Stats on pastors
prodigal Kiwi points out the following statistics on pastors of local churches:
· 80% of pastors say they have insufficient time with spouse and that ministry has a negative effect on their family.
· 40% report a serious conflict with a parishioner once a month.
· 33% say that being in ministry is an outright hazard to their family.
· 75% report they’ve had significant stress-related crisis at least once in their ministry.
· 58% of pastors indicate that their spouse needs to work either part time or full time to supplement the family income.
· 56% of pastors’ wives say they have no close friends.
· Pastors who work fewer than 50 hrs/week are 35% more likely to be terminated.
· 40% of pastors considered leaving the pastorate in the past three months.
Mmm, just what I need to read in my current frame of mind on my first week of holidays. Back to the garden 
Read more of Paul’s post here
April 20th, 2007 at 11:59 pm
Well Dan I’m happy if you want to be Blackadder, but I want to know what the cunning plan is.
April 21st, 2007 at 10:28 am
bettere blackadder than baldrick
April 21st, 2007 at 8:52 pm
“Seriously, I haven’t been commenting or posting here for weeks and suddenly I am blackadder in this scenario?”
Lance’s cunning plan for getting himself out of the doghouse.
Build a bigger doghouse.
April 25th, 2007 at 10:41 pm
Phil lets agree that many ministers experience stress however that might be measured.My only point was that the two sources appeared to me to be shonky. If there is doubt about the problem,eg 70% constantly fight depression or 40% have an extra marital affair,how do you deliver answers?I would be interested to know why you accept the sources as reliable? On the other point,
I am intrigued as to why ministers dont organise;they either dont know how to,or they dont see any need to.Yet many ministers do find themselves in difficulties.
There are a couple of other issues tho which may effect how they see themselves in solidarity with other ministers.Ministry in many ways reflects the market;many ministers are now “executive officers”,”senior ministers” or evangelical entrepreneurs,and will not be comfortable in a union or other democratic structure.Given the way denominations are organised,its very convenient for management not to have ministers organised.
One of our colleagues,as you know, has just been brutually handled by management.Some of her colleagues gave support where they could, but the majority of ministers did nothing.Not because they didnt care but in many cases they didnt know.Others kept their heads down.No one takes responsibility to enable that solidarity and support to be organised.
Theres also an individualism about ministry which doesnt help the organisation of mutual support;ministers tell me they’re too busy. The saddest aspect of this situation is that ministers have enjoyed the benefits for which other workers have paid and worked for thru their union/professional association eg superannuation,holidays,maternity leave,etc.
April 26th, 2007 at 3:03 pm
I used to be in pastoral ministry. The stresses - whilst not unique - are constant. I remember getting a ‘phone call in the middle of the night from a husband of a church member wanting to know where his wife was…
…and no, she wasn’t with me…
but she was at a small group meeting that ran over time. It’s just an example, and maybe a poor one at that, but there is always the threat of interruption to one’s “down time”, the threat of criticism over the behaviour of family, that sort of thing. It can be quite wearing! I’ve been out for 12 months now and am still recovering, and my experience was mild compared to many others. Frankly, I don’t care where the stats come from but the gist of them is spot on. Pastors and their families experience a brand of stress that most people in their churches can’t identify with and, worse, tend to dismiss out of hand.
April 26th, 2007 at 3:04 pm
BTW, better Baldrick than Captain Darling…
April 26th, 2007 at 4:19 pm
or Lord Percy
April 27th, 2007 at 10:05 am
Some further info on the well being of ministers;check the management blog of the Age, and the Uni of chicago study: http://blogs.theage.com.au/managementline/archives/2007/04/where_are_the_b.html#comments/
April 27th, 2007 at 4:02 pm
Hmm, dodging all of the Baldrick/Blackadder issues, I have an observation on the course of this conversation, which I think mirrors the dynamic in churches as I have observed it. I observe that one of the real difficulties of pastoral ministry lies in the area of calling. Ministers profess a calling to be in the place and space that they are. It is for these reason that, for example, they are willing to accept a job that might earn considerably less than they could earn in a similar secular position.
