Chris Lange, FISM News
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Pastors in the U.S. are suffering declines in virtually every aspect of well-being, including physical, mental, and emotional health.
The stunning revelations come from data collected and analyzed by Evangelical polling group Barna Research in a Resilient Pastor study. The analysis compared 2015 and 2022 data collected through interviews with Protestant senior pastors.
The 2015 data was based on 901 interviews conducted between April and December, and the 2022 data was compiled from interviews with 585 Protestant senior pastors conducted from Sept. 6 through 16 that year.
In terms of physical well-being, the number of pastors who ranked their physical health as “below average” or “poor” more than tripled between 2015 and 2022, soaring from 7% to 22%.
Similarly, the share of pastors who ranked their mental health and emotional well-being as “below average” or “poor” jumped from 3% to 10% in the same period.
Resilient Pastor faculty member Sharon Hodde Miller referenced the findings at a recent The Summer Sabbatical webinar to stress the importance of rest and rejuvenation in the lives of these earthly shepherds of the body of Christ.
“Sabbaticals are not about vacation, but about counter-formation and all the ways that our culture is malforming us in a way that undermines the image of God and Christ in us,” Miller said.
ARE CHURCHES FAILING THEIR PASTORS?
Beyond serving as a wake-up call to pastors to place a greater emphasis on their physical and emotional needs, the Resilient Pastor study reflects a troubling lack of support and empathy from congregations.
For example, the most significant quality-of-life decline reflected in the study was on the subject of friendship. In 2022, 20% of pastors ranked their satisfaction levels of having “true friends” as “below average” while an additional 7% gave a “poor” rating of satisfaction. By comparison, in 2015 just 10% ranked friendship satisfaction at “below average” and 2% gave a “poor” rating.
Moreover, the share of pastors who ranked community respect and support as “good” dropped by 10 percentage points between 2015 and 2022, tumbling from 48% at the beginning of the study to 38% at the end.
As of March 2022, 42% of Christian pastors considered quitting the ministry, up 13 percentage points from 29% in January 2021, according to a separate Barna Research study. The top two reasons pastors listed for their desire to leave were the “immense stress” of the job (56%) followed by those who said they “feel lonely and isolated “(43%).
The Rev. Dr. Glenn Packiam, co-host of The Resilient Pastor podcast, wrote in Barna’s The State of Your Church: “We [pastors] need sages to advise us, leaders to direct us or hold us accountable, peers to remind us that we aren’t alone, healers to dress our wounds and companions who carry us when we can’t carry on.”
The Lord makes clear that much is required of those who shepherd His flock but also admonishes those they serve “to esteem them very highly in love for their work’s sake.”