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New data on pastors in America suggests a deepening dissonance between calling and contentment. In its 2026 State of the Church survey, Barna, in partnership with faith-based technology company Gloo, found pastors’ mental health and their confidence in their ability to do their jobs has rebounded significantly over the past decade, all while their satisfaction in ministry has trended downward. Ten years ago, three-quarters of pastors reported feeling burnout. That number has since fallen to just over 60% of pastors reporting emotional and mental exhaustion. Additionally, the share of pastors who feel inadequately prepared to do their jobs has fallen by 20% over the last three years, from 64% in 2023 to 44% in 2026. The metrics on satisfaction in ministry, however, tell a different story. Listen to the latest episode of “Quick Start” When asked how satisfied they are in their “vocation as a pastor,” just north of half (52%) described themselves as “very satisfied” today — a staggering decline from the 72% of ministers who said the same in 2015. The percentage of pastors who reported themselves as “somewhat satisfied” has increased from 26% to 40% over the same time period. Fewer than half of pastors (43%) reported being “very satisfied” with “your ministry at your current church” compared to 53% a decade ago. Over the same 10-year period, the share of pastors who described themselves as “somewhat satisfied” with the ministry at their current churches has climbed to 45%. “Pastors are in the most emotionally healthy place they’ve been in a while regarding vocation,” Daniel Copeland, vice president of research for Barna, said in a statement. “But the satisfaction data suggest they may be settling into a more sustainable — but less deeply fulfilling — experience of the work itself.” Supplemental data from Barna suggests the chasm between calling and contentment may center, at least in part, on whether pastors’ roles and responsibilities align with their unique strengths and passions. “The confidence rebound and declining feelings of inadequacy are genuinely encouraging,” said Copeland. “But if the job itself isn’t working — and the satisfaction data suggest it may not be — the right response is to listen to pastors, then empower them to show us what ministry could look like.” For context, data released by Barna in 2023 showed that, when asked what they enjoy most, pastors overwhelmingly — 60% — said preaching and teaching is their favorite part of their jobs. In a distant second and third place was discipling believers at 8% and practical pastoral care (like visiting the sick or elderly) at 7%.

Pastor Jentezen Franklin is on a transformational mission to explore the power of prayer — and it comes at a time of chaos and uncertainty in American culture and across the globe. Franklin, who has a new book, “The Power of Short Prayers,” said he released the project because he believes a lot of people “don’t understand what prayer is all about.” “Jesus made a comment in Matthew 7, verse 6 — He said, ‘Don’t pray like the Pharisees pray, because they think because of their many words that they will be heard,'” he said. “And so He was saying that longer prayers, that’s not what I’m looking for. I’m looking for your heart. I want to hear your heart.” Franklin continued, “The greatest miracles in the New Testament happen and the Old Testament when people simply prayed short prayers.” These prayers, he said, came with “great purpose, great passion, great urgency,” elements the preacher believes are important to the success of these invocations. “It’s the urgency behind a prayer and the faith connected to it,” he said. “It’s not how long you pray, it’s how short you believe, and if you pray and believe the power of short prayers. … People feel like if they don’t pray an hour a day, they’ve really failed the Lord.” So, Franklin focuses on short prayers from the Bible and encourages people to pray them over their families — their children, marriages, businesses, and other elements. When people start with these shorter prayers, Franklin said they eventually graduate to longer ones as they “pray continually.” In his own journey, the preacher has seen how God has worked through his prayers for his family, ministry, and other life issues. Franklin believes prayer isn’t only a fixture to heal and help individual lives, but one that can also help our culture. And “The Power of Short Prayers” comes at a time when culture is experiencing what many believe to be a spiritual renewal. “I think there is a revival that is taking place,” Franklin said. “We certainly have seen it at our ministry and at our church.” Listen to the latest episode of “Quick Start” Conservative commentator Charlie Kirk’s assassination seemed to spark, among young people, what Franklin described as a “stirring.” Prayer is a tool that can help people navigate these changes and many others. “Every one of these moves of God that seems like they’re breaking forth and mighty moves on campuses and things, it is the result of many prayers that have been stored up, I believe, and prayed,” Franklin said. “It’s an exciting time, and I think pastors are being called to shepherd and steward mighty moves of the Spirit, and this is a great time to be alive.” The preacher wasn’t done there, as he implored Christians to take action. “The end times are not happening to the people of God,” Franklin said. “The people of God are happening to the end times, and His hand is on us now, but we’ve gotta pray and we’ve gotta fast, and when you pray, you are storing up those prayers, and God can do great things.”

