New thinking on addressing the collapse in ministry recruitment and training? with Orlando Saer

In the UK there are serious signs of a narrowing pipeline into ministry recruitment and training. Fewer people are coming forward through some of the traditional routes. Traineeships are under pressure. Residential theological education is changing. 

And churches are asking: where will the next generation of pastors, evangelists, church planters and ministry leaders come from?

In Australia, it is not the same story, but there is a similar question. Geoff Folland has argued that the old model of the young, full-time, residential theological student is no longer the dominant reality. Colleges face rising compliance costs, changing student profiles and tighter finances. And, churches, apprenticeships, parachurch organisations and mission agencies are now doing more of the early work of formation.

So is this a Bible college problem? A local church problem? A recruitment problem? A funding problem? Or an ecosystem problem?

Orlando Saer is Senior Pastor of Christ Church Southampton, Chair of Trustees of 9:38 and part of the team behind the Yarnton Gospel Workers Trust launched last week — a new UK initiative seeking to remove blockages and multiply gospel workers for the harvest.

Yarnton Gospel Workers Trust Link

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Transcript

From Gary To Susan Students

SPEAKER_00 1:15

New thinking on addressing the collapse in ministry recruitment and training. Horlando Say is our guest. It is the Pastor's Heart. It's Dominic Steele. And in the UK, there's been a collapse in ministry recruitment and training. The workers being raised up for the harvest are coming in much fewer numbers. In Australia, it's not a collapse, but there is a new reality. Residential theological training is under pressure. Colleges are facing rising compliance costs, changing student profiles, and tighter finances. According to Jeff Folland, it is now less 22-year-old Gary putting himself forward for study and more 40-plus Susan. In 1995, Jeff says that Gary studied full-time, lived residentially on campus, and was significantly funded by his denomination. Whereas in 2026, the typical student is in her 40s. Jeff Folland calls her Susan. He says she studies part-time while balancing a secular career or family. She engages online or through block intensives and is often self-funding. Folland notes that colleges have built a physical infrastructure for Gary, but that the revenue stream now relies on Susan. And he says the problem in Australia is that we're attempting to navigate a 2035 reality using a map drawn in 2000. Over to the UK, and they are working on redrawing the map. And one of those involved is Orlando Sayer. Orlando is senior pastor at Christchurch in Southampton, and he chairs 938, a UK organization seeking to multiply gospel workers in England and Wales, and is also part of what is called the Yarnton Gospel Workers Trust. Orlando, I'm trying to put all this together.

A Quiet Revival With No Flow

SPEAKER_01 3:33

Yes, thank you, uh Donald. What are you doing? Lovely to be here. There has been a little bit of movement uh among young people in um uh attendance in Britain. Not I don't think as the numbers are as large.

SPEAKER_00 3:49

Well, we've we've had that quiet revival, and then people have said it's not quite as big as it was supposed to be.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

That's right. It but it is real. There are is we certainly uh when I speak to fellow ministers, we all notice that we all notice there is more interest um among young men in particular. Uh but it's relatively recent, just the last uh two or three years. And the decline of people coming forward for ministry has been going much long, much longer than that. Of course, it will be some time, I suppose. Before that flows through. Exactly, before there is any flow through, if there is any flow through from that. So I th I think it's quite hard to um peg those two things together in a chronological framework like that.

SPEAKER_00 4:34

Okay. And so why is it that we're down? Is it a problem of the heart? Is it a problem of the the senior pastors' hearts? What's what's the what's what's your heart on the problem?

Why Fewer People Step Forward

SPEAKER_01 4:44

Yeah. Well, my my my heart, I mean, where as I was thinking about this very issue about ministry recruitment, what I found myself thinking about was the people who were responsible for me, who took me under their wing, who who gave up time to nurture me, to bring the Christian faith to me as a teenager, to disciple me in that. And I just found myself increasingly humble and grateful for them because they could have done, spent their time doing something else. And so they actually didn't do that. They their vision, their love, their concern, their care was deep enough to spend it with a snotty little teenager as I was.

SPEAKER_00 5:27

And I I guess what I'm thinking is what So do you think our generation has failed to have the kind of priorities that the generation above us had?

