WHILE almost three-quarters of the clergy participating in a ten-year study agreed that they were fulfilling their sense of vocation, 40 per cent felt isolated of their ministry, a report published this week reveals.
Lord, for the Years, the fifth and final panel survey report for the decade-long Living Ministry study, observes: “While the sensation that one is fulfilling one’s vocation may be sustaining through all kinds of other challenges to wellbeing — and being unable to accomplish that can feel devastating — pursuance of a calling also can result in physical, social and material sacrifices which could also be detrimental to wellbeing.”
The study, launched by the national Ministry Team in 2017, was designed to collect evidence about “what enables ministers to flourish in ministry”. In total, greater than 1000 clergy, from groups ordained in 2006, 2011, and 2015, or who entered training in 2016, have participated (News, 24 February 2017).
The authors caution that the information mustn’t be used generally terms as representative of all clergy. The 4 key challenges to well-being observed across the study are listed as: tiredness, isolation, demoralisation, and financial anxiety.
In the ultimate “wave”, which secured responses from 500 clergy this yr, 29 per cent had scores for mental well-being indicating possible, mild, or clinical depression. This rose to 35 per cent amongst incumbents, who — unlike other clergy involved — didn’t see their mental well-being improve after the Covid-19 pandemic. Recent figures from the Our Future Health project indicate that across the UK, 65 per cent of ladies and 73 per cent of men don’t show signs of depression.
Four in ten of the clergy said that they felt isolated of their ministry. The authors, led by Dr Fiona Tweedie and Dr Liz Graveling Fox, note that, within the context of parochial ministry, “every human interaction inside the parish is an element of their work. This could make having deep local friendships extremely difficult and a few participants tell us of the extraordinary loneliness that may include consistently having to keep up an expert persona.”
The latest wave explores burnout, defined as comprising tiredness, isolation, and demoralisation. Eight per-cent of respondents met the edge for “burnout”, with high negative scores on all three counts. A high percentage — 41 per cent — scored highly on demoralisation.
The authors write that, “although some people may feel demoralised or ineffective, this doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re ineffective in practice.”
Many clergy, the authors say, “feel strongly the dual pressures of attendance figures . . . and parish share, each of that are measures by which many parish clergy feel their performance is judged by their diocese.” These can “induce feelings of failure and shame”.
In the ultimate wave, 45 per cent felt discouraged about parish funds, and 36 per cent about church buildings. Administration was the reason behind most workload stress, “partly as a distraction from vocation”.
Commonly reported sources of hope included the impact of ministry, respondents’ own personal faith, and support and friendship of colleagues. Another was church growth, which was cited by one third of respondents. Most qualified this by saying that the expansion they were seeing was “slow” or “modest”.
Only 3.9 per cent of those that answered this query mentioned church leadership — bishops and archbishops — as a source of hope. Many felt that well-being initiatives were “inadequate and ineffective, partly because they didn’t address clergy’s actual needs”.
One respondent said: “Stop offering pointless wellbeing days/seminars which nobody has asked for; actually ask clergy what they would love for a time of wellbeing, and provides it to them.”
Despite the identification of demoralisation as a key challenge, vocational well-being has remained high throughout the Living Ministry research. Seventy-two per cent in the newest wave agreed that they were fulfilling their sense of vocation.
