“Many churches are also starting to conduct searches in a more covert manner, not using public listing services or job boards,” Eubanks said. “In other words, they are employing a ‘network’ approach to the search process, too.”

Kelly Kurth, a 2010 Master of Divinity graduate from Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis, wants to pastor. His spiritual gifts include shepherding, teaching, discipleship, and serving. Kurth’s ministry experience spans serving as regular pulpit supply for a local church, youth ministry, six years with campus ministry, as well as volunteering with a local church’s men’s ministry.

Kurth and his wife have been married almost 10 years and have two young children. He has no student loan debt. Seminary classmates describe him as utterly trustworthy, genuine, gifted, and mature – the sort of pastor a church would be blessed to have.

Despite all this, Kurth has not yet found a pastoral call.

It’s one example of what a June 2010 USA Today article labeled “one of the worst job markets for Protestant ministers in decades.”

“The first year after graduating from seminary came and went, and I was hopeful,” Kurth said. “I’ve applied for a lot of [ministry] jobs, and the response from churches was basically a long list of ‘thanks but no thanks.’”

John Currie, Westminster Theological Seminary’s director of student development and alumni relations, said ministry job opportunities are “narrower” than before. About 80 percent of WTS’ yearly Master of Divinity graduates are either considering or moving into ministry calls, he said.

“Smaller churches are challenged economically because their people are challenged economically, and some churches can’t afford to call pastors,” Currie said. “The economic downturn also has older pastors staying in the pulpit longer [instead of retiring]; pulpits have not freed up as much as they would have in the past.”

Ed Eubanks Jr., senior pastor of Dove Mountain Church-PCA in Tuscon, Ariz., and author of the 2011 book From M.Div. to Rev. — Making an Effective Transition from Seminary into Pastoral Ministry, said every church he’s known has struggled during the recession.

“In many congregations, giving dropped substantially,” Eubanks said. “I know of a handful of men whose positions were eliminated and a few more whose salaries have either been reduced, or the cost of living not matched, to the point where they are significantly strained in personal/family finances.”

“The effects for seminary students are profound and are compounded in a recession,” Eubanks said. “The reductions and stresses mean that an increased number of experienced, ‘seasoned’ ministers are searching for a new call, too — which further challenges the new graduates’ prospects because they will often (and wrongly) be overlooked because of their lesser experience. Even if they’re the better candidate, they may not get the opportunity to demonstrate that because they appear, on paper, to be unproven and therefore less attractive.”

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HT-WS