This concludes the review of a survey I conducted recently on the health of pastors and ministers. There were 466 responses and I’ve shared the results in four different posts (including this one). If you missed any of them, see here:
Here are the concluding questions:
(You can click on a diagram to enlarge it.)
Here are some of my observations on these questions:
- About 20% of spouses do not feel supported. I wonder if that’s them or the church? Perhaps we need a survey for spouses.
- Almost 45% of the pastors or ministers surveyed have occasional thoughts of leaving the ministry. Wow!
- The pastor plays a key role in church culture. (Duh?)
- Burnout is a part of ministry.
- Too many pastors don’t know what to do about burnout.
What do you see? Look over each of the questions and let me know your thoughts.
Ron! It's high time we address the issue of burnout among those who are in ministry. Burnout is not an achievement which we can be proud of. It's a critical issue which we need to address immediately without any delay. The percentage of people with burnout is really alarming.
I agree completely.
Hi Ron,
This is very interesting, but I think that there are also alot of positives in your survey. If you combine positives and mostly positives, many times those answers outweigh the negatives by a signifcant amount. I wonder how these answers would compare to a survey of regular people in their every day jobs. Are pastors more supported at work, or less? Are they more happy in their jobs or less? Do they feel more burned out or less? And then, if you're really curious, you should survey lay leadership in their regard to their ministry experiences… just in case you're bored someday 🙂
Great questions. I certainly thought of those type questions. I guess my heart for the pastor wants them all to be positive. I know that is unrealistic.
Ron, what a great series. In my family ministry is the family business and growing up watching the burnout, often church drama, business side of running a church, etc.. this was an enlightening series. I'll be excited to share it with others and leverage it with my clients!
That's awesome. Thank you.
Yes, survey the spouses.