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Being a Pastor Never Was an Easy Job

By John Benton.

Being a pastor never was an easy job, and in our society’s current secular climate there are extra pressures. Earlier this year the magazine Evangelicals Now conducted a survey of pastors to try to get some facts about being in the ministry in these days. The survey asked ministers to comment on their experience of seven common areas of ministerial difficulty. These were general stress, ‘writer’s block’ for sermons, feeling depressed, anger, tension in the minister’s family, sexual temptation, and loneliness. For each of these areas we asked pastors to tick one of four boxes reflecting their experience in that area. The boxes were labelled ‘never’, ‘sometimes’, ‘often’, and ‘always.’ So, for example, did they suffer from general stress, never, sometimes, often or always? Pastors were also asked to supply their age, denomination or church grouping, how many years they had been in the ministry, the approximate size of their congregation, marital status, and whether or not they had an assistant pastor. Our current ‘therapy culture’ predisposes people in all vocations to see themselves and their jobs as pressurised and stressed, perhaps far more than people in previous generations would have done. However, for what it is worth, this survey does give a snapshot of how pastors perceive themselves in our day. Responses We sent the survey to 300 pastors with a freepost envelope to return it. By the deadline of March 1 we had received 145 replies. Of these, 61 were from those working in the Church of England, 41 from the Independent Evangelical sector, 13 were Presbyterians and there were 30 others including Grace Baptists, Baptist Union, Methodists and Church of Scotland. All responses to the survey were anonymous. The data was analysed by a professional statistician and we hope that the results will be of some help in pastors understanding themselves, and also for congregations to realise the kind of pressures their ministers may be under. The problems Obviously, the results are dependent on the frequency with which the problem occurs. Suffering from the investigated problems ‘at least sometimes’, the results showed that 98% of pastors suffer from stress; feeling depressed 86%, feeling angry 83%, suffering from family tension 82%, sexual temptation 82%; from writer’s block 70%; and loneliness 63%. Here we see stress as the greatest problem, whereas loneliness is the least problem. However, if we look at what is said about problems which occur ‘often or always’ the figures change quite dramatically. Now we have 47% saying that they feel stressed often or always. Then 26% feel lonely often or always. Then in the ‘often or always’ category come in order: sexual temptation 15%; family tension 14%; feeling depressed 14%; mental blocks 11%; and anger right down at 6%. There are two initial observations to be made from these figures. First, it is true that stress is at the top of the list of pastors’ problems no matter how we look at it. The data bears out the accepted wisdom that the pastorate is a pressurised job, or at least it is perceived as such by pastors. The second observation has to do with how loneliness jumps from last place to second place when we moved from the ‘at least sometimes’ category of frequency to the ‘often or more’ category. This means that although loneliness in the ministry does not occur so much, yet when it does occur it is likely to be a more severe problem. Timescales There has been a lot of comment in recent years about the lack of young men entering the ministry. Our figures did tend to underline this. The mean age of respondents was 51, and the median 49. The oldest response came from someone who is 84 years old and the youngest from a 30-year-old. Most of the younger men who responded to the survey were Anglicans. It is perhaps worth adding here that by far the majority of those who responded were married men. However, although only a few single people responded to the survey, sexual temptation did appear to feature as a more frequent problem for these people. The figures concerning the number of years in the ministry are also interesting. The average length of service in the ministry was 21 years, with the maximum period being 55 years and the smallest being less than one year in the ministry from one respondent. Variations and correlations We were able to track how some of the problems varied under different conditions. The survey generally confirmed the conclusion which common sense might expect. It was clear that older pastors generally suffer from less stress, less writer’s block and less sexual temptation. Also those with more years in the work of the ministry came out as experiencing less anger and less occasions of family tension. Surely those who have had more years of experience and seen similar problems before are usually more able to take pastoral difficulties in their stride and not get so stressed about them. Plus more years in the ministry will usually mean that children have grown up and left home which might well lessen the likelihood of family difficulties. It was also interesting to see how problems varied with congregation size. Pastors feeling depressed reduced dramatically as the regular numbers in the congregation exceeded 250 people. By contrast the extent to which pastors reported writer’s block as occurring ‘often or more’ showed a marked increase as the congregation size went over the 250 mark. So there are pluses and minuses to larger churches. However, it is worth looking at small churches in particular. One Christian research organisation classifies ‘small churches’ as those with fewer than 50 to 60 attending. Last year the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches reported around half of its churches with 35 members or less. So there are many pastors shepherding little flocks. From the above figures it is clear that those in small churches are more likely to be prone to depression. Further, the survey revealed that pastors in smaller congregations are far more likely to suffer from loneliness. But as we noted earlier, though loneliness is not as common as other problems, when it does occur it tends to be severe. With less people and resources this is therefore something for those in smaller churches who care about their pastor to watch out for. How do various problems link together? Using Pearson’s Correlation Coefficient there were three firm, but not unexpected, conclusions. First, stress is associated with all the other problems (or if you like all the other problems lead to stress). Second, anger is particularly associated with tension in the pastor’s family and with loneliness. Third, feeling depressed is associated with mental blocks in sermon preparation, family tension and loneliness. Overall we have to say that pastors experiencing one problem ‘often or always’ are more likely to experience other problems. This may have a basis in fact; on the other hand it may reflect personality — that those who ticked the ‘often or always’ boxes are more likely to tick others. Perhaps, surprisingly, levels of stress do not seem to be affected either way when there is an assistant pastor around. So it is not necessarily the case that having an assistant is the answer to the pastor’s problems with carrying the load. Bringing in an assistant is no quick fix. New denomination? To end on a lighter note, as the information was processed, we looked at data as more and more surveys came in and at one point it seemed that there was a definite correlation between belonging to the Church of England and registering feeling angry. One wit in our family was on the brink of inventing a new denomination — ‘the Angricans!’ However, when the final results emerged this trend fell just short of proving significant. But, dear brothers and sisters in the established church, you have been warned. Please note that this article is © Evangelicals Now (July 2005). It is reproduced here with kind permission.