I was returning from a convention recently and sat next to the late Ramsey Pollard, pastor of the Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, Tennessee. He said to me, “Paul, after 47 years in the ministry, it is harder to be the pastor of a Baptist church now than any time in my ministry.”
Evidence everywhere confirms this. We recently read that in the last 18 months that 2,100 Southern Baptist pastors had been fired. When you consider that there are only 35,000, that means that one out of 17 has been fired. Add to that those the church would like to fire but haven’t figured out how to yet, and you would have to classify the ministry as hazardous duty.