Post-Pandemic Realities: How Will Churches Staff for Ministry in the Future?

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1. My Evaluation.

Topic : Post-Pandemic Realities: How Will Churches Staff for Ministry  in the Future?

This paper explores the experiences of church communities during the COVID-19 pandemic through in-depth interviews with leaders from 41 churches in the United States, conducted between 2019 and 2022 (line 8). Using a qualitative approach, the study presents specific case examples that highlight the multifaceted impact of the pandemic on pastoral ministry and congregational life. This chapter shows the COVID-19 pandemic period as the “great shut down. (lines 179, 633, 648). This period tells us the experience of stories through the author’s research as follows:

First, the research clearly illustrates the expanded scope of ministry required to maintain connection with congregants during the pandemic and the resulting increased burden on clergy. Temporary but intensive activities – such as online prayer meetings, Bible reflections, and content creation on social media – were undertaken, often leading to emotional and physical exhaustion among church leaders.

Second, the study highlights the emotional toll experienced by pastors. Many expressed deep concern and sleepless nights over their congregants’ hardships, revealing a high level of emotional investment. Moreover, administrative responsibilities such as staff layoffs due to financial difficulties brought about moral conflict and emotional distress.

Third, the research brings attention to the uncertainty of the post-pandemic future. Despite efforts to adapt through hybrid worship models, ongoing decline in membership and financial giving has led to concerns about long-term sustainability. This suggests the need for structural re-evaluation and innovation in ministry approaches.

Fourth, the study underscores the increased responsibilities and burdens on other church staff members. In churches without permanent buildings, staff were responsible not only for weekly setup and teardown of worship spaces but also for taking on unfamiliar technical tasks such as video production and streaming. This has contributed to widespread exhaustion across the church workforce.

My summary is that the stories shared in this paper reflect the profound struggles and resilient faith of churches around the world during the pandemic. These experiences of dislocation, adaptation, weariness, and hope are not merely data points, but deeply human stories that invite empathy and reflection. They reveal how churches, thrown into a kind of “wilderness”, rediscovered prayer, community, and new ways of ministry in the absence of institutional stability.

 

2. I comment as follows:

 

I recommend creating a section dedicated to the concept of the "wilderness moment" with reflections by the author (716-717, 778, 779).

The pandemic suddenly separated churches worldwide from their institutional stability and physical worship spaces, and churches experienced a time as if they were cast into the wilderness, much like the Israelites. The stories of various pastors shared in this research vividly demonstrate what churches held onto, how they survived, and, in many cases, how they rediscovered their purpose and identity during this “wilderness time.” Therefore, the concept of the “wilderness church” is not merely a symbol of suffering but also a sacred space for restoration, renewal, and attentiveness to God’s voice. If this paper integrates these shared experiences under the theological concept of the “wilderness church,” it could serve as a valuable guide for churches considering post-pandemic renewal and restructuring.

Importantly, this wilderness is not simply a phase to be endured until a return to the past, but a spiritually formative place from which a new vision for the church may emerge. God is still among us – present on the streets, among the vulnerable, with the weary and the worn-out, with those who suffer socially. He is in the midst of our everyday lives. And where He is, the Church must also be.

 

Author Response

Comments 1: I recommend creating a section dedicated to the concept of the "wilderness moment" with reflections by the author (716-717, 778, 779).

Response 1: We greatly appreciate this suggestion and have given it a lot of thought. We decided to restructure the paper in a more formal format to meet the expectations of the other reviewers and created a conclusion section that focuses on this "wilderness moment." In addition, in the (new) literature review section, we introduced the concept of the liminal space that congregations find themselves in post-pandemic, which echoes your helpful comments, and revisit that concept in our new conclusion section. Again, thanks for the wonderful feedback. 

