Summary of A UMC Survey on Clergy Health

I participated in the following survey this past year. I offer the summary here for your reading. I encourage you to keep me and all pastors in your prayers.

Richard Day Research (RDR) conducted an online quantitative survey of 1,006 clergy of the United Methodist Church to learn about church systems factors that may adversely affect clergy health. The objective was to identify the strongest predictors of health from among a wide range of potential variables.

Survey respondents answered approximately 150 questions about their health, personal background, spiritual practices, appointment history, career trajectory, congregational context and fit, work stresses, outlook on life, living and working conditions, and personal finances.

The survey data identified thirteen key factors that are highly correlated with health and that differentiate those who are healthy from those who are unhealthy. The absence of risk factors has a positive association with health.

- Personal centeredness: Risk factors include feeling a lack of control over one’s life; ruminating about the past; difficulty experiencing the presence of God.

- Eating habits with work that often involves food: Risk factors include struggling to maintain a healthy diet with food available at church meetings, social gatherings and house calls.

- Work-life balance: Risk factors include having difficulty balancing multiple roles;
feeling guilty taking time to exercise; avoiding health care because of time demands; struggling to achieve overall work-life balance.

- Job satisfaction: Risk factors include feeling dissatisfied with one’s appointments; feeling isolated at work; feeling disappointed with ministry; wishing for a way to exit the system.

- Personal finances: Risk factors include high debt; low income; few assets; little to no personal savings.

- Outside interests, social life and friends: Risk factors include a lack of hobbies, outside interests and/or participation in group activities for personal renewal; having few friends or people with whom one can share personal issues; feeling detached from one’s community.

- Relationship with congregation: Risk factors include feeling judged rather than supported; feeling the congregation’s expectations are too high or do not match one’s own beliefs about the appropriate pastoral role; feeling the congregation desires a pastor with a different leadership style; avoiding relationships with congregation members so as to avoid improprieties; avoiding health care for fear that parishioners might find out.

- Stressors of the appointment process: Risk factors include feeling stressed by the appointment process; feeling reluctant to talk to one’s DS because of the power he or she holds over appointments; feeling resentful about being paid less than non-clergy in similar professions.

- Marital and family satisfaction: Among clergy with families, risk factors include low marital satisfaction; low appointment satisfaction among spouses and/or children.

- Existential burdens of ministry: Risk factors include feeling obligated to carry the weight of others’ emotional and spiritual burdens; being overwhelmed by the needs of others and the sheer importance of the issues to be addressed in ministry; feeling expected to solve unsolvable mysteries.

- Living authentically: Risk factors include feeling unable to be one’s “authentic self”; failing to live according to deeply-held personal values and beliefs.

- Education and preparation for ministry: Risk factors include feeling unprepared by seminary for the everyday responsibilities of ministry; feeling one lacks the skills and training necessary to excel at pastoral duties.

- Appointment changes and relocation: Risk factors include more frequent appointment changes; more frequent long-distance moves.