(Blog) Who Will Train Our Pastors? - Ep. 994 - October 12, 2026

Who Will Train Our Pastors as Seminary Enrollment Falls?

Local churches and experienced pastors have a part to play in preparing future church leaders as seminary enrollment falls. But people called to preach still need sound Bible teaching, help developing their gifts, and preparation for serving a congregation.

On The Smith and Rowland Show, we discussed the shrinking number of seminary students and the problems with some familiar paths into ministry. The enrollment figures give us a place to begin, but they also raise a larger question about how we recognize, train, and support those God calls.

Seminary enrollment has lost nearly a quarter of its students

The Association of Theological Schools publishes enrollment data for accredited seminaries and divinity schools in the United States and Canada. The figures cited in our discussion showed approximately 73,000 students enrolled at member institutions in 2005, compared with about 55,000 in 2020.

That amounts to a loss of roughly 18,000 students over 15 years, nearly one-quarter of the earlier enrollment.

For a congregation searching for its next pastor, fewer people preparing for ministry can mean fewer trained candidates. The material we discussed, drawn from Biblical Christian Archives, identified rising costs, competing ministry-training programs, and declining confidence in pastoral work as pressures on the traditional seminary path.

Southern Seminary once appeared secure

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, illustrates how strong these institutions once appeared. In 2006, it was described as the largest seminary in the world, with approximately 5,000 students, a 100-acre campus, and a growing endowment.

Its president, Albert Mohler, had received national recognition. Time had named him one of America's most influential evangelical leaders.

Southern had survived theological disputes, denominational politics, and major cultural changes. Yet enrollment at Southern and other American seminaries began changing. By 2016, total enrollment across Association of Theological Schools institutions had fallen nearly 20% below its peak.

Established seminaries have merged, reduced programs, or relocated

Enrollment losses don't affect every school in the same way. A well-endowed seminary can absorb a smaller student body, while another institution may have to cut programs, merge, or leave its campus.

The following examples came up in our discussion.

These examples show that age, reputation, and financial resources haven't kept enrollment pressure away. Gettysburg's seminary dated to 1826, yet it still needed a merger. Princeton remained prominent and well-endowed, but its student population declined substantially.

Across the wider system, schools consolidated degree programs, eliminated faculty positions, and maintained buildings that no longer filled with students. Institutions accustomed to training large numbers of pastors faced a smaller pool of people entering their programs.

Empty church buildings make the concern visible

The discussion began with churches closing, selling land, or struggling to find someone to fill the pulpit. We see declining seminary enrollment as part of that wider concern, alongside falling church attendance and what we described as an apostasy within American Christendom.

Jeff recalled driving his truck toward the beach and noticing church properties with sale signs out front. Other sizable church buildings appeared empty. He began counting them as he traveled.

A warning remembered from Wales

Those buildings reminded Jeff of the work of Talbot Moore, who started the Gospel Preachers Association and had a burden for missions in Wales.

Talbot's son, Gary Moore, also pastored in Wales before serving at Nottingham Baptist Church in Pennsylvania, where Jeff's brother had previously pastored.

Jeff described what happened to some churches after the revival fire in Wales faded. Buildings that could seat 1,500 people were left with congregations of eight or ten. Some closed and became warehouses, pubs, or other businesses.

A friend who returned after preaching in Wales warned that America could face the same outcome if something didn't change. For Jeff, the empty churches he now passes make that warning difficult to dismiss.

Our concern is also about succession. Older preachers are dying, and churches need another generation ready to take their place.

Seminary debt can exceed what pastoral work can support

Pastoring is a calling, but education costs and family expenses remain real. In our conversation, Alan described a financial imbalance between the price of seminary and the income many pastors receive.

He cited seminary debt that can reach $100,000 to $300,000 by graduation. Against that, he put an average pastoral salary of about $60,000.

Many pastors earn less. We discussed salaries of $30,000 to $40,000 and the need for bivocational work because congregations can't afford to support a pastor full time. Jeff noted that he had never earned the $60,000 figure.

A higher degree doesn't remove the financial pressure

Even with a doctorate, Alan described some pastors entering larger churches at around $65,000 to $70,000. A few earn more, and some supplement their income through books and book sales.

Still, the figures we discussed leave a difficult question about repayment. A pastor carrying substantial education debt may struggle to repay loans while also supporting a family.

Our point was straightforward: the financial model has problems even before we address the spiritual quality of the training. An expensive degree doesn't guarantee a ministry income that can support its cost.

A degree doesn't establish a pastoral calling

We made a distinction between God's call and a church's hiring requirements. Pastoring, in the biblical sense we discussed, is a call from God. Yet a congregation looking for a pastor can place more weight on a degree than on evidence of that calling.

That doesn't make education unnecessary. It does mean that credentials alone can't answer whether someone has the gifts and preparation a church needs.

