Experience?

I wrote this awhile ago, but got too mad in the middle and had to delete it. I'll try this again, now, with a little self-restraint.

Every now and then I search through the pastor search websites, just because I still need a job with a livable wage, and over and over I see that churches almost unanimously require five years of senior pastor experience.

This is a problem for several reasons:
1) most importantly, it excludes talented people (i.e., me) from the job pool just because I chose secular employment to put me through school.
2) it FORCES mobility on a profession that needs more steadiness. It breeds church-hopping pastors, always looking for the greener grass, never staying long enough to work through problems. A pastor cannot truly become a part of a community after just five years. And I would almost bet that high mobility has created a lot of the problems in pastor's lives, like divorce, burn out, and family resentment (or at least added to it).
3) it's not based on anything! Call me crazy, but I've seen that phrase so many times that I'm completely sure it is just mindless parroting of something, just because it sounds good. Show me the Barna report that says pastors with five-years experience always succeed when they transplant churches. Oh right, it doesn't exist.
4) to me, that requirement just says, "our church is too good to allow a pastor to make some mistakes." You know, in my church, I'll be happy to let everyone make as many mistakes as I make, if not more. We're none of us perfect, except big churches.

OK, well, I'm getting all riled up again, so I'd better quit.

Here's the moral: Churches, don't limit your pool of candidates by placing meaningless regulations on potential pastors. How about more meaningful ones, like "must like urban/suburban/rural environments," or "must love hard-headed people."

I'm just glad my wife didn't require five years of dating experience before we went out! Sometimes, God can make up for a lot!
--Abraham didn't need five years of parenting experience
--David didn't need five years of king experience
--Jeremiah didn't need five years of prophet experience
--Paul didn't need five years of Scripture-writing experience
--Jesus didn't need five years of messiah experience

Many times, life experiences can prepare us for the bigger roles God has for us.