Pastor-sharing: For clergy, a holy hustle and labor of love

Pastors often served multiple congregations in Colonial days, traveling from church to church on horseback, to meet the needs of an expanding nation. Now minister-sharing is returning for another reason: as a resourceful way to sustain worship with fewer people in the pews.

The Rev. Susan Tierney had already done what would have been a good Sunday’s work for any clergyperson. Then she got up in front of her second congregation to do it all again.

She’d risen before dawn at her home in Pittsfield, drove 70 miles across rural...