Training for a profession can miss the work of ministry

Jeff questioned seminary models that emphasize psychology and building a career as a professional pastor. His concern was that this approach can produce lukewarm preaching and lukewarm churches.

We didn't apply that criticism to every seminary. We acknowledged that some schools still teach the Bible faithfully. But we also argued that the professional-pastor model hasn't worked as intended.

Jeff's own Bible-college experience added another concern. He said it hadn't prepared him for the realities he later encountered in church ministry. That was his experience, not a claim that every Bible college fails its students.

The issue is the connection between education and actual ministry. People need preparation for preaching, teaching, and serving the church they will enter, alongside the knowledge required to complete a degree.

Local congregations are raising their own pastors

We contrasted two ways churches find pastoral leadership.

In the earlier model we described, a congregation formed a pulpit committee. Its members looked for preachers, spoke with them, heard them preach, and sought someone who could come pastor the church.

Now we see a growing movement toward raising up someone already within the congregation.

Someone from within still needs training

That change can bring pastoral preparation closer to the local church. However, it also creates a problem when the person stepping forward has few learning opportunities beyond the assembly where they have spent their life.

A church loses its pastor, someone needs to fill the pulpit, and a member begins carrying that responsibility. That person still needs help learning to preach and teach.

Jeff connected this work with the apostolic role: experienced ministers helping prepare younger preachers for service. In his view, the church needs resources that support people answering the call, especially when the traditional seminary route is unavailable or unsuitable.

Raising someone up within a congregation is only part of the work. The church also has a responsibility to help prepare that person.

Church-based Bible institutes offered an affordable path

We remembered a different training model that was once common among independent churches and some Baptist groups. Churches operated Bible schools or institutes, often built around a two-year course of study.

Experienced pastors taught young men who believed God had called them to preach. Because many students worked during the day, the schools offered night classes. Some programs lasted two or three years.

These schools were affordable, and students who couldn't pay sometimes received scholarships. That made training possible without requiring them to stop working or take on the debt we discussed.

Remembering local training programs

Jeff recalled attending a church-based program in Lenoir associated with James Locklear, who has since died. Ricky Safrit also came up in the conversation as the church's current pastor. We weren't certain whether that training program was still operating.

We also remembered the institute at Mica's Grove, where Jeff taught. That program no longer operates.

Both examples brought us back to the value of pastors teaching future pastors within the life of a church. We believed those institutes did good work, and Jeff said he thought some prepared preachers better than many seminaries.

The problem is that many of these familiar local options have disappeared. The need they once met hasn't disappeared with them.

Ministry roles should follow what people actually do

The enrollment question led us into a discussion about how churches define a pastor.

Jeff distinguished between preaching and pastoring. A person can preach without functioning in every aspect of pastoral care, and someone with a pastoral gift may express it differently from the person delivering the Sunday sermon.

In the church where we served, we tried to recognize people by their actual function. If someone was already doing the work of a deacon, we recognized that work rather than appointing him solely because he was a good man.

Jeff also connected this concern to the biblical account of selecting an apostle by casting lots. In his reading, God's later calling of Paul challenged confidence in human methods of assigning spiritual roles.

Jeff's pastoral work centered on the pulpit

Jeff described his own pastoral work as preaching, casting vision, offering correction, giving instruction, and encouraging the congregation through the pulpit.

He understood himself first as a preacher. His way of pastoring therefore differed from a cultural job description built around scheduled office appointments and individual counseling.

That experience prompted a question grounded in the discussion: whether seminary expectations and church traditions sometimes prevent us from recognizing the ways people are already functioning in ministry.

Preaching can care for a congregation at once

Alan recalled how Jeff addressed needs in the church. If something was happening in one person's life, Jeff often believed others were facing it too. He would address the matter in a message, sometimes through an entire series.

That was a form of pastoral care through preaching.

Alan also pointed to circuit riders who traveled between churches. Because they weren't present throughout the week, the pulpit was a major place for them to instruct and care for a congregation. He saw that pattern as an important part of earlier American church life.

Personal counseling has a place, but it has limits

We aren't against personal counseling. Our concern is the expectation that one pastor can care for hundreds or thousands of people through individual appointments.

A pastor can't counsel 300, 1,000, or 3,000 people one at a time and carry every other responsibility assigned to the role.

We connected the growth of the personal-ministry model with modern psychology and psychiatry, including Freud's influence. Yet we also emphasized the congregation's ability to receive instruction together.

In our understanding, preaching under the anointing of the Holy Spirit can address needs shared across a church. The words alone aren't the whole matter. We emphasized the anointing as part of what makes that ministry effective.

Pastoral care can also happen within smaller groups

Jeff wondered whether some preachers who occupied the pastor's position were functioning primarily through a prophetic gift. His concern was that churches had taken a cultural definition of "pastor" and applied it to people whose work looked different.

He also questioned what happens when a spiritual gift becomes a career shaped by income or public respectability.