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Overall, this is an excellent analysis of the trends facing North American Christian congregations and their implications for "staffing" as indicated by the article title and structure. Your summary of the existing literature and addition of qualitative research (ethnography) in a particular region of the country to illustrate the challenges and opportunities facing congregations is a valuable contribution to the ministry development field.
The article is well-written and well structured overall. My suggestions are mostly technical with a question about ecclesiology.
p.5 of 25, line 201 - "we found two ..." but you actually name three
line 224 - add an "s" to congregation throughout this paragraph
p.7 of 25 - line 314 - What is [2317] after "Cornerstone Church"?
p.18 of 25 - I would suggest you add a bridge sentence or two between sections 3.3.3 (line 841) and #1 (line 849). The transition between descriptive findings and analysis is abrupt.

Overall, I am struck by the absence of any reference to ecclesiology and particularly baptismal theology throughout the article. While it accomplishes what you claim it will and well describes your research, the silence around what is meant by "ministry" and "church," particularly as it informs leadership and staffing is striking. How are "staffing" and ministry of all members of the Body of Christ related? Where does discernment of gifts show up in the discussion of volunteers. How might God be at work "making all things new" and the strain on old staffing structures/buildings be an invitation to discern new ways forward? It is not that the article should answer these questions but perhaps name them as implications of these research findings.

Author Response

Comments 1: p.5 of 25, line 201 - "we found two ..." but you actually name three

Response 1: thank you for the catch. Fixed!

 

Comments 2: line 224 - add an "s" to congregation throughout this paragraph

Response 2: The issue here was that the priest served in two part-time calls and so when we talk about his congregation, the reviewer wants us to make it plural. But that would change the intention. I’ve edited the sentence for clarity to show that we are only referring to the one congregation that was included in our study, not both congregations that he leads. Thanks for catching this!

Comments 3: p.7 of 25 - line 314 - What is [2317] after "Cornerstone Church"?

Response 3: Again thank you for catching a typo. Fixed. We had used congregational ID numbers throughout the paper to keep track of which congregations we were referring to during the draft stages. A couple of those ID numbers evaded detection when we were doing final edits before submitting the paper and have now been removed. 

 

Comments 4: p.18 of 25 - I would suggest you add a bridge sentence or two between sections 3.3.3 (line 841) and #1 (line 849). The transition between descriptive findings and analysis is abrupt.

Response 4: This reviewer comment reflects the reviewer’s misunderstanding; we were not transitioning between descriptive findings and analysis; we were merely introducing an additional impact of the pandemic here. However, this misunderstanding highlighted a problematic wording of the heading for this list: it was a list of impacts on staffing caused by the pandemic, and this last item was not really an impact on staffing, but rather an impact on clergy leaders (additional burdens) as well as on other staff.

I’ve reworded the section heading to be more inclusive of the things we include in that section. Thank you.

 

Comments 5: Overall, I am struck by the absence of any reference to ecclesiology and particularly baptismal theology throughout the article. While it accomplishes what you claim it will and well describes your research, the silence around what is meant by "ministry" and "church," particularly as it informs leadership and staffing is striking. How are "staffing" and ministry of all members of the Body of Christ related? Where does discernment of gifts show up in the discussion of volunteers. How might God be at work "making all things new" and the strain on old staffing structures/buildings be an invitation to discern new ways forward? It is not that the article should answer these questions but perhaps name them as implications of these research findings.

Response 5: Although we understand that this is a journal about religion and as such, it typically offers articles that use theology-based arguments, we are not theologians. We are sociologists. This article is a communication from a larger grant-funded, multi-year project and was not intended to be a full research article, nor a theology-based piece. We focused on our research questions in terms of implications for staffing and for preparation for ministry, and the challenges that they are facing, and what does this mean for the future. Having said that, we did take to heart the latter part of your comment about how this might be framed as an opportunity (a wilderness moment, as one of our study's pastors called it, or a liminal time and space) in which congregations may reimagine their calling to do new things and be a church in new ways. 

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This paper definitely has promise. What I would identify as the results section (which is not labeled as such) was interesting. The "implications for staffing at the end was clear, succinct, and relevant.

