Leaders in Our Churches are Stressed
A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to visit with Bill and talk about leadership. Bill attends and serves at one of our NewSpring campuses. He coaches leaders for a living.
Bill shared the results of a recent online survey of Christian business owners and leaders. Over 550 people participated. Most of the folks that responded were leading organizations with less than 50 people. These are small business leaders. And, presumably since they’re Christians, these are folks that are sitting in our services on Sunday mornings.
Here’s some of what Bill found out in his survey:
- 87% were satisfied with their relationship with their spouse.
- 88% were satisfied with their relationship with their kids.
- 31% were dissatisfied with their relationship with God.
- 30% were dissatisfied with their prayer and devotional time.
- 68% indicated they’ve been very or moderately stressed in the past 6 months.
These are the leaders in our churches. Is this better than “normal” people? I don’t know. Either way, though, it’s challenging for me to know that almost a third of the leaders in our churches are dissatified with their relationship with God. And, with that in mind, it doesn’t shock me to know that more than two thirds of these leaders are dealing with stress.
What’s your reaction? What’s our responsibility given this information?
The data aren’t much different than the findings of my research in 1995. I focused specifically on burnout and its relationship to leisure variables, but my complimentary research back the findings of this recent study. I found that 1/3 of the clergy group were showing signs of burnout, and about 2/3 had issues with leisure and intrinsic motivation in their life.
I am a youth minister, but currently am not on full time staff at any church, and am in a transition job.
In the area that I live, I have many friends around who serve at different churches.
I have found a current calling in taking care of my friends in full time ministry(based on those current statistics too! yikes!) : so I’ve started (along with another youth minister friend who is currently not in full time ministry) a bi-monthly worship experience on saturday nights completely for ministers/full time staff people in local area churches. It’s only for them, and a time where they can come and be with God, and not have to worry about their normal sunday/ministry responsibilities. they can bring their spouse and children, with an option for childcare.
None of them is involved in planning, or carrying out the worship.
I find its been a huge blessing to those in ministry.
So..
that’s my reaction.
Thanks for the post, Tony. awesome. I’m curious to see what others’ reactions are.
Of course, the question begs itself whether we should be satisfied? have we been taught to be unsatisfied?
just for clarification… this survey had nothing to do with church leaders. the survey participant were primarily small business owners.
Frankly, I hope our leaders (and I) never become satisfied with their relationship with God. It’s at that point we become complacent and stop listening as intently to what the Spirit is trying to tell us.
And the leaders who are satisfied- could it be they are less easily satisfied because they don’t try hard enough?
I am a Christian small business owner and I totally agree with these figures. Owning a running a small business has put more stress on me than ever before, and it has been the hardest on my marriage. BUT my business is a ministry for the glory of God. I think Mark Batterson summed up the church’s responsibility well: As belonging to a church, I am invited into God’s collective dream for the church (and am invited to participate), BUT at the same time, by belonging to a church, I invite the church into my dream. If the church focuses its energies on helping people pursue the dream God has given them, then the church’s collective dream will become reality too! I think, more often than not, there is a lack of support (i.e. encouragement, prayer, a listening ear, understanding) for those in the leadership of a business, and then we become a statistic.
There might be two causes for this:
1) Bad self leadership: We treat wisdom more like an exportable commodity than we do a woman worth getting to know (The Proverbs view).
2) Good self leadership: We have more rigorous demands on ourselves than others can have good discontent that motivates change.
I had a new thought the other day that I’m still processing…
I was wondering if the church, at large, has derailed from it’s true purpose and this substitute purpose has now become the norm. Let me explain…I was thinking along the lines of your “The New Traditional Church” blog (before I even read it) that we are directly or indirectly teaching Christians that to be a good Christian is to be overloaded with church activities and churchiness. And perhaps as a result, we’ve become so dependent on church – to live out our godliness through it’s activities and promotions – that we’ve lost a sense of individual responsiblity of spirituality. I think church has become our crutch, instead of just our aid….
I’m starting to think that if the church doesn’t do something or promote something, we generally don’t participate. If it’s not on the church calendar, we won’t attend it. If a church doesn’t organize an outreach, we won’t reach out in our communities, etc. We rely on the church so much that without it, at large, we are immobile. So we use the church as a crutch for our spirituality…without church we would be crippled spiritually (in general).
When…isn’t church just supposed to just be an aid, not the crutch? Isn’t church supposed to just be promoting what God has put in us as individuals? One person finds a desire to reach out and a great way to do it, so the church supports that idea. When a member is inspired to live for God in this or that way, the church is there to encourage it and promote it…etc. In other words, the mobility and life of the church comes from the people and is driven through the passions God puts in its members, not solely from the leadership. And its members can thrive spiritually and live for God in their unique ways without it being an organized church event. (1 Corinthians 14:26 talks about when Christians gather everyone has something to contribute).
Does this make sense? (I am generalizing here…there are many instances where Christians aren’t crippled without church, but I am generalizing as a whole at what I’m seeing in our current Christian culture at large).
So I’m thinking that for whatever reason, church leadership has taken on this idea that the spirituality of Christians and the mobility of Christians relies soley on them. This burden was never intended to be. This burden is too heavy to carry. Perhaps this is ONE reason why many church leaders are strung out, stressed??
Give me feedback on this idea of the church having turned into a crutch, instead of being just an aid. It’s a new one. I’m processing it.