SPEAKER_01 5:37

In some way, for some reason, a number of things have come together which have perhaps led to a decreasing desire to give lives for ministry. Um what are some of those things? Well, we talked about some of those things last week.

SPEAKER_00 5:54

But pushing again, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:55

Yeah, we we we we talked about uh things like lack of vision and um uh uh hearts being gripped by the realities of heaven and hell. We talked about desire for comfort, we talked about poor role models and um the way in which uh ministers have perhaps not set the best examples. Um we talked about a lack of confidence and um we talked about even pornography as something which has led to people feeling self-excluded from ministry. There's a whole raft of different things.

SPEAKER_00 6:29

And and it's not just a Church of England problem. It is a Church of England problem, but it's not just a church, it's also you're experiencing it in the fellowship of independent evangelical churches.

Training Shifts And Missing Data

SPEAKER_01 6:40

Yes, it's much less extreme in the FIEC where I am. It's and but it's very hard to gauge. Numbers are very, very difficult to come by. The reason for that is because the shift from residential theological education to non-residential part-time theological education, which you were alluding to there, um, brings with it a a number of other things. For example, not just the part-time.

SPEAKER_00 7:04

So you've got that same Gary to Susan phenomenon?

SPEAKER_01 7:07

We we absolutely do, but it's not just the stage of life and the the um and the pathway of training. It's also what they're training for. So we have large numbers of people doing uh non-residential training. But the question is how many of them are training for senior leadership roles in churches, as opposed to training to be better equipped with some particular ministry that they might um get involved with leading their women's work or their youth work or whatever it is. Uh and so finding the the data points.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

So you might say we've we've still got X number of full-time equivalent students, but they're not actually planning 40 years in gospel ministry after that as a senior pastor.

SPEAKER_01 7:55

Exactly. And it's that one as a senior pastor or as a senior women's worker or whatever it is. But it's very hard because I'm not sure necessarily they know what they're planning to do. The map of the pathway is not as clear for most, and that makes gathering data very difficult.

SPEAKER_00 8:13

And so we've got a situation where our old model of ministry formation is no longer producing another enough workers, and we've got that really clearly in the UK and to a lesser extent here, but also here.

Crossing The Pain Threshold In UK

SPEAKER_01 9:00

Yes, that's right. Um the denominations um have uh adopted cheaper ways of training, um, and the individuals have found those cheaper ways of training more attractive to them, and the churches which are sending them or which they're members of are going along with it very happily, because those part-time methods of training uh mean that they can stay in a relationship and ministry and so on in the local church. So there's a the the from every direction, uh, this shift is very significant. Um, and no one quite knows yet what it'll mean in five, ten years' time as the retirements in ministers uh currently serving um uh means that we're looking for who is replacing them or what is the replacement rate.

SPEAKER_00 9:50

Okay, now there's an old line that the uh nobody will make a change unless the pain of changing is less than the pain of not changing. Now, my impression is that in the UK you've crossed that threshold. We've got to make a change because the pain of not changing is massive. Is that a right read? I think that that's probably fair. Um I I think Whereas we're not there yet here in Australia.

SPEAKER_01 10:21

Well, you have an extraordinarily uh unusual setup, particularly here in Sydney.

SPEAKER_00 10:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

Uh in Sydney Anglicanism, I don't know anywhere else in the world which has the same ecosystem that you have here. And so you're insulated, at least for a while, uh, from that and um praying that that was a long way.

SPEAKER_00 10:38

It's not perfect, but yeah, keep going.

Senior Pastors And Training Vision

SPEAKER_01 10:40

Yes. Uh whereas in England, we know we it is very obvious to all of us that um we need to work harder and pray harder that God would raise up workers for these roles. And that has meant that um we can't keep on just waiting and hoping that the cavalry would come charging over and rescue us. Or we've actually got to do something. We've actually got to take some initiatives.

SPEAKER_00 11:08

Um that I mean, I remember at theological college, and we were there at the same time, looking at the older generation and thinking, are they asleep at the wheel? Well, you and I now are the older generation. Are we asleep at the wheel?

SPEAKER_01 11:20

Yeah, I mean, uh and it's a fair question. And I it w one of the factors in this, I think, is that people in our positions are senior pastors in churches, it's just got a lot more complicated being a senior pastor in a church. Your head has got to be in so many different places.

