VENTURA, Calif. — One in 10 U.S. churches employs a woman as senior pastor, double the percentage from a decade ago, according to a new survey by the Barna Group.
Most of the women — 58 percent — work in mainline Protestant churches, such as the United Methodist Church (UMC), Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and Episcopal Church; only 23 percent of male senior pastors are affiliated with mainline churches, the survey said.
The UMC and its forerunner have ordained women for five decades, the ELCA and its predecessor have for almost 40 years and the Episcopal Church has ordained women since 1976.
Barna’s survey found that female pastors tend to be more highly educated than their male counterparts, with 77 percent earning a seminary degree, compared to less than two-thirds of male pastors (63 percent). The median age of female pastors rose from 50 to 55 in the last decade, male pastors’ median age rose from 48 to 52.
Barna conducted the study by interviewing 603 senior pastors and balancing the sample according to the distribution of Protestant churches in the continental United States. The range of sampling error was between 1.8 and 4.1 percentage points. (TAB)
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