But that same calling can, either implicitly or explicitly be used as a lever to indicate that the minister is the one paid to follow his calling - ministers often find it hard to advocate for their own “rights” as employees because the response is that it is somehow sacrilegious to talk about ministry as if it were an ordinary job.
Ironically, as Alan has pointed out, christian organisations including churches are often no better at providing pastoral care and support and proactively looking after their employees than secular organisations. And ministers can feel unwilling or unable to complain. In my job I can advocate for my own position because, while I have a sense of calling, it is not tied to one job or one place. My workplace is not my “family” or the community I have committed to building, nurturing, loving and supporting.
In this thread we have a number of ministers saying that they feel that ministry has a particular type of stress that needs to be recognised. They feel the need to support this with statistics or studies, perhaps because they feel that their own reporting of their feelings is discounted. Indeed, in this thread, a number of ministers have shared stories about the particular and unique stressors they find in their experiences of pastoral ministry.
In response, alan in particular has argued quite strongly that the statistics used are “dodgy” and has seemed to imply that ministers who claim unique stress are somehow aligning themselves with completely unrelated bad practices of one of the organisations that is partially responsible for these statistics.
Not surprisingly, our poor stressed ministers have reacted defensively. They have perceived that alan is questioning the fact that they are uniquely stressed (which I don’t actually think that he is).
I don’t mean to unfairly represent anyone here, but I think that this conversation repeats itself. I could tell a lot of stories about how ministers are treated appalingly by churches.
FWIW I have a pretty stressful job (and incidentally as a minister’s wife I have very few close friends) and I wouldn’t say that ministry is MORE stressful than my work is. However, I do think that the stress or pressure is of a different kind, such that I think it is very difficult to compare the two.
April 28th, 2007 at 10:43 pm
dan, well done, well written!!!
April 28th, 2007 at 11:09 pm
Amen to that.
I say as a pondscum in training.
April 30th, 2007 at 12:52 pm
Well, I don’t think we’ve even touched the surface of how stressful being a pastor’s wife is…that’s a “job” that no amount of money (and the necessary surgery) could ever induce me to take!
Interesting, Dan, that defensiveness that you talk about. I can really identify with that because sometimes - in my previous life - I found it hard to justify to myself why I was feeling stressed when I had friends in big corporations or running their own businesses who had more reason to be stressed. As u mentioned, and as I did in my previous post, the stress is different.
The defensiveness interests me…as does trying to work out how to deal with the different stress…
April 30th, 2007 at 2:14 pm
I dont know that it is valid to compare ministry work to a “job” with an employer. When you go and get a job, you essentially sell a part of your life to your employer - from 8 till 5 you are a servant. You must produce what the employer wants, do as the employer bids etc. etc. You are a cog and the reward for this is that you are allowed the rest of the time in the day to do as you please. You dont have to worry about the profit of the company etc., dont even have to think about the job until tomorrow morning.
It began mainly in the 20th century, before that mostly people were farmers, small businesspeople etc. trading goods produced by their own labour. I see Pastors being in this category - they do not have multiple bosses any more than the entertainer or the craftsman has multiple bosses. Sure they have to worry about things after 5pm, but they also have considerable control over the direction, content, method of work. They also can have more pride and investment of themselves into the results of their labour.
I got a bit cheesed off with the Pastor’s complaints after joining the board of my church and seeing what was being paid. Not only was a house and car paid for, but there was also a significant weekly tax-free sum, and an expense card. Adding all this up and adjusting for tax and expenses etc it exceeded mine and most of the parishioners salaries. In addition there was significant scope and leeway for the Pastor to make the job into whatever he wanted as long as he turned up each Sunday.
