Pastoral requirements

A pastor can only be a pastor of a person or persons. Their calling is to shepherd those whom God has placed under their care. So, it is unbiblical to have pastors of nebulous groups or areas of ministry (eg. "Youth", "Children's", "Elderly", "Head", "Associate", etc.) Doing so, creates a culture wherein believers cannot discern the Body of Christ nor how each believer fits into Him. Early death and sickness result from such an arrangement.

2nd, having the grace of a pastor is a gift not something obtained by study. Certainly pastors should study but Biblically, no one is a pastor unless the Lord has made him one. You cannot graduate from seminary to force the Lord's hand. I have nothing against seminary, per se, but merely obtaining a degree does not make one a pastor in the Lord. A seminary degree might make one qualified to be a pastor in many churches but that is at the expense of the standard shown us in scripture.

Lastly, you cannot give to others what you don't have. If you do not have someone ruling over your soul then you cannot be a pastor. Who do you look to for correction, for guidance, for teaching, and for encouragement. If you say "Well, Jesus can do all that for me" not only do you ignore the connections show to us in scripture (including Jesus and His 12) but you take on a double-standard: one for you and another for the others. You mustn't do this. If you do, you will get the results you already wrote about;



This is not to say that none will leave you if you follow God's pattern (Jesus lost 1 out of the 12) but you cannot think to change the trajectory of the current church culture by embedding yourself in it.

Such things, because they run so opposed to the way "church is done", require wisdom and humility to understand.

Blessings

Here in America we have an epidemic of narcissistic tendencies. So pastors fresh out of Seminary want senior pastor positions.
Then we have current models where there is a board of directors that actually run the church and the senior pastor is not much more than a performer....he gives a great sermon but can't deal with people. Associate pastors deal with people...albeit poorly quite often because they are basically unsupervised. (I got lots of stories surrounding this)

Sure, attendance is down in a lot of mega churches...but small churches seem to be doing the same. It's basically fallout from the pandemic. People still keep catching Covid when they gather in large groups.

Bible colleges are NOT closing...one closed in the US because the program was poorly run, poorly done and the graduates couldn't preach.
Many of the seminaries are being used as platforms for ideologies instead of allowing the theologies to develop organically. IOW not teaching hermeneutics but teaching such classes as church finance, building program 101, outreach 102, Small group literature buying, music ministry, videography and how to use sermon helps.

Go look at the curriculum of a Seminary and see what is listed there.
Things like Hebrew grammar and writing styles and Koine Greek are missing....no Ancient Near East Anthropology courses...nothing pertaining to hermeneutics or how to use the various resources available.

I am curious. Do you believe a false prophet/teacher/pastor will receive a teacher's/prophet's/pastor's judgment for leading the people astray?
After all, to whom much is given, much is required. If they hold that position, they keep the right one out.

Many do so in ignorance, not understanding how far off the mark they are

True, but God no longer winks at ignorance.

The majority of churches proved during the Covid lockdowns that attendance is optional.

Yep I had a leader from a 1000+ Church CMA group tell me they were trying to figure out how to get half their people back. They should have stood against WHO and let God sort out the metrics.

Actually just the opposite if you look at the right metrics.

Yep, you are the reason why people aren't coming back to church. And they aren't coming until the pandemic is really over.

So most of the churches closed to in-person church. How is that the "wrong" metrics?

That's 2 judgment calls. God won't allow 1 person to run off half a church. More than likely they will never come back because of the falling away.

The behavior of people today is worse than pre-pandemic. Cancel culture is still being practiced...

A certain amount of "normalicy" stems from people interacting with each other and learning what to do vx not to do.

A lot of that got erased by the long isolation of quarantines. People claimed that they did church online....and at first that was true....but as the quarantines continued people stopped logging into services or watching them on youtube.

They continued giving to churches they didn't even watch on the internet....and eventually quit giving altogether as their behaviors continued to degenerate.

All of which has zero to do with what I said. Church leadership said online church was equivalent to in person during the pandemic. If it was equivalent then, there's no reason it isn't equivalent now.

Joshua 21: 44 NASB And the LORD gave them rest on every side, according to all that He had sworn to their fathers, and no one of all their enemies stood before them; the LORD gave all their enemies into their hand.

I/we have all heard of Churches that did NOT bow the knee to the Liberal enemy of the Church and God took care of the results. Those Churches usually filled up and remain so today and because people are looking for someone to STAND FOR TRUTH. Another Pastoral qualification.

Those who have not, or are not may find themselves out with the goats on judgement day. "Narrow is the way."