Church Systems Study Aims to Make UMC a Less Unhealthy Workplace

March 27, 2012

3:05 PM

United Methodist News Service Photo by Jill Shirley, Minnesota Annual Conference.

Ordination

The Rev. Rufus Campbell (left) and the Rev. Judy Zabel assist in the ordination of the Rev. Katie Menne during the 2010 Minnesota Annual Conference meeting in Saint Cloud, Minn.

With all the hoopla around proposals to restructure The United Methodist Church, create a presiding bishop and do away with guaranteed clergy appointments, one study report that contains startling research about the denomination's culture and employment practices seems to be flying under the radar.

However, if its recommendations are adopted by the 2012 General Conference, the Church Systems Study may do more to revolutionize the United Methodist environment at the annual conference and local congregation levels than any other proposal under consideration.

The Church Systems Study had its genesis at the 2008 General Conference in response to 20 years of stress on annual conferences from constantly out-of-control insurance costs for United Methodist clergy. The rate of insurance premiums increase was exacerbated by two factors: longevity of retired clergy with their attendant health care needs, and the increasingly poor health of active United Methodist pastors.

A task force assigned to the General Board of Pension and Health Benefits conducted the Church Systems Study. While flashier projects such as Call to Action, Ministry and Global Church were gaining attention, Church Systems labored quietly gathering first-level research in the form of listening sessions and second-level research compiling statistics on clergy health and lifestyle practices.

Extensive field research

In contrast to other studies' fairly modest field interviews, the Church Systems Task Force held extensive listening sessions with interest groups around the denomination: four with clergy and laity in four different annual conferences; two with conference cabinets and other leaders; three sessions with ethnic/racial clergy; three sessions with groups from conference boards of ordained ministry; three sessions with directors from general agencies; and five sessions with representatives from groups such as annual conference treasurers, seminaries, conference pension and benefits officers and the Ministry Study commission.

In addition, more than 1,000 clergy were surveyed along with in-depth telephone interviews with 50 selected clergy.

Results of the study paint a disturbing portrait of The United Methodist Church as a workplace in which the negative effects of pastoral ministry almost outweigh the positive benefits of fulfilling spiritual call and serving others.

Listed on page 606 of Volume 2, Section 1 of the Advance Daily Christian Advocate, the collection of General Conference reports and legislation, the Church Systems study report identifies 13 factors that influence clergy health and consequently affected the cost of health care insurance for clergy and their families across the U.S. United Methodist Church. Following are verbatim descriptions of these influences.

Personal centeredness: Feeling a lack of control over one's life; ruminating about the past; difficulty experiencing the presence of God.

Eating habits with work that often includes food: Struggling to maintain a healthy diet with food available at church meetings, social gatherings and home visits.

Work/life balance: Having difficulty balancing multiple roles; feeling guilty taking time to exercise; avoiding health care because of time demands; struggling to achieve overall work/life balance.

Job satisfaction: Feeling dissatisfied with one's appointments; feeling isolated at work; feeling disappointed with ministry; wishing for a way to exit the United Methodist system.

Personal finances: High debt [often from educational loans needed to fulfill United Methodist educational requirements for clergy]; low income; few assets; little to no personal savings.

Outside interests and social life: A lack of hobbies, outside interests and/or participation in group activities for personal renewal; having few friends or people with whom one can share personal issues; feeling detached from one's community.

Relationship with congregation: Feeling judged rather than supported. Feeling the congregation's expectations are too high or do not match one's own beliefs about the appropriate pastoral role; feeling the congregation desires a clergyperson with a different leadership style; avoiding relationships with congregation members so as to avoid improprieties; avoiding health care for fear that parishioners might find out.

Stressors of the appointment process: Feeling stressed by the appointment process; feeling reluctant to tell one's district superintendent because of the power he or she holds over appointments; feeling resentful about being paid less than laypeople in similar professions.

Marital and family satisfaction: Low marital satisfaction among clergy with families; low appointment satisfaction among spouses and/or children.

Existential burdens of ministry: Feeling obligated to carry the weight of others' emotional and spiritual burdens; being overwhelmed by the needs of others and the sheer importance of the issues to be addressed in ministry; feeling expected to solve unsolvable mysteries.

Living authentically: Feeling unable to be one's "authentic self"; failing to live according to deeply held personal values and beliefs.

Education and preparation for ministry: Feeling unprepared by seminary for the everyday responsibilities of ministry; feeling one lacks the skills and training necessary to excel at pastoral duties.

Appointment changes and relocation: More frequent appointment changes; more frequent long-distance moves.

Seeking work/life balance

Using the results of its study, the task force drafted legislation for General Conference that follows the clergy career timeline from entering the ministry to guidelines for work/life balance, itinerancy and appointment-making, the supervisory system and exiting ordained ministry.

In addition to its extensive first- and second-level research, the Church Systems Task Force said that it was important to its members to give clergy the opportunity to voice their concerns directly. The task force reviewed transcripts from in-depth clergy telephone interviews and included quotes from these interviews in its report.

Realities of ministry: "Seminary prepared me for ministry very poorly. Ministry is not taught as a course of study. You learn history, theology, your learn polity, but as to the nuts and bolts and the reality of administration (we are the CEOs of the church), that is not talked about or taught."

