© 2007 Pastor in Residence.org 1 Forced Pastoral Exists: An Exploratory Study

This exploratory study examines the results of the Pastors-in-Residence-Confidential Survey submitted by 108 pastors of evangelical churches across denominational lines. The exploratory findings generate data on demographic information such as age, education, and marital status on pastors who experience a forced termination from their post. The study examined the antecedents: (a) conflicting visions for the church (LaRue,1996), (b) personality conflict with others in leadership and/or the congregation(Goodwin, 1997), (c) interpersonal incompetence (Schuller, 1985), (d) unrealistic expectations, (e) lack of church discipline (Crowell, 1995) and (judicial procedures(Goodwin, 1997), and (f) contentious individuals and power groups (Willis, 2001) as well as examined the effects of forced pastoral exits on the pastor’s life and ministry. The data suggests that the greatest impact on pastors as a result of a forced exit are a reduction of trust in others and a reduction in self esteem, while the two greatest lessons learned by the pastors is that they must understand unrealistic expectations placed on the pastor by the church and the need to recognize conflicting visions early on in the duration of the position. The research conducted in this paper expands the current literature by examining and confirming central antecedents while generating more questions based on data collected to generate furthe