Abstract
These are not easy times to be pastors! Respect for the office has been in marked decline for the past decades. This is evidenced by hard data provided by the Southern Baptist Convention earlier in this decade. Over 760 pastors were reportedly fired in 2000, a figure which was merely part of a fifteen-year pattern in the Convention. David Goetz in his article, “Forced Out,” indicates that nearly one-fourth of all clergy from various denominations surveyed had been fired at least once! Kevin Leicht, director of The Institute for Inequality Studies, The University of Iowa, concludes that the ministers’ firing rate is higher than the national labor force, higher than even the rate of dismissal among football coaches in the NFL.