I am expecting a traditionally formatted paper. This includes a more substantive literature review, a description of sampling, methods and data and a clearly identified results section. See notes in attached document.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Comments 1: I am expecting a traditionally formatted paper. This includes a more substantive literature review, a description of sampling, methods and data and a clearly identified results section. See notes in attached document.

Response 1: This has been completed. 

 

Comments 2: Line 32: provide some reasoning as to why only Christian traditions.

Response 2: This has been explained in the revised abstract, as well as in the revised introduction to the paper. Our project was funded by The Lilly Endowment, which sought to understand the changing US  Christian religious workforce and landscape. So it was not our decision to make. 

 

Comments 3: Line 47: Did any congregations not have budget constraints? Where any actively hiring?

Response 3: Although all of the smaller congregations in our study did have budget constraints, we decided to reword the referenced phrase (budget constraints) here, since in reality, the question we asked during the interview was, "if you were given a blank check, who would you hire and where would you look for such a person?" (or wording very similar to that). So, the question was asked of everyone, whether they had budget constraints or not. A few of the larger churches were actively hiring a staff person to replace someone who had left. 

 

Comments 4: Line 84: Is this section about membership losses or what primary staffing was like in the 1980s?

Also Line 127: I’m guessing the point of this scenario is to indicate staffing losses due to membership decline? What about other staff members? Youth pastors, music ministers, etc. Perhaps instead of the detail of the Carol scenario - or at least in addition to - you need some review of literature describing staffing changes since the 80s.

Response 4: We decided to cut this section from the paper. The idea had been to open the "findings" section of the paper with a story to draw the reader in while describing what we understand to be a typical scenario in the 1980s. We also did add a literature review to the paper. 

 

Comment 5: Line 134: Should have some reference cited.

Response 5: reference citation was added in the revisions. Thank you for pointing out the omission.

 

Comment 6: Line 143: To what extent do we know that this is a shift? You cited Chaves 2009, but I think this was also the case in the 1998 first Wave of the NCS. We don't necessarily know how long this size structure has been the case.

Response 6: You raised a very good point here, so we decided to add more information about this to the (newly created) literature review section, and changed our language from "shifts" to "trends." We point out that this trend began back in the middle-to-late twentieth century and continues as the number of small churches continues to increase, while large churches are holding their own. Hope that these changes meet with your approval. 

Comment 7: Line 152: I wouldn’t consider 250 large. 

Response 7: Neither would we! However, the size of churches stated in someone else's data set, which we are citing here, is not something we can change. To better support our point that most people are attending in large churches, we added additional examples. 

 

Comment 8: Line 156: Since you are addressing staffing changes here, Then perhaps the prior section should include review of literature related to membership decline.

Response 8: Done!

 

Comment 9: Line 157: This may be logical reasoning, but it is still an assumption. Is there prior research on clergy or seminarians to support this? If not, this is an important research question to explore, not something to assume.

Line 164: Based on the same prior assumption.

Response 9: Well, we had just stated that Chaves made this argument in the 2009 article we cited here, but because this seemed to trip up one of our reviewers, we decided to cut the "logical reasoning" points, which had been intended to simply take Chaves' argument and expand on it, showing why we think it was true. 

 

Comment 10: Line 191: Why is this a separate section? Why not include each sub-part with the corresponding part of the prior section?

Response 10: We decided to edit the "findings" section to be one big list of findings, categorized by type of finding rather than by one of the three trends we were focusing on. We hope this simplifies the flow of the paper and that it makes more sense this way. 

 

Comment 11: Line 193: Are these results from the study?

Response 11: Yes, they are. We thought that the title mentioning "what we observed" would make that clear, but obviously, we were mistaken. So, we renamed this section "Findings" with a subtitle. 

 

Comment 12: I'm expecting a more traditional structure of a research paper - Literature review, followed by a research question, then a data and methods section, followed by results, discussion and conclusion.

Response 12: We have redone the paper, using a structure similar to the one you asked for here, though it was our understanding that submitting our paper as a "communication" rather than as a "research paper" would allow us a little freedom in the structure. Clearly, we were mistaken. 

 

Comment 13: Line 216: I really think you need to describe the methods of the study before you start describing results. 

