Why So Few Candidates for Gospel Ministry?

The following article is featured in the present issue (743–744) of the Banner of Truth Magazine, Aug–Sept 2025.

The world is a needy place; it lies in darkness and the only remedy is gospel light. This should weigh on us, as it weighted on the Lord Jesus. As he himself was engaged in preaching the good news (Matt. 9:35), he was struck with the lostness of those before him and was moved with compassion, viewing the crowds as ‘harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd’ (Matt. 9:36). The sense of the greatness of the need led the Lord to exclaim, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few’ (Matt. 9:37). A shortage of gospel preachers marked our Lord’s day.

It also marks ours. This has been highlighted, for example, by The Gospel Coalition in their article ‘The Coming Pastoral Shortage,’¹https://ca.thegospelcoalition.org/columns/straight-paths/the-coming-pastoral-shortage/ and I am sure we all see and feel it in our own contexts. But why are we in this position and what can we do about it?

Prayer

As has often been said, ‘You can do more than pray after you have prayed, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed.’ The root cause, then, of the relative lack of gospel ministers has first to be addressed by prayer. This is the remedy the Lord Jesus suggests: ‘therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest’ (Matt. 9:38). A lack of gospel ministers should drive us to prayer. But does it?

In the lives of our churches, how many pastoral prayers cry out for the next generation of ministers? How many men and women in our prayer meetings or small groups regularly call upon God to thrust men into gospel ministry? In our family and personal prayers, how often does this petition feature? For parents, what are we praying for our sons—are we asking God that he might call them to gospel ministry? William Perkins says, ‘Fathers should learn to consecrate their children to God for the work of the ministry.’²William Perkins, The Art of Prophesying (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1996), 100. If we are falling short in these things, we should recommit ourselves to prayer.

Desire

Paul says in 1 Tim. 3:1, ‘The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to [or desires] the office of overseer [elder], he desires a noble task.’ A lack of men coming forward for the ministry surely indicates a lack of desire for the calling. And according to the flow of Paul’s thought, one cause for this is surely a failure to appreciate the nobility of the calling to gospel ministry.

The words of Romans 10:15, citing Isa. 52:7, show the wonder of gospel ministry as well as any: ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!’ It is a high, a glorious calling to proclaim the glad tidings of the gospel, the message of salvation in and through the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because of the glory and worth of the message, the very feet that carry the gospel are ‘beautiful.’ Seeing this, surely the ministry is a calling that is to be desired.

The ministry is also a calling to be desired because it is a necessary calling. Paul asks, ‘How are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?’ Eternal life and death depend on the work of preaching. Knowing that, Paul himself said, ‘Knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others’ (2 Cor. 5:11). Understanding the eternal realities that depend on preaching impelled Paul to seek to persuade others. He knew the necessity of the task, and therefore he desired the calling of preaching.

Now, of course, there is also a good humility regarding the call to preaching. James says, ‘Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers’ (James 3:1). The weight of the calling brings great demands and responsibilities. Paul himself cried out, ‘Who is sufficient for these things?’ (2 Cor. 2:16). But our insufficiency never has the final word, because ‘our sufficiency is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant’ (2 Cor. 3:5, 6). Because of God’s grace, despite its challenges, the ministry is to be highly valued and desired.

Too many churches

There are few things more grieving to the Spirit than divisions among God’s people. Patrick Fairbairn calls divisions ‘one of the darkest clouds’ hanging over the church, and that they ‘grieve the Holy Spirit of God, and mar that union of council, prayer, and exertion … [which] the cause of righteousness most urgently requires.’³Patrick Fairbairn, ‘Hindrances to a Revival of Religion’ in The Revival of Religion: Addresses by Scottish Evangelical Leaders delivered in Glasgow in 1840 (repr., Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1984), 373. The division of the church is never harmless; it is always costly. One of the costs is that more churches require more ministers. Where church divisions are not necessary, there is the incongruous impact of grieving the Spirit, and simultaneously requiring the Spirit to call more men into ministry.

So, one cause of the shortage of ministers is an excess of churches. Perkins advises wisely against unnecessary division: ‘Are good ministers too thinly sown on the ground? Then let all good and godly ministers give the right hand of fellowship to each other (Gal. 2:9) and unite in love … since they are so few it is all the more important for them to avoid divisions.’⁴Perkins, The Art of Prophesying, 98-99.

