Pastors who worked somewhere else before entering ministry
Percent of pastors who came into ministry having worked elsewhere first, NSRL (in percent)
Key finding
- Pastors who worked somewhere else before entering ministry: 66%. Percent of pastors who came into the ministry having worked somewhere else first
Source: Lifeway Research, Evangelical Pastors More Likely Than Others To Be Bivocational · National Survey of Religious Leaders (NSRL) of U.S. clergy. Article published 2025-06-04.
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Questions about this statistic
What does this statistic show?
Pastors who worked somewhere else before entering ministry: 66%. Percent of pastors who came into the ministry having worked somewhere else first.
Who published this data?
Lifeway Research, 2025. Source: Lifeway Research, Evangelical Pastors More Likely Than Others To Be Bivocational (https://research.lifeway.com/2025/06/04/evangelical-pastors-more-likely-than-others-to-be-bivocational/).
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About this data
Leader Insights collects statistics about U.S. churches from published research by organizations such as Lifeway Research, Barna Group, Springtide, the American Bible Society and PRRI. Every number is checked against the wording of the original source before it is published, and each statistic links back to the study it came from. Figures are reproduced from the publishers named above; see the source for full methodology.