{"id":1734,"date":"2015-07-22T07:32:47","date_gmt":"2015-07-22T11:32:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/?p=1734"},"modified":"2015-07-22T07:32:47","modified_gmt":"2015-07-22T11:32:47","slug":"doomed-career-paths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/?p=1734","title":{"rendered":"Doomed career paths"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Preachers who <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/business\/archive\/2014\/07\/higher-calling-lower-wages-the-collapse-of-the-middle-class-clergy\/374786\/\" target=\"_blank\">can&#8217;t find pulpits<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>For someone seeking a full-time job as a church pastor, Justin Barringer would seem to have the perfect r\u00e9sum\u00e9. He\u2019s a seminary grad, an author and book editor, and a former missionary to China and Greece. But despite applying to nearly a hundred jobs over the course of two years, Barringer, who lives in Lexington, Kentucky, could not secure a full-time, salaried church position.<\/p>\n<p>So he splits his time among three jobs, working as a freelance editor, an employee at a nonprofit for the homeless, and a part-time assistant pastor at a United Methodist Church. \u201cI am not mad at the church,\u201d Barringer says. \u201cHowever, <SPAN style=\"BACKGROUND-COLOR: #a8f2f5\">I wish someone had advised me against taking on so much debt<\/span> in order to be trained for ministry.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Who?  The professors?  They want to make it through retirement and the Pearly Gates before the denominational retirement funds dry up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Preachers who can&#8217;t find pulpits. For someone seeking a full-time job as a church pastor, Justin Barringer would seem to have the perfect r\u00e9sum\u00e9. He\u2019s a seminary grad, an author and book editor, and a former missionary to China and &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/?p=1734\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1734"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1734"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1734\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1735,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1734\/revisions\/1735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}