Clergy Burn Out
Fr_Gregory_OrthoGuy
Shipmate Posts: 18
in Epiphanies
Clergy burn out and depression seems quite widespread. What are the causes? What can be done? https://dailym.ai/android
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And has fundraising suddenly become a more prominent aspect of the job relative to, say, a decade or so ago?
And, of course, the "how Christianity regroups itself" is about rediscovery of ancient knowledge - that the Church is the people, and not just the few who stand up front and lead worship. Regrouping needs more members of the church to step up and do more than be there on Sunday, and that needs to be more than the few in every congregation who are themselves close to burn out because of all they do.
Oh, and welcome back on board.
Most churches have done what most medium to large organisations have done in the West - set themselves in so much bureaucratic resin they can hardly move. Not that they can live entirely without bureaucracy, because no human organisation can. But a view which sees the rest purely as supporting the local communities, in some way or other.
It's not confined to the CofE of course. I know of Orthodox clergy who seem to travel unfeasible distances to minister to their scattered flocks.
Nor is it a purely British thing either. I spoke to an RC priest from the Ivory Coast a few years ago whose patch covered a large tract of rural France.
Closer to home, I've heard of two ageing RC priests covering a large swathe of North Wales.
A Quaker friend told me only yesterday about potential closures of Meetings in the Midlands with people potentially expected to travel a fair distance to the largest and most thriving one which has a regular attendance of around 30 people.
They are also closing their study centre at Woodbrooke.
Nor are these things confined to church life or even the workplace. Many very worthy causes and voluntary groups are struggling, not to mention local and regional branches of political parties.
I don't know what the answer is. Anglican clergy complain of growing managerialism and corporate-speak.
We seem to be living at a time where there is no shortage of conferences, retreat options, pilgrimage trails and what have you but where most congregations of all stripes are struggling to keep their heads above water.
Perhaps we need some kind of neo-Tolstoyan, neo-Franciscan grassroots movement of some kind - but not in a hippy-dippy kind of way as that can go whacky like some of the Jesus Movement stuff did in the States.
I've thought for some time that this is one of those very real reasons for the Church to take a stand against the current culture of work and employment.
I believe it would fruitless to head butt the first option and folly to surrender to the second. We need gospel communities that will both grow and endure. I think that this will involve risk taking, creativity and a driving force that will be "not of this world". Transformation comes from above and not at all from existing failed methods. Fresh Expressions and the like are merely rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Hard questions like "what is the Church really here for?" won't go away.
I’ve seen a lot of attention paid over the last 10 years or so to the problem of clergy/church worker burnout in my denomination (the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)), and my impression is that similar attention is being paid in other American mainline denominations. This is taking various forms—support and resources for clergy, being better about days off, regular sabbaticals. For example, it’s becoming common for presbyteries to strongly recommend that provisions for sabbaticals be part of the terms of call (the technical term for the contract between a minister and congregation, which includes pay and benefits). As a result, I’ve heard of more ministers taking sabbaticals in the last 10 years than I heard about in the preceding 40 years. It’s becoming more of a given that it should happen.
Not that these things solve the problem, but they do help.
I think, like a lot of other things, it was an existing problem that was drastically worsened by the pandemic. In America especially, all of our covid mitigation measures were rapidly politicized, and a lot of clergy got smashed in the middle between opposing factions in their congregations. Plus, most churches are down about 30% in offerings and in attendance / volunteer availability since pre-pandemic. It's a rough time.
With regard to American mainline churches and clergy burnout, I think the United Methodist Church likely, and sadly, is in a class all its own right now. I’ve talked with a number of UMC clergy recently, and to a person they’ve talked about how dispiriting and draining the last few years have been. A rough time indeed.
I imagine some churches are handling this better than others. The minister I reported to in my last job held forth at bitter length over being required by the local conference of the United Church of Christ to attend a Zoom webinar on self-care which she considered a huge waste of time she could have spent actually caring for herself. She was on loan from another conference which also required a similar BS thing on Zoom.
But all the clergy I've known in the UCC and in the Episcopal Church over the last 30 years had sabbaticals when appropriate -- it's just part of the deal.
The majority of UMC congregations, at least in my part of the US, have been touched in one way or another by the situation, even if only by being a “lighthouse congregation,” meaning they’re welcoming “refugees” from disaffiliating congregations. Many, many clergy have had to deal with divided congregations or with congregations that decided to disaffiliate, and all the anger and frustration and blame and hurt and hard feelings that can go with that. To say that it has been a very hard time for the UMC clergy I know would be a gross understatement.