For those who serve on the front lines, there's a common belief that coming home means the fight is over. But for many veterans, it's actually where a new battle begins. "I was always preparing for the next thing, I was always getting ready, 'What's the next deployment', or contending with the things that I just dealt with," Retired Pararescueman Steven Nisbet told CBN News. For over a decade, Nisbet was the one others called in their most critical moments. "The Special Operations need to call 911 in some regard; we are that 911 service for them," he explained. As he risked his life to save others, however, the loss that came with the job piled up, and those effects surfaced each time he went home. "I was okay getting shot. I could manage that. I can control my actions. What I could not control was my kids screaming and fighting with each other, and dealing with death all the time, I was always afraid that one of them was gonna get hurt so bad that they were gonna die, and because the other one was causing that," Nisbet said. His response was to lash out. That combined with other concerning behaviors led his wife Ashley to take action. "After one particular evening of my kids screaming, me getting loud and aggressive, and coming downstairs feeling serious shame about what I just did, my wife came down and told me that, 'Hey, I love you but...your boys are afraid of you,'" Nisbet shared. "You don't want to ever be scared of the person you love...I didn't know how to have that conversation. How do you tell your husband, 'You're children are afraid of you?'" his wife Ashley explained. Her courage to speak up, led Nisbet to realize it was time to seek help. "Fortunately, we have those embedded resources within the squadron. So I was able to see the psychologist, ask some questions, do that cognitive test, and then sit with the therapist and talk about all the other things that piled up," said Nisbet. Access to that kind of support made all the difference. He began to see improvement, without having to give up his pararescue career. Then, in October 2019, a training mission ended in tragedy. "The guy that was on the rope fell, probably he got about halfway down, so he fell about 30 or so feet. But Peter was doing what he was trained to do, and was tied into that anchor system itself. He was totally hooked in. So the weight of one of the guys falling pulled him off of the very top. And so I watched him slide by me and fly over," Nisbet recalled. After several resuscitation attempts, including Nisbet and first responders, his teammate Peter was pronounced dead. "There was a police officer there, and he had been in the service before, he'd been a veteran himself. He said, 'Hey, I have an American flag in my cruiser. Would you guys like to pin it on his body?' And I said, 'Yep,' and I pinned on his body, and we saluted him as he was placed the ambulance. And I said, 'This is the last flag I'm gonna put on my friend,'" Nisbet said. "One of the most gut wrenching experiences I've ever had is being next to Steve when they brought Peter's body home...I can't hear taps anymore, because it brings me back to that day," Ashley told CBN News. For Steven, the grief turned inward. "How do I get myself not feeling like the biggest failure on the planet, not feeling this depression, this guilt, this shame, this blame, everything you could possibly think of was what was going through my mind," he said. Nisbet pulled himself off the team and again took advantage of support services. Then, at Peter's funeral, he saw something he couldn't explain. "Peter was a very well known Christian...seeing his family and the way they carried themselves...they have peace, and I don't have peace. How do I get that peace...So one of my good friends who had retired out of that unit that I was at, he was a pastor, and I went up to him the next day and I said, 'Will you teach me what Peter believed, help me believe, you have this one opportunity,'" Steven said. Those interactions led to a turning point, bringing him back to a faith he'd walked away from. As Nisbet emerged from his shame and guilt, a new purpose emerged. "I had the psychologist, the strength coaches, the dietitians, the physical therapist, anybody, any, any bit of care that I wanted...I started to realize, not everybody gets that...Those things, those tools, really gave me resources to prevent me from becoming a statistic, from taking my own life, and I knew that the first responder community didn't get it, and I knew that the regular veteran, conventional veteran folks, didn't get it," he explained. In 2021, after medically retiring from the Air Force with a Post Traumatic Stress Diagnosis, Nisbet launched Shields & Stripes. It's a program providing veterans and first responders the kind of specialized care he'd received as an elite operator, while also including a spiritual component. "So shields and stripes...on a biblical perspective...the 'Shield' represents the shield of faith, in protecting those around us. And then the 'Stripes,' represents, 'by His stripes, we are healed,'" Nisbet said. Participants accepted to the program receive three months of on-site treatment free of charge. They're then discharged to continue working from home, while still having access to the program's network. It's a model Nisbet believes will save lives. "If Peter's accident didn't take place, I wouldn't, this organization would have never been found. This, I believe this, was our mission," he said. For Nisbet, the mission is different now but the focus remains the same, 'That others may live.'