This is a sample article featured in the March 2004 issue of Quadrant
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BURNOUT IN CHURCH LEADERS |
Burnout is a major issue for nearly a quarter of clergy,
according to a fascinating and significant piece of research undertaken by
Australian researcher Dr Peter Kaldor and his colleague Rod Bullpitt a few years
ago. It was published in a book simply called Burnout by Openbook Publishers in
Adelaide in 2001. The results emerged from the 1996 Australian National Church
Life Survey. They come from 4,000 specifically senior leaders in a congregation
and are therefore not necessarily true of all clergy and ministers.
The survey found that, for these clergy, while burnout was not an issue for 21%,
it was for 19%, and extremely so for 4%, with the remaining 56% “borderline”.
12% of them felt high or very high levels of stress, 11% felt they were not the
right person for the job in their congregation and 12% often or very often
thought of leaving the ministry. The book sets out to discover the key
components of this stress.
Clergy experiencing serious burnout are found in all age groups, but levels of
stress were higher among younger leaders, those raising children, without strong
support at home, and who have been ordained for between 6 and 20 years.
Key areas for leaders
In their overall assessment the authors of this survey defined 11 key areas
which are very important for leaders to watch. These are:
The book looks at the issues in two broad categories - the leaders and their
congregations. The factors in each category were scored on a 1 to 5 scale of
stars, rather like hotels.
Note: VE is a measure of statistical significance which allows comparisons to be
made of the relative importance of different factors. It is not an average nor
the number of leaders who experienced this factor.
Leaders
Stress is related to who the leader is, and in particular to his or her:
| * * * * * | Satisfaction with life (VE 35%) - feeling delighted or pleased against feeling mostly dissatisfied or unhappy |
| * * * * * | Role (VE 22%), especially whether s(he) and the congregation agree or disagree as to what it is |
| * * * * | Satisfaction with his/her marriage and children (VE 19%), especially if these were negative |
| * * * * | Devotional practices (VE 18%) - if Bible reading slips to weekly or less often, or they do not often feel close to God, perhaps hardly ever sense God’s presence in worship, or have not seen growth in their personal faith over the past year |
| * * * * | Personal spiritual journey (VE 17%) - if the congregation do not know about this, it can be very tough on the leader |
| * * * * | Role in relation to mission (VE 16%): if (s)he is not able to train people for mission, not seeing people converted, not providing a vision for the future, or the congregation disagrees that the preaching is relevant to everyday life, or when leader spends over 60% of time in wider church matters |
| * * * * | Acceptance by the congregation (VE 16%), particularly if (s)he does not feel accepted |
| * * * * | Health (VE 15%), especially if poor |
| * * * | Feelings of isolation or if (s)he finds it hard to keep close friends (VE 13%) |
| * * * | Priorities - If the leader does not put high priority on growing gifts and skills of congregational members (VE 11%) this too can be a cause of stress. |
The second factor suggests the importance of having a Job Description. In a
January 2004 seminar held by Christian Research, less than 10% of the 60 clergy
present had a Job Description!
Congregations
Stress can be caused when ...
| * * * * | The leader finds it hard dealing with difficult or critical members of the congregation (VE 20%) |
| * * * * | There is little confidence, in leader or congregation, that the goals can be achieved (VE 18%) |
| * * * * | Setting future directions is stated “only in general ways”, or a high percentage disagree that there should be much prayer about the future, or the congregation rather than the leader is responsible for setting directions (VE 15%) |
| * * * | It is difficult to find people for particular jobs (VE 13%) |
| * * * | The future seems unclear (by leader or congregation) or the financial viability is threatened (VE 13%) |
| * * * | There is no clear vision for the future or lack of commitment to it (VE 12%) |
The importance of vision and long-term planning emerges from the above as a
central plank for confidence and well-being. This is supported by the survey for
the Salvation Army which Christian Research published in 2003 in the booklet
Leadership, Vision and Growing Churches.
Sources of stress
Every factor was also allocated to one of three main groups under either Leader
or Congregation. Interestingly, the total in each of the two broad categories of
leader and congregation was virtually equal, showing that either or both could
equally cause stress. But one factor stands out because of its much higher
average - the sense of direction, again underlining the importance of vision.
|
Group |
No. of factors |
Total VE |
Average |
Total |
|
Leader: Roles & Expectations Style The leaders themselves |
4 6 17 |
45 63 157 |
11.3% 10.5% 9.2% |
31.0% |
|
Congregation: Sense of Direction Type and location Other factors |
3 5 9 |
45 38 66 |
15.0% 7.6% 7.3% |
29.9% |
Less stressful!
What is surprising are the concerns that are not in the top 16 factors: a
leader’s sense of call (VE 8%), expectations (VE 8%), attitude to change (VE
8%), style (VE 7%), difficulty with colleagues (VE 7%), workload (VE 6%), or
their ways of coping (VE 6%). Even less important was their denomination,
churchmanship, training, difficulties with the wider denomination, their
background, whether they were task orientated, the orthodoxy of their beliefs,
or how long they had been in a church.
On the congregational front, factors of less importance included the activeness
of member’s faith (VE 9%), community relationships (VE 9%), the vitality of the
congregation (VE 8%), support for leaders (VE 7%), youth and children’s
activities (VE 6%), concern for the fringe (VE 6%), and style of worship (VE
6%). Even less important were the size of congregation, its location,
congregational change or a broad approach to beliefs.
Most UK leaders would support the above findings as being true in their own
experience. Part of the value of such lists is not just identifying the factors
but in being able to give a relative order of importance to each.
Source: As given in the text.
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