Churches facing empty pulpit crisis

At age 25, Andrew Walters spends his Sundays managing the demanding schedule of pastoring three churches in rural Westmoreland.

He acknowledges that balancing his responsibilities across the Salem Moravian circuit of churches is “really difficult”, but he’s developed a system to ensure he visits each congregation at least twice each month.

His Sundays start early, attending the 9 a.m. service at Salem Moravian. Then, he rushes to New Hope Moravian for the 11 o’clock service. As New Works Moravian also holds its service at 11 a.m., he alternates between it and New Hope each week.

On top of this, Walters faces the challenge of unreliable public transport, often losing up to two hours to travel time. Fortunately, some church members occasionally offer him a ride, providing brief relief.

Although Walters has been a pastor for less than a year, his journey began with uncertainty. A valedictorian graduate of Jamaica Theological Seminary in May 2024, he initially hesitated to pursue a career in ministry.

Growing up as the son of a Church of God in Jamaica pastor, he told The Sunday Gleaner that he witnessed firsthand the demanding nature of the role and was initially reluctant to take on those pressures.

“The pastor is expected to be, in many cases, perfect, even though we aren’t,” he said.

Walters first studied engineering at the Caribbean Maritime University before switching to marine transportation. Yet, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was called to the ministry. His calling deepened when he returned home to Manchester and began helping his father, reigniting his passion for the field.

In 2020, he enrolled at Jamaica Theological Seminary (JTS) to pursue a Bachelor of Arts in Theology.

While in college, Walters joined the Moravian denomination, and after graduating, he applied to become a pastor within the church. His path to pastorship was quick – he graduated in May, was assigned three churches in August, and began his ministry in September.

“It’s quite normal for pastors – young ministers – in my denomination to be assigned two to three churches, or be assigned right after they have finished theological training,” he stated.

A decline in the number of people answering the call to ministry has led to a shortage of pastors across many denominations in Jamaica, forcing churches to find creative strategies to limit the impact on the church’s effectiveness.

Reverend Barrington Daley, president of the Moravian Church in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands, noted that this decline has been especially evident over the last two decades due to migration, resignations, and deaths. Currently, 23 full-time ministers serve 63 Moravian churches in the island.

Daley explained that in rural areas, pastors are often assigned to circuits that include multiple churches. These pastors sometimes visit each congregation only once per month due to the heavy workload. This, he said, often results in “maintenance ministry”, where pastors are unable to serve beyond basic duties. He emphasised that a pastor’s role is not just about leading worship, but also about serving the community and managing church administration.

“It’s a whole lot of work, and you find that it is stressful,” he told The Sunday Gleaner. “The Moravian Church is declining in numbers. Many of our older members are dying, so that speaks to an aspect which we are facing. You can imagine a minister, in any given month, is having funeral services for at least five or so members. That, too, has an emotional impact on the individual minister as well,” Daley reasoned.

Walters confessed to The Sunday Gleaner that although he is only five months into ministry, he is already experiencing a sense of weariness.

“I am feeling a form of burnout. It is taxing; work is demanding,” he said. “The reality is that you not only serve the church, but you serve the community. In that context, the community is attached to the church, so you’re the pastor of the community. It’s very demanding; it’s very stressful.”

The pressures that come with being a young pastor are exacerbated by the low remuneration, he stated. He earns a little over $100,000 each month and is provided lodging at a manse at one of his churches.

This salary is unlikely to increase as he progresses in ministry – a fact that Walters accepts as part of being “called to serve people”. However, he recognises that these realities deter many from pursuing a career in ministry, ultimately leaving young pastors like himself with more responsibility and fewer resources.

“I believe that has deterred many persons. As we often say, it is a call, and we believe that many persons have been called, but they are shying away from the call because of the realities associated with the call,” he said.

YOUTH SHYING AWAY FROM PASTORAL STUDIES

Data from three of Jamaica’s leading theological institutions reveal the low number of students enrolling in theological programmes in recent years.

At JTS, there are currently 90 students enrolled in undergraduate and postgraduate Bible and theology programmes, which span five years. In some cases, the final year has no students enrolled at all. Enrolment for the 2023-2024 academic year was 69 students, up from 57 the previous year.

“The seminary on a whole is seeing numbers falling in terms of its mission, its original purpose,” JTS President Dr Winston Thompson told The Sunday Gleaner.

To counter this trend, he said JTS is “rethinking the purpose of theological training” and is working to offer bivocational training options. This will provide individuals interested in ministry but not in pursuing it full-time, with relevant skills and training.

