Pastors | Nazarene Presence in the Northern California Megaregion (2007-2018)

There are 174 assigned senior pastors on this megaregion. Six pastors have dual assignments so there really are only 168 individual pastors.

Almost one-third have been in their assignments for less than five years,
and another 30% over twelve years. 

Median tenure for all assigned senior pastors is only seven years, assigned since 2011. 

Half of the female assigned senior pastors have been in their assignments since 2014.

There are 41 churches without an assigned senior pastor at the time of this demographic snapshot. That's 19%, almost one-fifth, of the total active churches (217).

Median worship attendance for churches with an assigned pastor is 58. 
Yet, in this megaregion, there is one senior assigned pastor for every 128 people in Sunday worship in a Nazarene church: 168 individual assigned senior pastors and 21,567 in average worship attendance.

Concern needs to be raised over the number of vacancies (one out of five churches without a senior pastor) and the short median tenure of seven years. I wonder if there is any thought among district superintendents and pastors about a succession plan: who will follow them and when. I think the ideal of always being in one place, or even job security, challenges the notion that someone will need to follow. These numbers are concerning even before beginning to think about the number of pastors that will be needed to keep up with population growth. 

Ideally, there should be one pastor/church for every 10,000 people to maintain a recognizable presence in a population.  Assuming that the current number of 174 pastors can be maintained (still, one-fifth short of filling all open pulpits), the following ratios can be applied.

According census numbers for this megaregion:

In 2010, there is one Nazarene pastor for 83,3333 people. 
In 2025, there will be one Nazarene pastor for 98,809 people.
In 2050, there will be one Nazarene pastor for 125,595 people.

Can Nazarenes realistically keep up with the population of this megaregion? 

Resources

• Starting and Closing Churches | NorCal
• Large Churches and Missional Centers | NorCal
• Ethnic Churches | NorCal
• Women in Ministry | NorCal​​
• Other Megaregions