April 30th, 2007 at 2:19 pm
Warren, I guess that various situations are going to be different depending on the pay/conditions and expectations of ministers. In my experience I certainly see a very large difference between a pastoral minister and someone running their own business.
April 30th, 2007 at 5:42 pm
Personally, I wouldn’t want to see the taxation laws changed in relation to ministers… because many of the majority of churches are small, and many struggle to cobble together a full time salary for a minister… and many others can only manage a part time salary.
The only thing that makes a minister’s rate of pay under most denominational awards comparable to other professions is the tax breaks in it. There is an impending crisis in numbers of ministerial candidates, and there are high rates of people leaving the ministry… I think making the pay worse would only exacerbate the situation.
Having said that… I can’t see why “mega church” pastors who earn significantly above the award rates (around 50 K) should benefit from tax rules developed when the saying “poor as a church mouse” actually had some correlation with reality.
April 30th, 2007 at 5:56 pm
Warren were you cheesed off in part that the pastor earned more than you? Is this a problem?
Have a crack yourself if you’re up for it, then lets talk.
May 1st, 2007 at 8:33 am
I apologise if I have offended anyone. Zulu, what cheesed me off was the Pastor constantly complaining about the money situation - and then seeing the reality of how he was being remunerated.
I dont understand some of the complaints even in the statistics at the top of the article. 58% indicate that their spouse needs to work - well we are in 2007 not 1957 - should Pastors be different to other professionals in this regard?
33% say ministry is an outright hazard to their family. If I identify something as an outright hazard to my family, I eliminate it as fast as possible. Dosent matter if it is a job, house, extended family or whatever, to do otherwise would be negligent. But 1 in 3 are continuing in ministry knowing that they are putting their family at risk. How are they going to effectively minister to people under these circumstances - wont they hold some grudge against the congregation for putting them in this position?
May 1st, 2007 at 9:15 am
Warrren many pastors have the added dimension of a deep sense of call, which means you endure things you wouldn’t in another job.
I don;t so much find the various rigors of the work exacting, I find the absence of a generosity of spirit towards me within the congregation who harbour sentiments, not too different to those you have expressed.
Fair enough if the pastor camplains about money. He should have worked that one out before he accepted the role. I have only been in this role twice, the second time I paid very careful attention to my pay and conditions and have never had any reason to feel raw about money since. If I wanted to make money I could have done so doing something else, and made many times over what I make now. Not interested in money except to pay bills.
I get a whole lot less than many, and a whole lot more than many.
The easiest way to settle the issue in your mind [which you need to otherwise you will become a serious pain in the rear to him] is to walk in his shoes for a week. There are creative ways in which that can be arranged.
Build a relationship with him and seek to understand him, and when you have won the right, gently tell him that whining about money does not endear himself to too many people!
May 1st, 2007 at 11:17 am
Zulu, what I object to is exactly what you have outlined in your first paragraph. Ie. the idea that Pastors are somehow different to others, they have a “calling” which means that they will endure pay or conditions which they otherwise would not. This will naturally lead to the idea that somehow they should be paid back for what they have lost - this debt is transferred to the congregation. This is largely unexpressed by the Pastor, but it is keenly felt. You have expressed it as “an absence of generosity of spirit towards me”. The debt is largely undefined, so therefore no one can know if they have repaid it, or how they can repay it.
Any time there is a large unspoken debt between two parties, it is very difficult to work together let alone perform ministry.
I dont begrudge any Pastor their pay, even Brian Houston’s. What I object to is this unspoken debt hanging over my head.
May 1st, 2007 at 11:47 am
Warren, again I am not a pastor, just an observer. And I am not commenting on your situation about which I know very little. In my experience I don’t feel that there is an “unspoken debt” hanging over the heads of people. I actually congratulate you if you feel sensitive to the situation of the paid ministry, though I wouldn’t like to feel like you had experienced a real sense of guilt through this.