“So JTS’s curriculum is being fashioned to assist students to see the interdisciplinary opportunities of one discipline interfacing with another, lending itself to richer insights about scholarship research and just general vocation,” he said.

In addition, training programmes are being extended to lay pastors and other church members who may want to pursue full-time church work.

Thompson noted that the majority of students at JTS are older and more financially stable, which enables them to better navigate the “financial deficit” that comes with ministry.

Bethel Bible College of the Caribbean, based in Manchester, has seen a slight increase in enrolment. Last year, 79 students were pursuing its Bible and theology programmes, and this year, the number rose to 97.

Reverend Dr Earlmont Williams, the college’s president, shared that the college has successfully attracted many young people, thanks, in part, to offering scholarships and grants and fostering strong ties with the century-old New Testament Church of God. He attributes the growing interest to the vibrancy of the denomination, with many of the students being active members of these churches.

“Most of those who are enrolling are young people,” Williams told The Sunday Gleaner. “Last year, we accepted a few teenagers. I’m talking about people who are just leaving high school at age 16 and 17. We do have a residential programme, and right now, most of the residential students are young people, if not all of them.”

Williams, who has led the college since 2022 after serving as its academic dean for 14 years, acknowledged that his institution’s situation is unique among Bible colleges. He credits this distinction to the college’s innovative approach. In 2023, for example, it began offering short courses and online programmes and has trained and certified more than 600 people for church leadership roles.

At the United Theological College of the West Indies, 19 students are currently enrolled in its pastoral training programmes. While this number remains modest, it is an improvement from the 15 students during the 2023-2024 academic year, and a notable increase from just nine pupils in 2022-2023.

Dr Karen McSweeney, interim president of the Kingston-based college, acknowledged that the decline in enrolment has been gradual.

“We have had times where we may have had about 40 students and so on, ... but it is gradually decreasing,” she said.

According to her, this decline reflects the decreasing membership of the church.

“The younger people are not really offering themselves for the ministry,” she admitted, noting that is reflected in the ability of many congregations to find “trained” clergy.

NO PASTOR, FALLING MEMBERSHIP

Pamela Morgan carefully dusted off the old piano that sat conspicuously in the corner of Llandewey Baptist Church in St Thomas, before gently removing the stack of hymnals that had rested on top.

The 74-year-old then reverently placed each hymnal on the benches that lined each side of the church, arranging them neatly in preparation for the church’s second service of January.

As she diligently cleaned and prepared the church for worship, Morgan couldn’t help but reminisce on the days when the music from the piano would fill the sanctuary, harmonising beautifully with the voices of the congregation.

But now, she said the piano had not been played in years, and the vibrant singing that previously permeated the church walls has become faint as church membership progressively declines.

“We members that attend this church, [we had] more members but those people – old people – die out,” she told The Sunday Gleaner. “The young people dem, mi know what … all the preach and all di talk, dem promise seh dem come, and dem don’t turn up.”

About an hour later when the service began, only two of the church’s 13 benches were occupied, and the majority of the hymnals that Morgan had dutifully laid out earlier remained unopened.

Eight-year-old Dawaighne Downer was the only child among a handful of senior citizens who gathered for worship at the church.

Hymn book in hand, he shyly joined the adults in singing the words of the 1869 hymn Praise Him! Praise Him!

Llandewey Baptist Church is one of 50 churches within the Jamaica Baptist Union (JBU) currently without a pastor.

Deacon Allan Walker, a member of the nearby Richmond Vale Baptist Church, will be filling in as church leader for the next six months.

At 67, Walker also serves as the circuit secretary for five churches in St Thomas, including Richmond Vale and Llandewey, which have 16 and 10 members, respectively.

The service, scheduled for 10 a.m., was delayed as Walker was at the mercy of public transport and the poor road conditions that lead to the church.

“We were supposed to have Sunday school for the young one, but it’s running late, so we’ll begin the service now and do something for him afterward,” he explained to the rest of the all-female congregation before proceeding with the service.

The retired corrections officer later told The Sunday Gleaner that the circuit has been without its own pastor since 2023. Recently, it has relied on an assistant pastor from the much larger Bethel Baptist Church in Half-Way Tree, St Andrew, who visits the circuit twice each month.

“There was no vacant pastor that we could get, so they had to share a pastor with us now,” Walker said.

Reverend Merlyn Hyde-Riley, general secretary of the JBU, told The Sunday Gleaner that the union has 341 churches, served by 108 ministers.

Reverend Dr Glenroy Lalor, former head of the JBU and pastor at the Bethel Baptist Church, stated that this disparity between the number of churches and available ministers impacts “the effectiveness of the church at all levels”.