"We've been guilty of trading our anointing for a paycheck."

That was a confession of a temptation within ministry, not merely a criticism of someone else's church.

Meanwhile, Jeff suggested that pastoral gifts could remain active among people caring for smaller groups within the congregation. A church might dismiss those groups as cliques when they have formed because people need care.

In that setting, the person preaching to the whole church and those caring for smaller groups may be meeting different needs. We tried to give room to that understanding in our own church, though we didn't claim to have resolved every question.

The fivefold gifts aren't a one-person job description

Our discussion returned to the fivefold ministry gifts named in Ephesians: apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers.

Alan used an example from his farm. A tractor with a three-point hitch can connect to a cultivator, a chisel plow, or a disc harrow. Each implement does a different job. One cultivates crops, another breaks up the ground, and another smooths what has been broken up.

His point was that a person can minister through different gifts as the church's needs change. We can become too attached to identifying a man by one fixed label.

One title can carry too many expectations

We also acknowledged that people have different strengths. Some function more often in one gift than another. The tractor comparison didn't erase those differences.

However, churches can make the opposite mistake by expecting every gift to operate fully in the one person they call "the pastor."

Hospital visits were one example. Someone enters the hospital, and the congregation immediately assumes the pastor must go. Over time, the church adds more duties until its expectations become a broad job description.

Our concern was whether training helps ministers recognize their gifts and understand what church life will require. A title alone doesn't answer either question.

Criticism can weaken respect for pastors and preaching

Alan contrasted the place pastors once held in a community with the hostility the role now receives. He remembered a time when identifying someone as the pastor of a nearby church brought public respect.

Now a pastor's mistake can spread widely online, and people may use it to condemn preachers as a group. Alan described that sweeping hostility as prejudice against the calling itself.

We also spoke about criticism within the church. In our view, a pharisaical religious spirit can turn believers against pastors and weaken the influence of preaching.

Repeated criticism shapes how others see a leader

Alan illustrated the point through family life. He said children often learn how to regard their father by hearing how their mother speaks about him. Respectful speech and repeated contempt teach different responses.

He applied that same principle to congregations. People may say they haven't criticized their own pastor, yet repeatedly attack the preacher down the road. In his view, that still damages respect for the pastoral role.

We used the phrase "criticism kills" to describe the destructive effect we were discussing. The concern extended beyond one person's reputation. We believe sustained contempt for preaching can also discourage people who are considering the call to preach.

That was our interpretation of one pressure on the next generation, not a statistical explanation for every enrollment loss.

The next generation still hears the call to preach

We remembered a time when approximately 18 men in our church believed God had called them to preach. We started a preacher school there.

That kind of response once seemed common to us. Today, we see fewer church environments where people receive that call and find support for it.

However, Alan shared a recent encounter that encouraged both of us.

A high school student's first sermon

A high school senior who attended a Methodist church came into Alan's office and announced that he would preach at church that Sunday.

The young man had rarely spoken much to Alan before. Yet he was clear about why he was preaching: he believed God had called him.

When Alan asked whether he understood what he was saying, the student answered with confidence. Then he described his first sermon:

"It might not be five minutes, but it'll be hot."

The story brought joy into a serious discussion. For us, it confirmed that God hasn't stopped calling people to preach.

Jeff put the concern on our side of that relationship. We need to listen and receive those God is calling.

People answering the call still need biblical preparation

The young man's confidence encouraged us, but we closed with a concern about preparation.

Someone can feel called to preach and still lack enough Bible knowledge to guide a congregation. Alan warned about young preachers preaching everything they know while not yet knowing enough truth to lead a flock in the right direction.

Disillusionment with seminaries doesn't remove the need for training.

Schools have responsibility for what they teach

We also said that seminaries and universities bear responsibility for their teaching. Our criticism focused on schools we believe have moved away from the truth of Scripture and adopted what we called a "woke" approach.

Jeff questioned why a person would spend substantial money studying at a school that then teaches the Bible isn't trustworthy.

At the same time, we pointed to Shepherds in Cary, North Carolina, as a school we would recommend. Our discussion distinguished between institutions we believe teach Scripture faithfully and those we wouldn't recommend, including Yale.

Our offer to help with training

We invited people who believe God is calling them to preach, and who want to learn the Word of God, to contact us through our Kingdom Prophetic Society network.

Our offer was to help with training and preparation, including the possibility of serving as a pastor. We didn't present it as a replacement for every form of education.

The need we emphasized was clear: future preachers need people willing to teach them the Bible and help them learn to preach and teach it.

Preparing pastors while the training path changes

Falling seminary enrollment puts pressure on a familiar route into ministry. Our concern is that those answering God's call receive biblical training and practical preparation, whether that happens through a faithful school, experienced pastors, or church-based teaching.

We closed with confidence that God remains in control and can turn this situation around. God is still calling people, and the church has work to do in helping prepare them.

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