I find it difficult to give specific examples in a public space, but let me say this. One of the differences I perceive between my job and the job of the minister is that I can advocate effectively as an employee for my own conditions. This is not necessarily about money, but it might be about working conditions or provision of appropriate support and resources to do my job, or permitting sufficient freedom to make my own decisions. It is not always pleasant or without stress, but I have a range of tactics available to me which in turn are not thought to be unreasonable or “playing dirty” to ensure that I am looked after.
The vast majority of jobs are the same. Again, the issue might not be money so much, but there are a whole range of other elements of a role which are not about money in the pocket. In my previous part time job, we could never make a big deal about money as we were all paid on award, but we could continue to have conversations about resources, training and care that was required for staff.
In my experience, pastoral ministers find this same natural ongoing process of negotiation very very very difficult. This can be complicated by the fact that the church might also be the pastor’s landlord, and the fact that the church is the source of pastoral care for the pastor and his/her family. If your church looks after your minister in a proactive way (again, not about money) then God bless you, because I know of many cases where this has not happened.
May 1st, 2007 at 1:21 pm
Dan, in my experience the vast majority of jobs do not allow the employee to negotiate for his/her conditions, resources etc. I am not sure what it is like in your sector, but I have worked for several large corporates and there has been no lee-way even when workload and conditions have substantially changed.
An example would be the case of my boss several years ago. His boss wanted to get rid of him, but didn’t want to pay the sizable retrenchment money. So he transferred the job from New Zealand to Australia hoping that he would just resign. This man had to transfer his family (6 kids) to another country just because his boss wanted to be a bastard.
Now he could probably have gone to the Union, if he was a member etc. but because he was a senior manager, he probably would have felt that this would have tainted him for life in the organisation. To use the corporate euphemism it would have been a “career-limiting” move.
I think there are a thousand stories like that - its just that people dont talk about them very much. They just take their happy pills and keep going to work.
May 1st, 2007 at 1:45 pm
Okay Warren, clearly you don’t accept the premise of the argument, so I think it is probably better to leave it at that. Like I said, I don’t think ministers are the most stressed people around, but I do think that it is a different context from ordinary secular work such that I would find it very hard to make a sensible comparison (even though I am aware I just did that).
Of all the things that we have been talking about, the one where I think we are furthest apart would be the idea of the minister as being akin to a craftsperson or small business person. I think at least in my experience that is a world apart from the experience (in terms of things like autonomy and self-determination) of a lot of pastoral ministers. Hope all is well with you and yours.
May 1st, 2007 at 3:16 pm
Ok Dan, thanks for the forum and the opportunity to air my thoughts. One of the problems is that we have not only different perceptions but also totally different experiences that we are drawing on for arguments. And, at least for me, it is an emotive issue.
It has always seemed to me that there has been a large divide between the worlds of secular work/ministry work and it is difficult for both sides to communicate effectively. Thanks for taking to the time to discuss.
May 1st, 2007 at 8:57 pm
Warren you wrote:
>>Zulu, what I object to is exactly what you have outlined in your first paragraph. Ie. the idea that Pastors are somehow different to others, they have a “calling” which means that they will endure pay or conditions which they otherwise would not. This will naturally lead to the idea that somehow they should be paid back for what they have lost - this debt is transferred to the congregation.
May 1st, 2007 at 8:59 pm
Firstly if you reject the notion of a call then there is a gulf between your views and the average church congregation who would hope that the pastor entered the vocation for reasons other than a career move or a jolly good idea.
Without a deep sense of call I would not be where I am, or where I have been.
Secondly, your automatic assumption that endurance leads to a chip on the shoulder and a ‘debt’ is value judgement you simply are not in a position to make.
Whatever I endure in the name of Jesus is between myself and him. I certainly look for a default position of generosity rather than a begrudging attitude.
Quite often pastors who try and negotiate better conditions they are reminded that they in the role as a result of a call and its not about money.
Whatever your beef is, unless you can arrive at a point of peace about it this will become something which can drive a wedge into the heart of your leadership team, and you can join the dots as to what that leads to.
