A Lifeway Research study shows that despite many pastors, especially in mainline Protestant churches, seriously considering leaving during COVID-19, only about 1% leave each year over the past decade.
The survey, conducted from April 1 to May 8 and sponsored by Houston's First Baptist Church and Richard Dockins, an occupational medicine physician concerned about pastoral attrition, gathered responses from approximately 1,516 pastors serving in Evangelical and Black Protestant churches.
The study revealed that the percentage of pastors leaving their positions for reasons other than death or retirement has remained steady at just over 1%. Specifically, in 2015, only 1.3% of pastors left for such reasons; this increased slightly to 1.5% in 2021 but decreased again to 1.2% in 2025.
Over half of the pastors, 58%, reported that they began their current roles within the last decade, while 15% have served for at least 25 years. About 52% indicated they are serving in their first pastoral role, with 48% having served at a previous church.
Among those who left their roles in the past decade, 7% transitioned into different ministry roles, 3% into non-ministry roles, and another 2% pursued entirely different careers. Approximately a quarter of these pastors are currently pastoring another church.
The reasons cited for predecessors leaving included a change in calling (37%), conflict within the church (23%), burnout (22%), family issues (12%), poor church fit (17%), illness (5%), and personal finances (3%).
Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research, stated, “Today’s pastors don’t always know all the reasons their predecessors left their church, but the number of pastors describing the previous pastor at their church leaving because of burnout has doubled over the last 10 years (22% v. 10%).”
“The rate of pastors departing the pastorate is steady and quite low given the demands of the role. Many of those leaving the pastorate feel they are moving at God's direction to another role of ministry. However, it’s easy for those outside and those inside the church to fixate on those who leave because of conflict, burnout or moral failure. Speculation always overstates these cases, yet these are the outcomes churches can seek to prevent,” he added.
An October 2021 Barna survey showed that nearly four out of 10 pastors (38%) reported they were “seriously considering” leaving full-time ministry, a significant increase from the 29% who felt this way several months earlier, in January 2021. When broken down into mainline and non-mainline pastors, 51% of mainline pastors and 34% of non-mainline pastors expressed serious consideration of leaving their roles.