Oh good grief. Yeah, that sort of inanity isn’t the kind of thing I had in mind. I was thinking more of our pastor’s observation that meetings by Zoom rather than at the church meant that for an evening meeting, she could eat with her family before the meeting and maybe tuck the kids in after the meeting, because she only had to go to another room in the house rather than stay at the church for the meeting and then drive home from church afterward.
Severe shortage of diocesan funds means that roles which were previously undertaken by qualified and salaried lay folk are now done by over stretched clergy. I do not see the situation improving unless bullets are bitten and dioceses, or at least their administrations are combined,
This is under discussion backstage, watch this space, but in future - if you wish to discuss ships business, please use Styx.
Thanks,
Doublethink, Admin
Thanks Fr Gregory.
I think we'd all agree that we need 'gospel communities that will both grow and endure' - whatever form those take within our respective traditions - whether parish or congregational models, monastic or neo-monastic communities and so on.
The $64k question is how we create, encourage and suatain that. Yes, transformation comes from above but it doesn't happen in a vacuum or in the ether.
At the Feeding of the 5000, Christ had the multitude grouped in 10s, 20s and 50s or whatever size the groups were.
No, we shouldn't knock ourselves out head-butting against managerial structures - although I am heartened and intrigued by @chrisstiles suggestion that churches challenge current work models. Neither should we succumb to the current pick and mix trend towards cafeteria Christianity - although I remain convinced we can all learn from one another's practices and experiences.
The traditional parish model no longer seems to be working - although there are attempts within the CofE to revive it. There is talk of 'minsters' as hubs or centres of resource as they were in Anglo-Saxon England.
But how do we address the central question, which it seems to me, is one of creating and maintaining gospel communities?
That's a bigger question than clerical burn out or ministerial models.
What do you mean, @Gamma Gamaliel by 'cafeteria Christianity'?
I ask because I can conceive of a Vicar or Catholic priest dashing round multiple churches every Sunday in order to preside at Communion services. Conversely in my tradition the majority of services are not Eucharistic (although, as we start with a "blank sheet of paper" every time, they may take longer to prepare), nor does Communion necessarily have to be led by an ordained Minister.
Some years ago I heard of some stats that suggested that Pentecostal ministers were more likely to burn out than ministers/clergy of other churches.
The conclusion was that they were under pressure from their congregations and their own revivalist approach to produce the goods when it came to miraculous healings, deliverances and crowds of new converts.
I'm not sure that still applies as Pentecostalism has become more mainstream and creates its own checks and balances.
I don't know what the level of burn out is in Baptist and other congregational churches but I've certainly known or heard of ministerial burn out in those circles - as I'm sure you will know much better than I do.
I suspect that this is something that doesn't apply any more or any less within particular Christian traditions. It's probably just as debilitating conducting services and dealing with congregational issues in a Baptist or independent church as it is driving round and round celebrating communion for scattered rural parishes.
I think the issues are wider than clerical/ministerial burn-out too.
Cultural and societal changes and many other factors besides.
@Merry Vole - the term 'Cafeteria Christianity' is generally used in a derogatory way to refer to those who pick and choose what they want to believe or emphasise. To that extent it probably applies to each and everyone of us!
So, for instance, a 'Cafeteria Catholic' would be someone who accepts and practices certain RC teachings but rejects others.
It may be the wrong term for me to have used in this context.
I was thinking more of the consumerist tendency which again, I suspect applies to most if not all of us including myself. As in, ''I'll dip into Ignatian spirituality this week, bob along to a charismatic meeting next week and perhaps the Quakers the week after that ...'
Not that I think that sampling or visiting or seeking to learn from other traditions is a bad thing - of course not.
But there does seem to be a kind of 'pop-up shop' or 'event' or 'experience' thing going on which Fr Gregory alluded to.
I'm as susceptible to it as anyone else.
That's excellent!
..... when it ceases to desire to embrace new people. The buildings issue is difficult. We must not underestimate the pull, psychologically speaking, of places where we gather. A purely functionalist approach neglects this basic human sense and need. However, when the cost of upkeep of buildings, (no matter how valued or sacred), starts to compromise community life and mission, it's about time to call quits.
Nobody gets a sabbatical here either other than clergy and professors, but for the time being at least, most of us are guaranteed a pension.
I don't know how much clergy get paid in the US but I get the impression it can be more than clergy and ministers elsewhere. Not that looking at how much people get paid - or 'make' to use the American expression - is becoming to those of us in polite society ... 😉
My experience of Australians is that they ask direct questions about that. British and Americans far, far less so.
Mind you, in some European countries clergy are civil servants and paid for from government funds - Greece and some Scandinavian countries I think.
Perhaps we should 'nationalise' religion ... now where have I heard that before?