“The teaching ministry, preaching ministry, growth in general – meaning growth in numbers, growth in discipleship. It’s affecting growth all ‘round,” he said.

Like McSweeney, Lalor also pointed to a broader issue: the decline in church membership, which he believes has been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Although he recognises the global trend of secularisation reaching Jamaica, he laments the potential consequences of this shift on the society.

“The church is the centre of social and spiritual life, and just life in a community. Sometimes it’s the only major organisation that provides anything holistic for families and communities, so when it dies, it’s the death of the community and the death of a country,” he said.

CLERGY AGEING OUT, LOOKING TO AFRICA

Reverend Canon Garth Minott, Anglican Bishop of Kingston, highlighted another challenge: the ageing clergy within the Anglican Church.

With 300 congregations and over 17,000 members, the Anglican Church in Jamaica is served by 51 full-time priests and 46 supplementary or retired priests. Minott noted that the average age of clergy members is above 50, which poses a challenge for the church’s long-term sustainability.

“We have a declining membership, mostly elderly congregants, and normally, when you are looking for leadership, we are not discriminating so we will take people 50 years and older,” he said. But of necessity, for long term sustainability, we are also looking for people young people, middle age people.”

Attracting younger individuals to the priesthood has proven difficult, especially given the low stipends. Minott explained that priests receive allowances that cover housing, utilities, and travel, as well as full tuition for their children at affiliated schools and a 50 per cent subvention if the school is not an affiliate of the church. However, their average stipend ranges from $50,000 to $70,000 per month.

In 2023, the Vatican announced a decline worldwide in the number of men and women entering Catholic religious orders.

Kenneth Richards, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Kingston and St Andrew, who also oversees the parishes of St Mary, St Catherine, and Portland, told The Sunday Gleaner that the church is connected to more than 100 schools throughout Jamaica.

He explained that until the 1970s, the church offered catechetical programme in schools, which provided a “captive audience” among students. The discontinuation of these programmes, he said, has contributed to a decline in interest in the church among young people.

“I think that was a mistake actually,” he said. “Because you gave people options. You’d have a captive audience for our catechetical programme that we run, but with the fact [that] we don’t have programme in the schools, our young people are not as passionate and zealous on a weekend to give up their Sundays to go to church, and it is right across the board.”

He stated that a total of 86 priests serve the Roman Catholic dioceses in Jamaica, and its congregation accounts for approximately 2.1 per cent of the country’s population. This is a decline from the more than six per cent seen in the 1960s and 1970s.

Richards stated that the vocational programme within the Roman Catholic Church has declined since the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, he pointed to the strong proselytising efforts from other churches, as well as the “bad publicity and misinformation” surrounding the church, compounded by the locations of some of its establishments, as some of the factors that contributed to a decline in membership.

In the last three years, he said the church has ordained eight new priests, with the majority from the African continent.

“In the Catholic Church, we have the discipline of celibacy, and sometimes that might be a concern. The climate has changed with the kind of sacrifice and commitment it requires of persons who want to serve the church,” he said.

Pastor Everett Brown, president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Jamaica, reported that while the church has experienced some loss of pastors due to migration, the situation is less dire. The 728 churches within the Adventist denomination are all being served, despite approximately 15 pastors migrating between 2022 and 2024.

“Our pastors are ordained to the worldwide church and so they are free to accept calls to work in other areas, and other pastors from other areas do come to work,” Brown said. “It is a cycle of increase, availability, cycle of people moving and then it stabilises – just like teachers, doctors and other professionals.”

The Seventh-day Adventist Church is the island’s largest denomination with approximately 360,000 members being served by 250 pastors. These pastors, Brown said, are assigned up to four churches, depending on the size and location of the churches.

The church’s structure, he noted, also provides a cadre of lay leaders who are able to administer the church by working along with the pastor.

“A lot of the administration and a lot of the preaching and teaching of the church is done by these laypersons, who regularly receive training from the pastor and also from the organisation to equip them to function at that level,” he told The Sunday Gleaner.

Moravian Church head Daley is a strong proponent of continuous training for local church leaders and for support groups for pastors.

In the Moravian Church, all ministers gather at least twice a year to share experiences. He believes this is crucial for the well-being of the pastors, and to ensure they can continue to perform their duties effectively, which is integral to the continuity of the church.

“We will see how best we can speak to our staff about the declining numbers, of the financial challenges that we have, the mental stress that ministers go through, and have them share their experiences so that we, together, chart a way forward,” he said.

sashana.small@gleanerjm.com