SPEAKER_00 11:38

You've got to be just brilliant at everything or the kingdom falls.

Turning Churches Into Training Centres

SPEAKER_01 11:41

Well, yeah, you've got to be competent at everything at least, but you've got to be thinking about everything at least. And that has meant that something which is just hard and long-term and doesn't necessarily see immediate fruit, like training, is never going to be at the top of the pile unless you have such vision, such clarity about what you're doing, and such a gospel-generous heart for the future of the gospel outside your church patch. And that means that one of the things I feel like we have to do is to re-envision church ministers and churches with um what we're with the importance uh of passing the baton on and thinking about that role right now.

SPEAKER_00 12:28

It's interesting as you say that. Um long time ago, Archie Poulos got me to present an elective at uh at a ministry training strategy thing. And he said, Dominic, I want you to lead this elective and uh and I want this is what I want you to say. And uh he said the title of the elective is going to be Turning Your Church into a Ministry Training Center. And so he said, trying to think about church not as doing church, but that the whole exercise is we're running a training ground by doing church. Now it was a hyperbolic statement, and I don't know if anybody else found the elective helpful, but it changed me profoundly that um what am I doing in the whole thing is I'm all about trying to have a DNA of training. Yeah.

Why Colleges Still Matter

SPEAKER_01 13:17

And it's hard to move in that direction. Uh our church in Christchurch Southampton, we we started with that ethos from the beginning. When you're hardwired from the beginning, it's relatively easy. For churches which have been just around a little bit longer um and um just have a lot of things going on, it's it's difficult. It's difficult. Uh, and I want to honor and respect those pastors who who just say, Oh, you know, I just don't have time to give up my brain, um, but I don't have brain space to be able to devote to that. You have to, yeah, we we all have to, and we all have to help each other in this. We have to collaborate, we have to share our experience, uh, we have to point each other and motivate each other to take this seriously.

SPEAKER_00 13:59

Now you're saying colleges are still essential, but no longer the whole ecosystem.

The Yarnton Trust And Its Plan

SPEAKER_01 14:05

Yes, so external training remains um uh a resource which can give the rigour that a local most local churches are not able to give. And therefore, um it does it does seem important to preserve institutions, training programs, and so on, um not for the sake of preserving them because we want to be college-centric or institution-centric, we we don't be church-centric, but but because those institutions, when they operate well, are such wonderful servants to the local churches.

SPEAKER_00 14:45

Now, last week in the UK, um, you took a new initiative. I mean, the original thinking on this process was um at Yanton, and now you've launched something called the Yarnton Trust. What are you trying to do there?

SPEAKER_01 15:02

Yes, the Yarn Trump, so the Yarnton Trust, though, over the last 18 months or so, since the Yarnton meeting that we had, uh, there's been a small group of stakeholders in the UK, by which I mean principals of theological training institutions, network leaders, um, gospel patrons, and others meeting together thinking, well, if we aren't going to wait for that cavalry to come, and we are gonna be um trying to take some initiative here, what would that look like? What's needed here? And I guess what is needed is a real concerted desire to not simply pray the 938 prayer looking for laborers, workers of the harvest field, but to present ourselves as potential a piece of the answer to that prayer. And so the the question uh comes: what is holding people back from stepping forward into gospel ministry? Uh, we want to see those numbers being multiplied. Uh, where are the blockages? And and in seeking under God to insert ourselves in those places, is it a lack of vision? Well, um, let's work with church leaders and see how can we restore the vision of uh of the gospel in their churches? Is it a lack of experience and know-how? Or can we can we share experience? Can we um can we learn from best practice from them or them on and make sure those people over there have access to that? Is it a lack of a training culture in a church? Is it a lack of money? Well, let's let's find some money uh to release those things. Is it a lack of understanding of what pathways might be the right way forward? Well, let's work on some potential pathways and uh provide staff and resources to encourage people in the discerning process to think about those pathways to make ministry recruitment and training feasible, uh, make it a real option. So that's what the Yarnton Trust is seeking to do. So it's raising money? Yeah, yeah. A lot of it is raising money, but it's not just that, it's also enabling and facilitating and motivating and encouraging cultures where training, where trainees can emerge.

SPEAKER_00 17:16

Right. How different is that to our ministry training strategy kind of ethos here?

