Pastors | Church of the Nazarene Presence in the SoCal Megaregion 1895-2015

Source: America2050.org

Follow the numbers: 880 churches started, 461 have been closed, and that leaves a remainder of 419 churches. Look at the slide below and it's not a typo. There's only 352 current senior pastors (Eight pastors are assigned to more than one church).

A rough count shows around 67 churches without an assigned pastor for reporting year of 2015. Let this sink in a bit. I cannot imagine that there were more more than this number of ministerial students matriculating from the 2015 classes in ministry from Point Loma, NTS-Kansas City, and the six district courses of study.

One of twenty pastors (18) have been in their assigned ministry for more than 25 years.  

Twice that many (39) have been in place for two years or less.

Median tenure is seven years, or assigned since 2009.

Pastoral tenure is a key issue since more than half of churches in this megaregion will struggle to survive the first seven years of existence; and only three of ten churches will probably survive the 12-year mark.  

Less than one-third (100) pastors are in a current assignment between seven to twelve years.

NOTE: Las Vegas is considered part of the Arizona District and is included in this research.

Resources:

• Raw Data for these six districts (link for spreadsheet)
• Nazarene Presence in the Southern California Megaregion (Organized and Closed Churches)
• Mission Centers and Large Churches | Nazarene Presence in the SoCal Megaregion (1895-2015)​
• ​Women in Ministry | Nazarene Presence in the SoCal Megaregion (1895-2015)
• ​Ethnic Churches | Nazarene Presence in the Southern California Megaregion (1895-2015)

• Megaregions and the Church of the Nazarene in North America
• Megaregion in the Making -- Beijing's Jing-Jin-Ji