How pastors are treated

There is a good and growing awareness of the impact of elders falling into what the Westminster Larger Catechism 130 calls ‘sins of superiors.’ Amongst these sins are ‘an inordinate seeking of themselves, their own glory, ease, profit, or pleasure; commanding things unlawful … correcting them unduly … [and] provoking them to wrath.’ We will all know of congregations damaged by these behaviours.

But it is also important to acknowledge that congregations can treat their pastors badly. That is why we have the exhortation ‘Obey your leaders and submit to them … Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you’ (Heb. 13:17). Where there is not that disposition of submission to leaders (subject to the higher calling of submission to God), the ‘joy’ of the pastoral calling is turned into ‘groaning.’ John Brown notes in this circumstance, ‘the heart of the minister is discouraged, the great Master is displeased, the tokens of his favour are withdrawn.’⁵John Brown, Hebrews (repr., Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1983), 712.

No doubt many are deterred from entering pastoral ministry because of how existing ministers are treated. They see their ‘groaning.’ Where leaders in the church are not ‘respected’ (1 Thess. 5:12), is it any wonder men do not seek the office, and the Lord does not send men into the office?

A (literal) undervaluing of the ministry

It is a great scriptural principle that ‘the labourer deserves his wages’ (1 Tim. 5:18) and that ‘those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel’ (1 Cor. 9:14). This means that ministers should be paid appropriately to their calling. Of course, no man should ever ‘peddle the word of God for profit’ (2 Cor. 2:17, NIV). But that does not take away the command of scripture that gospel ministers should be paid well.

It is not unspiritual to say that a poor attitude to ministerial pay leads to less ministers. Unjustly low ministerial pay reveals a low attitude to the calling of the ministry, and this displeases God. William Perkins lamented ‘the inadequacy of the financial recompense and status given to those who enter this calling,’ going on to say, ‘It would be an honourable Christian policy to make at least good provision for this calling,’ noting that the lack of this is ‘a great blemish on our church.’⁶Perkins, The Art of Prophesying, 95. Where this ‘great blemish’ persists, the Lord of the Harvest will be sparing in sending new labourers (2 Cor. 9:6).⁷A future article will consider the financial, and other, demands of training for the ministry and how they may be met.

A lack of encouragement?

The church is not to be passive in view of a shortage of minsters. She is to pray, she is to address some of the problems considered so far, and she is to be proactive in seeking out men for ministry. Titus was commanded to seek out good men, and to see them ordained as elders: ‘This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you” (Titus 1:5). Of course, the men had to be trained and qualified (Titus 1:6-9), but that does not negate the command.

So, without downplaying the necessity of the internal call, the church should be proactive with the external call. There is no reason for the internal call to have the priority. James Durham stated, ‘The Lord sometimes will thrust one forth by a more inward impulse and will draw others by more external means.’⁸James Durham, A Commentary upon the Book of Revelation: Lectures on Chapters 1-3 (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2020), 120. So, are we using all possible external means to fulfil the command to ordain elders? Are we encouraging men to consider ministry, are we testing their gifts, are we telling those in whom we discern gifts that, as far as we see, they might be called to ministry?

Pastoral failures

The moral failures of existing pastors are also undoubtedly deterring men from entering the ministry. We will all, sadly, likely know men who have disqualified themselves from ministry. This can cause men considering the ministry to doubt their ability. If Pastor So-and-so fell due to the temptations he faced in ministry, how can I survive? It can also give rise to cynicism—the ministry is a stage, a platform, full of actors, it is not for me.

The impact of pastoral failure needs to be acknowledged. But it should not deter men from ministry. A heathy sense of weakness is a good thing (1 Cor. 10:12), and the strength to stand and resist temptation is always of grace, not of ourselves. Nor should failures in ministry lead us to cynicism. There have always been those who preach Christ ‘from envy and rivalry’ as well as those who do so ‘from good will’ (Phil. 1:15). The Lord of the Harvest has told us there will always be tares as well as wheat in his kingdom on earth (Matt. 13:24-30).

Conclusion

We undoubtedly are in a time in where there is a shortage of gospel ministers. But we need not despair or be discouraged. The Lord Jesus has ascended on high, and from there he is giving gifts to the church, including all the ministers she needs, ‘to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ’ (Eph. 4:7-12). So we pray in faith, we seek to remove the impediments to men entering the ministry in faith, and we trust the Lord of the Harvest will send the labourers we need.

Dr Donald John MacLean is President and Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Westminster Seminary UK.

Featured Photo (visible when article is shared on social media): Nareeta Martin on Unsplash