Response 13: We did send the editor a different version of the paper on April 10, which apparently was not sent on to reviewers. Our apologies. The most recent revisions include this section as well as the other revisions. 

 

Comment 14: Line 221: Only 7 of the 41 are part-time, so a part-time pastor is not necessarily representative.

Response 14: Apparently we did not make it clear enough in the first version of this paper that when one does a qualitative study such as this one, we are not attempting to have a representative sample and to generalize our findings to the general population. In other words, we are not trying to assert that our findings are representative of all churches. So, in various places in the revised paper, we attempted to clarify this point. In the referenced passage, we are merely showing evidence from our own data to support the national data (we also added the citation of Weems 2024b here) findings showing that more churches are seeking part-time pastors. We hope this is helpful. 

 

Comment 15: 

Line 222: What is 127?

Line 238: It isn’t clear to me what these numbers represent.

Line 314: This is really puzzling.

Response 15: These were congregational IDs created for internal use and we simply missed them when going through the paper and removing them before we submitted the first draft. They have been removed in the latest version with our apologies.

 

Comment 16: Lines 288-89: Only 7 out of the 40 congregations have a part-time pastor. Your results seem to be focusing exclusively on theses 7 cases. While a qualitative study may not intend to be representative, I still find it problematic that you are ignoring most of your sample.

Response 16: We believe that we have addressed this issue in Response 14. We are not focusing our results on these 7 cases. We are using these 7 cases to make a point that in many of the smaller congregations, which was nearly all of the small congregations in our study, the pastor is part-time with little help. The double-blind review process also makes it impossible for us to point out in the "reviewer version" of the paper that in the other part of this research project, it was true that "in many cases," as we said here, this is absolutely true. However, in the most recent version of the paper, we made this gentle edit and hope it is acceptable: 

".....And sadly, in a few of the cases that we observed, consistent with Weems’ findings (Weems 2024b), they do it all on a part-time salary or have a full-time job outside the church and receive a part-time salary or in a few cases, no salary, from the church or churches they serve."

 

Comment 17: Line 346: Okay, but in many of these cases there is now a lay person serving in this capacity. This might not be a loss of staff so much as a shift in status.

Response 17: We are confused by this comment. In this passage, we were citing a Catholic priest who was sharing with us that he was the only one in his entire county who was granted a parochial vicar. He did not state that there is a lay person serving in this capacity in any of the other parishes, so we could not make a statement such as the one you suggest here. We were making the point that we saw evidence that having a solo pastor/priest was becoming the norm in this region, when previously parishes would have had two. This passage was included under a subheading "from two pastors to one," to show examples of where there had been a norm of two pastors or priests and now the norm is one. Whether they have a lay person who serves on the staff or not, it is still a loss, as lay persons don't have the same training and skill sets as priests or even as parochial vicars. This passage was placed within the section titled, "Increased responsibilities for clergy." Having said that, in the revised version of the paper we changed that heading to "4.2 These societal trends have created new burdens for clergy leaders" and it is still included in the subheading "4.2.1. From two pastors to one." Please take a look and see if it is acceptable as it stands. 

 

Comment 18: Line 607: This is not new - RCIA has been lay-lead for years.

Response 18: In this particular Catholic parish, the priest explained that he had been in charge of RCIA in the past and no longer has time for that work. This is about the increased overall burden for clergy leaders. Perhaps in many Catholic parishes, RCIA has been lay-lead for years, but our point was to tell this person’s story and show the burden he faces due to member losses and budget cuts. We see no reason to change this passage, but if it is really an issue, it can be deleted. We certainly cannot make up alternative facts; we can only report what the priest shared with us. 

 

Comment 19: Line 643: Following a traditional research paper format would have references to other research in the literature review section, not as part of the results section.

Line 656: Include in prior literature review.

Response 19: A literature review section has been added. However, we do occasionally refer back to those citations within the findings or discussion section to point back to the literature. 

 

The remaining two comments did not require any edits. Thank you for the positive comments.