I get the feeling that what I’ve read so far is the tip of the iceberg. Whatever the deal is, if you are not able to have a relationship of trust and appreciation with your pastor, it is bad news for both of you, and ultimately for the church.
For me, lasting in this game is about mastering the art of Survivor, outwit, outlast and outplay. I’ve done that a bit with the kind of attitude we are dealing with here – or at least: what I think I am hearing.
May 2nd, 2007 at 12:12 pm
Zulu, I dont reject the notion of a calling, however I think it is a private matter and should not be used in any form of negotiation. So the people who try to say to Pastors “You have a calling” and therefore are not entitled to as much money as secular people who do not have a calling have it totally wrong. The notion of a calling should not be used by either side to extract any sort of concession from the other.
If you are dedicated to mastering the arts of outwit, outlast and outplay - do you not have some issues with trust etc yourself? Is it only me that has the beef?
May 2nd, 2007 at 3:05 pm
Yes Warren, I have plenty of beefs and issues, but I think I’m on top of them, and that’s why I am attracted to dark humour. The Survivor analogy/strategy appeals to me. I have had to go through two protracted situations where I have had to step into a leadership role in churches that have experienced massive upheaval and trauma. In both circumstances an entrenched powerbase needed to be taken on and also behaviours and attitudes that the church was previously too chicken to confront. This all with no honeymoon period and no capital of any kind, be that political or spiritual.
When you are in the trenches each day giving your all, and your family is also paying a heavy price, it helps when you deal with people who have a generosity of heart, a reflexive position of believing the best first and the worst last.
My experience as a military chaplain is liberating in this respect. No-one in my unit takes it upon themselves to give an opinion about what I should be doing, what I do is greatly appreciated, I am evaluated only by my boss according to agreed expectations, very well remunerated, and my future in the role does not depend on the popular opinion of the few hundred soldiers in my unit.
This is an altogether different environment from church. when I travel through the gates of the garrison I breathe a sigh of relief, I think to myself sublimally [is that possible?] “mate, you are in a safe place”. Safe from the nitpicking small mindedness that you may possibly be bordering on.
Cut the man some slack. If he needs to quit complaining, do a Matthew 18 and go tell him in love.
I don’t mind people in the church who have a problem with me, and tell me. This rarely happens. when it does, understanding usually results, and so does a deepend relationship.
Ultimately if you can’t see eye to eye, why stick around in your position?
May 2nd, 2007 at 4:23 pm
Well, I didn’t stick around - and frankly I’m not looking forward to going back to Church. Contrary to what you might think, I was never a player in the politics - just a little bit shocked when I saw some of the realities.
I remember thinking after that experience that Church is a bit like sausage. It looks and smells fine as long as you don’t try to figure out how its made. If you do, you have to have a strong constitution - I’m not built for that.
Is it any wonder that people go to a prosperity-preaching mega-church? It might have some dodgy theology, but at least if you stay in the outer-church you aren’t likely to get ambushed by the under-currents from a leadership playing Survivor strategies with each other.
I see enough of that in my job, I don’t want to have to deal with it again on Sunday morning.
May 2nd, 2007 at 4:41 pm
I obviously don’t know the details of your situation, but it sounds like you have felt seriously burnt by the experience. I am sorry to hear that and hope that you don’t feel like your own experiences are typical of the experiences of people in a whole range of churches around the place and that you will remain open to the experiences and troubles of others in different circumstances.
May 2nd, 2007 at 5:08 pm
Well, I guess zulu’s experiences sound pretty bad - and this thread started off by saying a lot of Pastor’s experiences are bad. One would expect then that the conflicts might also affect the parishioners in bad ways too.
If so, it would be difficult to measure since the ones who were affected badly would leave, and the others would stay. You couldnt do a survey. But anecdotally I am told by people doing evangelistic work that “A lot of people have been hurt by Church”