Directional And Rigorous Pathways

SPEAKER_01 17:23

Well, uh it obviously it sits in a similar sort of zone because there are certain things that uh the ministry training strategy uh ethos is seeking to do, raise standards of training and um be a catalyst in that in that way. Um we're not seeking to be an organization that runs programs, right? Uh we are seeking to be uh an organization which catalyzes uh cultures in which those programs might emerge. So that's I guess one slight difference. Um and with but but we retain some of the same ethos I think that the MTS have, which is very much the local church is the center of what we're trying to do, and and and what Yarn is doing is simply trying to resource churches and to encourage churches.

SPEAKER_00 18:18

I I I'm just reading some of your um paperwork here, and there's th three other words that I wanted to uh push into directional, rigorous, and inclusive. And um directional, you say we're not funding Christian gap years, but those who are serious about exploring ministry and training. Now, I've noticed over here there's been a lot more interest recently in Christian gap years, you know, and um the the youth works people have had one and others have had had one. Um and uh but you say not doing that.

SPEAKER_01 18:53

That's not the heart of what we're trying to do. Uh obviously, when people uh enter onto a ministry traineeship scheme, a lot of a lot of them are quite young and don't quite know what the future holds for them. So we want to be open to using this time as an exploratory time. We're not saying this is the first stage of an inevitable um end fruit of you becoming a senior pastor in 15 years or something like that. It's that's not it. But we do want to be directional, serious. This is not just a chance to give back for a bit. Um, this is not just a chance to dip my toe. It's it's a chance to say, think seriously about what the future might hold for me. Um so much more intentional and rigorous, yeah. That's right. And we want to be intentional in terms of what we're doing by saying, you know, we want to increase these numbers um you know, under under God of people stepping into ministry. And and therefore we want to hold ourselves to account. We want to be we we want to say, we actually said we would we aspire to see a doubling of those um training for ministry in five years. It's a bold goal.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

Doubling. Doubling. What's that going to mean in terms of changing what you're doing at Christchurch Southampton?

Lessons From Funding And Measurement

SPEAKER_01 20:08

That that means we just need to be we need to think much more seriously now. We we we have over the last few years had one of the larger training programs um at Christchurch. But that's that's not a guarantee, that's not consistent from year to year. Um, and the question is in a church like ours, why are we only producing X number of people uh exploring ministry in that way? Surely a church like ours should have far greater numbers, but also the church down the road who's had no ministry trainees for years. Well, that you know, just to have one, well, that's an increase of infinity, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 20:43

Okay, I'm gonna list several organizations and ask you what you've learned from each of them. The Boner Trust in Scotland, what have they taught you?

SPEAKER_01 20:50

Very helpful. The Boner Trust in Scotland have pioneered this um approach to funding, which is matched funding, uh, which involves um raising funds from local churches and supporters and but being given a head start with a with significant funding from a single single single organization. And we're taking on that.

SPEAKER_00 21:12

Campus Bible study at the University of New South Wales and Carl Mattei, what have they taught you?

SPEAKER_01 21:16

Oh, the Carl and CBS, sorry, Campus Bible study have been really helpful in trying to get us to make sure we take seriously embedding training culture right through an organization. And we we're we're we're we're longing to see that as um, I guess a model we'd like to see in every church that we work with.

SPEAKER_00 21:39

Working for the the Reach Australia crew in Australia, what what have they taught you?

Wrap Up And Next Week

SPEAKER_01 21:44

Well, one of the things that Reach Australia has been very strong on has been that a business of quantifying, of trying to assess your data, of looking at the situation as it is, stripping away anecdote, getting the statistics, being real. And we want to um take that on so that we're not simply trying to um say nice things and work by the anecdote, but actually want to have um want to quantify the fruit of what God might be doing through the ministry.

SPEAKER_00 22:15

Thanks so much for coming in and talking to us. Orlando Sayer has been my guest and uh Orlando uh senior pastor of Christchurch Southampton. He chairs 938 in the UK and also a leading voice in this Yarnton Trust that's just been launched in the United Kingdom. We'll link to them in the show notes. My name is Dominic Steele. Thanks for joining us, and we will look forward to your company next Tuesday afternoon on the Pastor's Heart.