend to grow more rapidly and that professionalized clergy may actually contribute to denominational decline. I test this with Cox regression, comparing job lengths of Lutheran (ELCA) pastors with MDiv degrees and those who completed an alternative training program (TEEM) where older students complete less extensive coursework while simultaneously serving a ministry context. TEEM candidates often continue serving in this context upon being ordained. The key finding is a persistent advantage for TEEM program graduates net of demographic controls, regardless of how age and experience are factored in. The advantage is not the result of ongoing embeddedness in a single context, suggesting it may result from a combination of differences in the structure of formal education and the simultaneous contextual application. Both life experience (age) prior to being ordained and experience in ordained ministry also provide some advantage, but the effects are largely limited to MDiv graduates in their first few years of ministry. The results provide further evidence for the promise of alternative ministry preparation programs, and help elaborate previous theories of clergy religious capital.
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Notes
Charismatic here refers to the personality-based Weberian concept, not a theology centered on the experience of spiritual gifts or miracles.
The most common specialized ministry contexts for TEEM graduates are rural ministry, specialized ethnic or cultural ministry (African American, Asian, Spanish-speaking) and urban ministry. Others are highly specialized and include for example homeless ministry, conflict management, and ministry with struggling congregations (Porter 2016).
The TEEM program, as defined by the ELCA Division for Ministry (responsible for the oversight of pastoral formation and seminary education), is “a process by which the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America approves for the roster of ordained ministers those persons "who by reason of age and prior experience" (Constitution 7.31.14) are qualified to participate in an alternative program of preparation for ordination. It is for exceptional persons who are identified for ministry in a specific context and complete theological education (non-MDiv degree) and candidacy requirements” (ELCA 2005b).
ELCA Synods are the primary geographically-based administrative units overseeing ELCA congregations (ELCA 2014). They range in size from a single metropolitan area to multiple states and each has a bishop and staff to oversee and advise congregations, provide support for local clergy, and strategize and administer congregational transitions including foundings, closings, mergers, moves, and clergy call processes.
The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod is a more theologically conservative denomination, not a region or synod of the ELCA.
In contrast, Smith et al. (1984) find no significant immediate or lagged effect of leadership transition on congregational success. Their limited sample size (50 clergy) and lack of included control variables, however, may have predisposed the results toward non-significant findings.
In addition to the studies cited in this section, the author surveyed TEEM clergy and found they tended to feel equally or more prepared for nearly every aspect of their first call than traditional path clergy (Porter 2016).
Human capital represents the value, particularly economic value, of the skills and knowledge embedded in an individual through education (e.g. Becker 1964). Cultural capital is the parallel acquisition of norms, tastes, values and identities associated with specific cultural groups, such as social classes, professions or religious groups (e.g. Bourdieu 1984, 1986). Social capital differs from both as the potential value of a person’s background which stems not from their own knowledge or identity but from other people (family, friends, colleagues, etc.) on whose resources they can draw for social, economic or practical support (e.g. Coleman 1988).
The sociology of work marks this distinction with the terms “general” and “firm-specific” capital (Wildhagen et al. 2005).
Including the year in which someone is ordained helps account for changes to the structure and size of the program, as well as ensuring closer comparability to MDiv pastors.
Data and permission were kindly provided for this project by Kenneth Innskeep and Martin Smith, both of the ELCA Department for Research and Evaluation. Additional documents were provided by TEEM program administrators at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary.
Non-pastoral calls, student status, intentional interim calls, leaves of absence, retirement, roster removal or transfer, and death were removed from the data prior to analysis. Clergy who transferred into the ELCA after being ordained in another denomination were also removed.
Three differences exist between hazard of call exit and call length, but none changes the general meaning. First, Cox regression predicts order rather than time. Second, it includes data from ongoing (censored) calls. Finally, the coefficients calculated and reported relate to hazard of leaving rather than staying, and thus must be inverted to speak of length in the positive.
While it is possible to calculate clergy age at start of call, it is statistically impossible to simultaneously test the effects of age at ordination, age at call, and experience since ordination; they are a linear combination. This is identical to the age-period-cohort problem in historical demography, and while solutions have been proposed (Firebaugh 1997), Age at call was excluded as the least theoretically meaningful in understanding call effectiveness.
All other international calls of ELCA clergy take place through the Department for Global Mission and are excluded from this analysis.
Regional differences may be related to the leadership role of Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, the only ECLA seminary west of Minnesota, in the TEEM program. Differences in first call and experience are directly related to each other, as first calls by definition begin with zero years of experience.
Model information coefficients (BIC) were used to determine functional form specification for years of experience, age at ordination and year of ordination, both as independent effects and when interacted with other variables. A single linear term was found to be sufficient in all cases except experience, which required an additional quadratic (squared) term.
While this could be a result of retirement if calls were prematurely shortened, it is unlikely as most clergy in the study were still active in ministry at the end of data collection, regardless of TEEM status.
Supplemental models were run which included these variables in later models to ensure that true effects had not been obscured by suppressors, but none was found to be significant in any model.
Because the model is not directly nested within another, information coefficients are used to evaluate model fit.
Newhouse et al. (2011) note that ARPN’s often practice in mixed teams with MD’s, which may support effectiveness in those situations where advanced knowledge-oriented training is more critical, such as rare diseases and complex treatment plans. Similar mixed teams or support initiatives designed to bridge the occasional knowledge gap might likewise serve to diminish any negative consequences of increased reliance on alternative ministry preparation programs.
Many factors affect the applicability of this study in other religious groups, including the structure of preparation, the call process, and norms surrounding the role of pastors. In general, the viability of alternative preparation programs for second-career pastors is likely to hold in denominations with both centralized candidacy processes and graduate theological education requirements. It is unclear whether the congregational polity, less formalized ordination process, and norms of long- or lifetime-term service in many evangelical groups would attenuate or reverse the findings. Yet even in the United Methodist Church, where clergy are assigned to congregations by bishops and move frequently (Smith et al. 1984), call length would be a less meaningful outcome but the implications of the results should remain valid. Local pastors, the United Methodist equivalent of synodically authorized clergy (United Methodist Church 2012:229–235), are among the only United Methodist clergy that tend to remain in the same call for extended periods of time, and would provide a unique comparison case to further test hypotheses regarding contextual embeddedness.
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Porter, N.D. Preparation in Context: Comparative Outcomes of Alternative Clergy Training in the ELCA. Rev Relig Res 58, 319–338 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13644-016-0246-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13644-016-0246-5