Prioritize work/life balance: "Being a minister, it's hard to define what is work time and what is your own time in terms of doing things like going to the gym. You feel guilty if you go during the afternoon, but you have meetings all morning and all afternoon and into the night and the afternoon is when [you have time.]"

Longer tenure: "It takes six or seven years to really build up that deep trust that exists in a congregation. When you move your clergy sooner than—and it often happens much more quickly than that—you never build it."

Separate spiritual guide: "The structure of our Church says that the clergy's [pastor] is the district superintendent, but … the problem is the DS makes your appointment. The DS is in charge of judging you. The DS rarely becomes your support person, trainer or any of those things. It just doesn't work that way. The DS is the one person you can't go to when you're in trouble."

The Church Systems Task Force has made 11 recommendations in legislation to be considered by the General Conference. They include:

A request for the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry to study seminary student financial aid and indebtedness;
Modifications in the Book of Discipline to set guidelines for healthy work/life balance for clergy, including regular vacations or time off, and swift resolution of parsonage issues affecting the well-being of clergy families;
To foster longer-term appointments, remove the word "annual" from Paragraph 334.2 to shift expectation that appointments are only for one year. Church Systems consulted with the Ministry Study commission, but did not support or oppose the Ministry Study's recommendation to remove guaranteed appointment for clergy.
Make retiree health insurance benefits portable, that is to have any accrued benefits move with clergy should they move to another annual conference or appointment beyond the local church.
Redefine the role of the district superintendent, and provide other spiritual guides and vocational mentors apart from superintendents for clergy throughout their career.
Create voluntary transition programs in annual conferences to provide "grace-filled" exits from ordained ministry.

The Church Systems Task Force report and recommendations will come to the floor of General Conference through the Financial Administration legislative committee.

Comments (5)

Comment Feed

the process

The entire process of commission and ordination is no more than a "hazing" ritual. A person should be eligible for these based strickly on their credentials, work experience and meeting all of the qualifications. Determinations based on the fact that the majority of the BOM did not like a particular seminary that a candidate attended or the candidate's suit looked too expensive and jealousy came into play is uncalled for. These are people's lives that the BOM is trying to "play God" with. Good people feel like failures, their self esteem crushed and the families are then penalized because if the candidate does still have an appointment after being delayed in the process, it is usually a church that is so broken no one else would take it or the clergy family has to break up and commute, or loose income if a spouse has to give up employment. Splitting families is never ideal and that is what happens more than one would want to admit. It is very difficult for a clergy couple to be authentic in their faith because they have rare opportunities to be "regular people" and no support to help with the development. This is especially true of the spouses. Spouses are not given support by the conferences. Only lip service is paid to support groups or the persons conducting the workshops are so far out of step with what is going on today they have no clue as to relevance for families today. Spouses do not talk with other spouses because of "territorailty, fear of reprisals from the D.S.,being judged, showing weakness." The battle cry of "You get what you get and you don't throw a fit" is ridiculous especially if that clergy family is having to live in separate households miles apart and visit each other on the weekends or give up substantial income and job security of the non-clergy spouse. This presents a system that is frought with problems for marriages, financial difficulties, depression and lack of trust in the cabinet and the BOM.

Sally more than 12 years ago

Mission and Personal Authenticity

My experience is that the greatest stress for clergy is being in the middle-manager syndrome, caught between a church system which expects us to produce institutional maintenance and congregations which expect pastors to primarily be parent-type caregivers. I find the majority of parishioners want a system in which they do not have to grow up, since they face so many stresses outside the church. they want clergy to be their paid worker, doing all the work. Most of our churches have few other staff at all. The decline of most churches means expectations previously placed on lay staff are now on clergy shoulders. The larger church system expects the pastors to 'equip lay members for ministry' rather than 'do it all.' But the few church members (in our mostly aging congregations) who are physically capable are over-stressed in other commitments. So, the expectation of having lay-run churches is anachronistic and impossible to fulfil. We are going to have to let up on expectation level, trust clergy to do the best they can, and provide as much support of clergy as possible. Yes, i know this means we must drastically reduce the overhead of the institutional levels above the local church. Our "connection" must become more lateral and horizontal and less vertical. I agree that longer-term clergy appointments will greatly help, assuming we can make good appointments in the first place. In my conference I believe that is happening.

Mark C Harvey more than 12 years ago

Thank you

Thank you for examining the system and bringing more health and wellness opportunities to clergy. Our family is affected by serious health issues that were partially due to long-term stress on clergy. From what I've seen, pastoring can be very emotional and isolating at times which can be manifested in physical health problems over time.

Sara more than 12 years ago

General Thoughts

I have to say that I am thrilled that someone is looking at the whole system! We cannot effect true change without doing so.

Scott more than 12 years ago

Living Authentically

I have recently wondered about this aspect--Living Authentically--when it comes to the clergy. As a "regular church member", in the last few years I have had to cope the best I could with decisions that challenged liflelong beliefs that had, up until that point, been endorsed by the church. It has been extremely hard and conflicting. At one point, I had to completely step away from the congregation for several months. I am now back but in a marginal way.

Betsy more than 12 years ago