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FRANKLIN — Compared to a decade ago, pastors have less training in counseling but are more hesitant to refer church members to professionals.

A recent Lifeway Research study examining the rate at which evangelical and Black Protestant pastors leave the ministry also asked pastors about their experience with counseling, both in their ministry preparation and practice.

Sponsored by Houston’s First Baptist Church and Richard Dockins, an occupational medicine physician concerned about pastoral attrition, the study found pastors are less engaged with counseling resources over the past decade and more isolated in their own struggles.

“We are seeing a simultaneous decline in pastors developing their counseling skills, having lay counseling ministries and being ready to refer people to counselors they trust,” said Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research. “If only one of those were down, we would say pastors’ methods were changing, but counseling appears to be getting less attention in general.”

Counseling practice

When counseling church members of the opposite sex, 75 percent of pastors have another staff member present, while 14 percent do not. Another 6 percent say they don’t counsel, and 3 percent don’t counsel members of the opposite sex. The percentage who counsel with another staff member present dropped slightly from 78 percent in both 2015 and 2021.

Male pastors (79 percent) are much more likely than female pastors (47 percent) to have another staff member present. Additionally, pastors ages 45-54 (82 percent) and those in the South (80 percent) are among the most likely to counsel with another staff member in the room.

Most pastors follow best practices and refer a member to a professional counselor if the situation requires more than two sessions. Almost 3 in 4 (72 percent) say they refer someone after a couple of visits, but that’s down from 2015 (76 percent) and 2021 (77 percent).

Pastors of large churches, those with 250 or more in attendance, are the most likely to refer after two sessions (81 percent). Denominationally, Holiness (85 percent) and Restorationist Movement pastors (82 percent) are more likely to refer than Lutherans (70 percent) or Baptists (66 percent).

Additionally, the number of pastors maintaining a list of counselors to whom they can refer people has steadily dropped over the past decade. In 2015, 2 in 3 pastors (67 percent) had such a list, but that fell to 60 percent in 2021 and down to almost half (52 percent) in 2025.

The larger the church, the more likely the pastor is to have a list of counselors on hand. While 80 percent of pastors at churches with 250 or more in attendance maintain that type of list, that drops to 60 percent of those at churches with 100 to 249, 51 percent of pastors at churches with 50-99 and 38 percent of pastors at the smallest congregations, fewer than 50 in attendance each week.

“It takes humility to recognize people you care about need the help of someone more equipped than you,” McConnell said. “A church without a list of counselors to refer people to is not ready to care for real needs that will arise. In most cases, that preparation is only a phone call away, asking a couple other pastors for their lists.”

Compared to 10 years ago, churches are also less likely to have a lay counseling ministry. In 2015, 34 percent of congregations had this. That dropped to 28 percent in 2021 and remains at 27 percent today.

African American pastors (47 percent) are the most likely to have such a ministry in their church. Female pastors are more likely than male pastors (40 percent v. 25 percent).

Again, larger churches are more likely to have these types of resources. Around 2 in 5 pastors at congregations with 250 or more in attendance (41 percent) have a lay counseling ministry, while 20 percent of pastors at churches with 50 or fewer say the same.

Counseling preparation

Despite being less likely to send people to professional counselors beyond their church and have lay counselors within their church, evangelical and Black Protestant pastors have less counseling training than they did a decade ago.

Few pastors (9 percent) have a graduate degree in counseling, a percentage that has remained steady over the past decade. But fewer pastors are gaining counseling knowledge in other ways.

In 2015, most pastors (52 percent) had at least taken graduate school courses in counseling, but that has fallen to 46 percent in 2025. While few pastors with no college degree (19 percent) or only a bachelor’s degree (30 percent) have taken such classes, even many of those with additional formal education skipped counseling courses. Around 3 in 5 pastors with a master’s degree (61 percent) and 2 in 3 pastors with a doctoral degree (66 percent) say they’ve had those courses during their schooling.

Beyond formal educational training in counseling, fewer pastors are attending conferences or even reading books on the subject. In 2015, around 2 in 3 pastors (64 percent) attended a counseling conference. That fell to 58 percent in 2021 and is less than half (48 percent) in 2025. The percentage of pastors who have read several books or articles on counseling has dropped from 90 percent in 2015 to 87 percent in 2021 and 81 percent in 2025.

“It is unclear if the lower rates of professional development in the area of counseling among pastors have been an intentional retreat or the unintentional distraction of other priorities,” McConnell said. “While 9 in 10 pastors have still invested in some counseling knowledge and skills, the extent of that development has slipped a little in the last decade.”

Valuing counsel

Fewer evangelical and Black Protestant pastors say they feel isolated – 38 percent in 2021 and 34 percent in 2025 – but fewer are sharing their struggles with others.

A vast majority of pastors say they are meeting with someone else to share their struggles at least monthly. The most likely person that pastors share with are their spouses (74 percent), another pastor (60 percent) and a close friend (60 percent). Fewer pastors regularly confide in lay leaders in their church (41 percent), a mentor (41 percent), another staff member (32 percent) or a Bible study group in their church (29 percent). Only 1 in 10 (9 percent) say they meet with a counselor once a month to share struggles.

However, pastors are less likely than they have ever been in the past decade to share with many of these individuals and groups. The percentage who regularly share their struggles with their spouse has steadily declined over the last 10 years (90 percent in 2015, 82 percent in 2021 and 74 percent in 2025). The same type of decline has occurred concerning pastors sharing with a close friend (74 percent, 68 percent and 60 percent) and another pastor (71 percent, 66 percent and 60 percent). Compared to 2015, pastors are also less likely in 2025 to share with lay leaders in their church (50 percent v. 41 percent) and another staff member (38 percent v. 32 percent).

“The Bible shares the importance of other believers helping us in our Christian walks, with images like a cord of three strands and iron sharpening iron,” said McConnell. “It is concerning to see fewer and fewer pastors engaging in relationships that help them with their struggles. Pastors need transparent conversations with trusted people who can help them professionally and personally process the everyday challenges of following Christ, leading a church and investing in their families.”

For more information, view the complete report and visit LifewayResearch.com.

Methodology

The study was sponsored by Houston’s First Baptist Church and Richard Dockins, MD. The mixed-mode survey of 1,516 evangelical and Black Protestant pastors was conducted April 1 – May 8, 2025, using both phone and online interviews. Phone: The calling list was a random sample, stratified by church membership, drawn from a list of all churches in all evangelical and Black Protestant religious traditions except Southern Baptists. Online: The email list was a random sample drawn from all Southern Baptist congregations with an email address. Invitations were emailed to the pastor by Lifeway Research, followed by two reminders. Each survey was completed by the senior pastor, minister or priest at the church contacted.

The completed sample was 1,516 surveys (1,010 phone, 506 online). Responses were weighted by region, church size, and denominational group to reflect the population more accurately. The sample provides 95 percent confidence that the sampling error does not exceed plus or minus 2.7 percent. This margin of error accounts for the effect of weighting. Margins of error are higher in sub-groups. Comparisons are made to two previous surveys conducted by Lifeway Research:

• A study using the same methodology of 1,576 evangelical and Black Protestant pastors conducted Aug. 17 – Sept. 15, 2021, sponsored by Houston’s First Baptist Church and Richard Dockins, MD

• A phone survey of 1,500 evangelical and Black Protestant pastors conducted March 5-18, 2015, sponsored by the North American Mission Board and Richard Dockins, MD