I examine possible reasons for a dramatic stall in the growth rate of the number of ordained Seventh-day Adventist Church pastors in the 1960s and 1980s, despite growth in church membership and tithing.

Main outcomes: the number of pastors, teachers, churches, members, and other quantitative data from Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and the United Kingdom.

I find that (1) growing disparity between potential and actual tithing (resulting in lower overall budget resources), and (2) internal church upheaval provide a ready explanation for the phenomena in the 1980s.

It also appears likely that some financial resources were moved from supporting ordained pastors to school teachers in Adventist schools. If this is the case, then the current age- and education-demographics of churches with attached denominational schools demonstrate that this has proved to be a very wise investment in the future of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.