Thanks,
Doublethink, Admin
I know of two teaching colleagues here in England, people I worked and highly valued by their headteachers. Both of them were given an unpaid leave of absence/ sabbatical of a year to go and volunteer abroad.
I may start a new thread to pursue the idea @chrisstiles raised about churches seeking to counterbalance or challenge prevailing attitudes to work.
That's an interesting aspect to investigate, I think.
I remember a Baptist minister who'd just come back from a conference run by a restorationist 'new church' network telling me how frenetic he found the whole thing.
One of these churches was run by a husband and wife team who boasted that they had full-on 'professionals' in their congregation who thought nothing of doing a 40+ hour week only to get home in the evening and dash out to house-group or lead Bible studies or youth work or run this, that or the other ministry on a Sunday morning.
Rah rah rah ... busy busy busy busy busy ...
I'm pretty sure that's not what Chrisstiles has in mind.
Somehow we've got to be counter-cultural in all of this.
Conversely, I remember an Anglican vicar complaining that he was expected to go into a primary school to hear children read. When I asked him how much of his time this took ip he replied, 'an hour a week.'
My heart bled.
Ok, an hour a week would be a lot if he'd been a junior doctor working unfeasible shifts or working in the hospitality sector ...
It is definitely a societal problem. The helping professions seem particularly susceptible - clergy, educators, social workers, healthcare workers, et al. - but everyone from well-paid lawyers and tech workers to underpaid Amazon warehouse workers can and do experience burnout. According to a 2022 Gallup poll, more K-12 teachers are burned out than any other category, at 44%: https://news.gallup.com/poll/393500/workers-highest-burnout-rate.aspx. People working in retail were at 32%, people in the law and healthcare both came in at 31%, and finance the lowest in categories surveyed at 21%.
Well, not directly, but I think it's part of the same phenomena - and I think (from experience on both sides of the pond) that such churches often model themselves on business startups. It used to be more of a US thing, but it's becoming distressingly more common in the UK.
https://www.camh.ca/en/camh-news-and-stories/career-burnout
Having worked in the helping professions for 30 years it is something I have to be on the alert for in myself, and just as importantly, for my colleagues. As I remind them, and sometimes need to remind myself, you are no damned good for your clients when you are unwell.
Is it a sign of desperation? "The church is in decline and so we must DO this and DO that and DO the other"....
Indeed.
I was riffing off on a tangent to some extent but I s'pose what I was getting at was that some churches by their very ethos contribute to the problem.
It's not clear cut though. Arguably in a post-Christian society we need entrepreneurial models of church.
That doesn't necessarily imply a business model in the corporate sense.
But then, monasteries have been marketing soap, honey, crafts and booze whether high end Trappist ales or gut-rot (Buckfast anyone?) for many years.
Anyhow ... time to start the thread I threatened...
Burgundian wine producers increase and maintain the value of their wines by restricting production. That's why Chablis is expensive. It's a marketing decision based on creating the conditions to charge a premium price.
Whatever the case, this might be a tangent to explore on the new working patterns thread rather than here on the clergy burnout topic.
I don't think I've ever had any chartreuse. Perhaps I ought to get some and drink the Carthusians health with it.
I'm partial to a Trappist ale but whole years go by without my supping one.
My kids would get fed in with my quips that it tastes Orval.
I'll get me coat ...
That, from a man who never had to work to put bread on his family table because he was a priest and therefore was supported no matter how little he did, rang hollow.
I can understand the sentiment but I don't get the impression he was bellowing, 'Work! Work! Work you idle layabouts!' In which case it would ring even more hollow.
But yes ...
My understanding is that RC priests don't get paid a great deal and that Protestant ministers and clergy are generally better off.
It's one of the arguments I've heard cited for clerical celibacy as well as the ability to whisk them off to another parish at a moment's notice.
Grey and awkward areas in all of this.
Franciscan poverty sounds a noble ideal until you realise that the friars went round begging and skanking off other people instead of doing 'proper jobs' like everyone else. 😉
Does absolutely everyone have to be economically active to have something to say or contribute? To have any value in society?
They should have introduced National Service. That would have sorted them out. Blasted hippies ...
Julian of Norwich couldn't have been an anchorite if people hadn't brought her gifts or endowments. She employed a servant who needed to be paid.
How do we pay for the maintenance of a 'contemplative tradition'?
It's certainly possible to be too heavenly minded to be of any earthly use but the reverse can also be true. If clergy, ministers or monastics are too busy working or bottling Chartreuse then surely their vocation and ministry will suffer?
In terms of thinking differently perhaps, sometimes. In the sense of merging every spare bit of leisure that isn't already captured by corporations into one never-ending grindset, it seems quite at odds with 'Sabbath's Rest'