I’m releasing results of a survey I conducted through my blog last month on the health of pastors or ministers. The survey is now closed, but there were 466 unique responses. You can read the initial survey post HERE.
I am breaking these down into several posts to cut down on the length of each post. Be sure to check back over the next few days. If you want to know the demographics of who took the survey, see Results, Part 1 HERE.
Here are more results: (On the actual blog post each picture can be clicked on and enlarged if needed.)
What do you think? Any observations?
Here are a few of mine:
- 25% of pastors or ministers not having friends in their church they can “trust with anything” is sad. Those must be the ones I hear from often through my blog.
- 30% do not feel or aren’t sure if they are emotionally healthy right now. What are we doing to address this?
- The spiritually healthy answer almost mirrors statistically the emotionally healthy answers. Interesting.
- 42% answered “Sometimes” they have a “daily time alone with God. I’m not surprised, just surprised to see it in print.
- I’m especially not surprised by the high number who are not or not sure if they are physically healthy. I know from experience, however, that this number affects all the others.
- Not enough of us are exercising “daily” or “often”.
I’d love your thoughts of what you see in these numbers.
You can continue to Part 3 HERE.
Even the servants of God go through the same difficulties which are faced by a believer.
It tells clearly that satan tries to rob the happiness at all levels.
Amen
I have been blogging the journey we went through, for anyone interested. It can be found at http://www.aliassarahryan.blogspot.com. To those struggling-ask God to show you who your safe person is; He will show you. Get help-there’s NO shame in being human.
Awesome. Thanks.
About 10 years ago I went through a personal crisis. As missionaries at the time, I understand the responses about not having someone “safe” to confide in. I felt there was no one.
As someone in ministry, there were expectations from others, & there seemed to be no allowance for our humanity. We lost significant financial support when we had to return from the field for care, which added to the stress we were already feeling.
I believe there are many wounded leaders who simply “stuff” it because there is no one they consider safe. That, plus the other losses which could be incurred if it became known they were struggling.
As to the emotional/spiritual health mirroring, we have those parts in addition to physical aspects. Whenever something goes amiss in one area, the others are equally effected. I speak this from experience.
I hope your results help to educate and open the eyes of others. We need to extend more grace to each other, including our leaders.
Thanks for being honest about your struggles. It is helpful to others.
Twitter: Jeremy_riggs
says:
Wow. This post reminds me that those of us not in ministerial positions should be loving, encouraging, and investing in our pastors. They are only humans!
Thank you.