The Psychological Lives of Clergy and Their Congregations
Back in 2007, the University of Chicago put out a study examining job satisfaction among American professionals. As the results came in, trends became clear. “The most satisfying jobs are mostly professions, especially those involving caring for, teaching, and protecting others and creative pursuits,” reported Tom Smith. He is a senior fellow and director at Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center (NORC), and he was a key contributor to the most comprehensive study of reported happiness and satisfaction among American workers at the time. Those 2007 findings came in and America’s most fulfilling were thus revealed. Honorable mentions included teachers, psychologists, and authors. Physical therapists came in third with 78% reporting high job satisfaction. Second were firefighters at 80% reported gratification. And clergy, for the many hats they wear, came in with a whopping 87% declaring high satisfaction in their chosen vocations.
Of course, in so many ways, we now live in a universe entirely different. With COVID’s onset and the assent of the culture wars, clergy now navigate a landscape fraught in ways unimaginable even to the naivete of the aughts. The Barna Group, a social research group focusing its efforts on Catholic and Protestant trends in American, found that about four in 10 pastors considered leaving full-time ministry in 2021—and that number climbed to 42% the following year. The top three cited reasons were (1) the immense stress of the job, (2) loneliness and isolation, and (3) present-day political divisions.
Most pastors these days, at least according to the Hartford Institute for Religion Research, wrestle with loneliness in a profession characterized by high demands, robust satisfaction, and increasing distress. Mental health among clergy, on the whole, declined in the dog days of the pandemic, said the Duke Clergy and Religion Research Collaborate. But those who were already feeling the burnout fared much worse than those receiving strong support. And the burnout is real.
Pastoral burnout. Drs. Cameron Lee and Kurt Fredrickson at Fuller Theological Seminary reviewed it in full. The concept itself, they write, became popular in the United States in the 1970s as yet another popular psychology fad. But in the decades since, a whole lot of research has solidified its place as bona fide phenomenon. Lee and Fredrickson defined burnout as “the emotional collapse or breakdown that sometimes comes as the result of chronic stress.” And the singular burnout guru, Dr. Christian Maslach, went further: job burnout is “the gradual process of loss in which the mismatch between the needs of the person and the demands of the job grows even greater.” It corresponds, too, with decreased productivity, interpersonal loneliness, and even marital challenges. Sadly, among American vocations, burnout seems to be hitting clergy relatively hard. Perhaps they need our help.
We often think of clergy as givers. For many ministers, I suppose, that is indeed why they entered the vocation in the first place: Answering a call to serve, to give. But we parishioners spend less time conceiving of the ways a community might care for its carers. A congregation might work together to cultivate an ecology amenable to the mental health of its leaders, and here are a few things to consider in doing so.[1]
A thread of peer-review literature, made up of studies published over the course of several decades, has come to categorize ministerial stressors into four kinds: Personal criticisms, boundary ambiguities, presumptive expectations, and family criticisms. Ministers and ministerial families are more often the target of personal nitpicking. And necessary accountability, if not boundaried, can easily devolve into gossip more malicious than productive. The effects this kind of environment can have on clergy are detrimental, perhaps even more so when the minister’s family is involved.
Congregational Lesson 1: Know the difference between accountability and gossip. The former is structured, unified in voice, and serving the good of the community. The latter is chaotic, characterless, and self-serving in intent. Avoid the latter.
Then there is the matter of boundaries. Faith leaders wear oh so many hats. They are simultaneously liturgists, counselors, teachers, administrators, outreach coordinators, public speakers, and community organizers. The job is really a tangled web of role demands that can even conflict with one another. Skills sets needed to be a confident public speaker, for instance (ahem), perhaps detract from those needed to be gentle and humble counselors. And so a certain level of support is needed from a congregation, helping clarify expectations and respecting the transitions a leader must make from role to role. Boundaries are needed. But the professional lives of clergy are some of the least boundaried out there. And that is perhaps the job’s greatest asset and its greatest liability. It enables a minister to embed her- or himself more fully in the lives of the congregation. But it also offers little protections for a pastor’s private life and personal growth.
Congregational Lesson 2: Make sure your pastor is allowed both personal and professional boundaries and take great pains to honor them. Vigorously protect a personal sabbath, regular vacations or sabbaticals, and encourage friendships/mentorships outside the congregation.[2]
And with all of this come a number of presumptive expectations, a category of stress that Dr. Cameron Lee has suggested is most predictive of positive or negative psychological outcomes among clergy. That “on-call syndrome” that plagues most pastors exacts that they remain available to any given congregational need at all hours of the day or night. And of course, not every intrusion proves equally necessary—there are not even consistent parameters for making such a judgement.
Some of psychologists here at The Center regularly work with Catholic and Protestant ordinands, completing necessary psychological evaluations before entering a life in ministry. More often than not, evaluations reveal the kind of personalities that love to serve but hate to disappoint. And so, these clergy folks must make extra efforts to avoid promising the world to each congregant at the outset, instead learning to comfortably set reasonable expectations early to avoid confusions or unintended hurts later on.
Congregational Lesson 3: Do not forget that your clergy are bound by the same space-time dimensions as you. Eight hours of sleep, time to tend to physical wellness, counseling, and energy reserved for personal passions and family are musts. Certainly avail yourself of the help clergy joyously offer, but do take pause before making an ask.
This is all in support of ministerial longevity, buttressing a profession that rarely asks for help. I might encourage readers here, be they clergy, ministerial leaders, or congregants, to explore further the work of Dr. Cameron Lee, and also read up on the efforts of the Duke Clergy Health Initiative.
[1] Much of what follows is gathered from the work of Dr. Cameron Lee, who has spent his career studying the psychological lives of clergy.
[2] I will say too, The Center has a number of clinicians specializing in clergy mental health care. Counseling for clergy should be a more regular thing.