I still remember the first time I had to speak in front of an audience. It was in seventh grade. I was just giving a simple introduction for my school's choir, yet my hands were shaking so much that the words on the notecard blurred to create something akin to an original Jackson Pollock.
Fast-forward to high school, and the fear was still with me. I remember the terror and frustration in my poor partner's eyes when I forgot all the lyrics to our duet, "Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better." On the upside, our performance finally solved that debate: anything I could do, she clearly could do better!
And yet, of all things, improv comedy -- a practice that requires presence on a stage -- came to me like manna in my ministry desert.
In 2009, a month after my ordination to the priesthood, on the heels of some major staffing cutbacks, my boss and would-be mentor was removed for sexual misconduct. Shortly after that, the senior associate priest took a leave of absence to care for her husband, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's.
I believe the technical ecclesial term for my circumstance at that time would be "messed up."Since then, I have come to enjoy watching for the next "top 10 list" of risk factors for clergy burnout, because I have faced almost all of them. Despite the care and support I received at the time from my diocese and my congregation, I privately felt overwhelmed. I didn't want to give up my ministry, but I began to believe that it was inevitable, that burnout was both a logical and a foregone conclusion.
Pastors don't talk about it much, but my guess is that most of us have secret moments when we feel like giving up. The pressures of isolation, expectation and failure wear on even the most pious of souls. Whoever said that it's lonely at the top should try standing behind an altar.
Read more from Les Carpenter » |
| | FROM OUR ARCHIVE: CLERGY WELLNESS |
Theological training doesn't offer ministers everything they need to flourish. Pastoral peer groups that develop additional competencies can fill the gap, writes a minister who is director of ministry outreach at Pepperdine University.
Read more from Mike Cope » |
| Korean sea divers exhale before they inhale, modeling a crucial pattern for sustaining the Christian life: exhaling for rest before inhaling for work. Read more from Gretchen Ziegenhals » |
When a Michigan pastor realized that his accountability group was too big, he came up with a new solution -- pairs.
Read more from A. Trevor Sutton » |
| | NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER |
Flourishing in Ministry: How to Cultivate Clergy Wellbeing by Matt Bloom
Pastoral work can be stressful, tough, demanding, sometimes misunderstood, and often underappreciated and underpaid. Ministers devote themselves to caring for their congregations, often at the expense of caring for themselves. Studies consistently show that physical health among clergy is significantly worse than among adults who are not in ministry. Flourishing in Ministry offers clergy and those who support them practical advice for not just surviving this grueling profession, but thriving in it.
Matt Bloom, director of the Flourishing in Ministry project, shares groundbreaking research from more than a decade of study. The Flourishing in Ministry project draws on more than five thousand surveys and three hundred in-depth interviews with clergy across denominations, ages, races, genders, and years of practice in ministry. It distills this deep research into easily understandable stages of flourishing that can be practiced at any stage in ministry or ministry formation.
Learn more and pre-order the book » |
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