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 in 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 feeling that one is fulfilling one’s vocation can be sustaining through all sorts of other challenges to wellbeing — and being unable to do so can feel devastating — pursuance of a calling can also lead to physical, social and material sacrifices which may be detrimental to wellbeing.”
The study, launched by the national Ministry Team in 2017, was designed to gather evidence about “what enables ministers to flourish in ministry”. In total, more 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 data should not be used in general terms as representative of all clergy. The four key challenges to well-being observed across the study are listed as: tiredness, isolation, demoralisation, and financial anxiety.
In the final “wave”, which secured responses from 500 clergy this year, 29 per cent had scores for mental well-being indicating possible, mild, or clinical depression. This rose to 35 per cent among incumbents, who — unlike other clergy involved — did not 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 women and 73 per cent of men do not show signs of depression.
Four in ten of the clergy said that they felt isolated in their ministry. The authors, led by Dr Fiona Tweedie and Dr Liz Graveling Fox, note that, in the context of parochial ministry, “every human interaction within the parish is part of their work. This can make having deep local friendships extremely difficult and some participants tell us of the intense loneliness that can come with constantly having to maintain a professional persona.”
The latest wave explores burnout, defined as comprising tiredness, isolation, and demoralisation. Eight per-cent of respondents met the threshold 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 does not necessarily mean that they are ineffective in practice.”
Many clergy, the authors say, “feel strongly the twin pressures of attendance figures . . . and parish share, both of which 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 final wave, 45 per cent felt discouraged about parish finances, and 36 per cent about church buildings. Administration was the cause of 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 growth they were seeing was “slow” or “modest”.
Only 3.9 per cent of those who answered this question mentioned church leadership — bishops and archbishops — as a source of hope. Many felt that well-being initiatives were “inadequate and ineffective, in part because they did not address clergy’s actual needs”.
One respondent said: “Stop offering pointless wellbeing days/seminars which no one has asked for; actually ask clergy what they would like for a time of wellbeing, and give 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 latest wave agreed that they were fulfilling their sense of vocation.