The following project report is based on a research study carried out by the Andrews University Institute of Church Ministry and commissioned by the Ministerial/Stewardship Association of the General Conference. It is the first half of the complete study and deals with the pastor as a person and husband and the effects these factors have on morale in ministry. The second half of the study (which will appear in MINISTRY at a later date) examines the pastor's wife and her role in relationship to morale in the pastoral ministry. —Editors.
Within the Seventh-day Adventist Church quite a bit of study has been given to the work of the pastor. Better methods of evangelism, church administration, worship leadership, and personal minis tries have been considered. Frequent articles have sought to understand and improve the professional life of the pastor. All of this and more is needed.
On the other hand, little research has gone into the pastor as a person. Yet there is a growing consensus among church leader ship that personal factors may be even more important than professional factors in determining effectiveness in the pastoral ministry.
To be more specific, this study deals with the question of pastoral morale. There is a concern that in recent years pastoral morale has been slipping and that pastoral ministry no longer holds the challenge and fulfillment that it once did.
Of course there are still many pastors who love their work and who would not want to do anything else. They find their calling satisfying, rewarding, and joyous. But for an increasing number, the flame that once lighted their vision has flickered, burned low, or gone out. They find their daily routine to be drudgery. They have not found the success needed to fulfill their own expectations or those of their conference administrations. They feel a sense of failure and of guilt. Some are hoping for a "promotion" into departmental or administrative work. Some seek a transfer to a teaching position. Others are simply leaving the ministry for secular callings. Many feel trapped and attempt to "tread water" until retirement.
One theory is that the decline in morale may be related to the stresses that the pastoral ministry places on family life, particularly on husband-wife relation ships. A previous study of pastors' wives in the North American Division (see MINISTRY, June, 1981, pp. 28, 29) revealed that many suffer a sense of isolation. Because of the high mobility of pastoral families and the supposed need to maintain impartiality, many wives have no close relationships in community or congregation. Then if the husband devotes long hours, including evenings and weekends, to his profession, she may feel very alone indeed. Often the husband is better educated and much in the limelight while she has neglected her personal development and sees herself being left behind as the years pass. This situation may create strain and misunderstanding in the relationship and reinforce the pastor's doubts whether the pastorate is really where he ought to be after all.
The present research was designed to determine the depth and diversity of lowered morale among pastors in North America. It also allowed opportunity for the respondents to indicate what changes they would suggest to make the pastoral ministry a more fulfilling calling.
Methods
The Institute of Church Ministry designed a simple questionnaire, "The Pastor as Person and Husband." It consisted of twenty-one items on personal and pastoral morale and on husband-wife relationships. To each item the pastor could respond on a five-point scale ranging from strong agreement to strong disagreement. In addition, four open-ended questions dealt with: (1) the greatest sources of satisfaction in the ministry; (2) the areas of most frustration and disappointment; (3) suggested changes; and (4) the one to whom pastor or wife would turn for counsel if confronted with a personal or family problem.
It was decided to use as a sample the same group of pastors who had responded to the North American Division Church Growth Study (see MINISTRY, July, 1981, pp. 4-7) so that the data banks on each study could be interfaced and more information made available. In the previous study 295 churches had been randomly selected from the entire division. Pastors of 251 had returned completed surveys. Because in some of these cases two churches had the same pastor, only 238 individual pastors were involved. Each of these men involved in the earlier study received a survey regarding morale in ministry with instructions on September 2, 1980. Throughout the autumn and winter, three follow-up letters were sent and telephone calls were made to those pastors not responding to the letters. By May 1, 1981. the Institute of Church Ministry had received 172 usable surveys. This represents a response rate of 72 percent. The findings of this study are based on these 172 responses.
A pastoral profile
Each of the twenty-one items was presented as a statement to which the pastor could strongly disagree, disagree somewhat, remain neutral, agree some what, or agree strongly. The results are displayed in Table 1 in two ways.
First, the percentage of those dis agreeing or agreeing (either strongly or somewhat) is given following each item. Those who chose the neutral position or who omitted the item account for the extent to which the first two percentages fail to total 100 percent.
The second way of displaying the results is to give the mean or arithmetic average. Here the numbers 1 to 5 have been assigned to correspond to the positions ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. (If everyone chose strongly disagree, the mean would be 1, while if everyone chose strongly agree, the mean would be 5). The higher the mean for each individual item, the more agreement is indicated. Since in some cases the item is worded positively and in other cases negatively, it is important to note that the higher score may indicate high or low morale. The wording of the item must be considered. (As they appear in Table 1, the items are only summaries of the entire statement appearing in the actual survey instrument. A complete copy of the survey may be obtained by sending a large self-addressed, stamped envelope to MINISTRY, 6840 Eastern Avenue NW., Washington, D.C. 20012.)
The first impression that comes from the information in Table 1 is that there is much reason for encouragement. The overall morale appears to be better than might have been expected. Item 7, "I really enjoy being a pastor," received the second-highest percentage of agreement (94 percent) and the highest mean. Only 2 percent disagreed with the statement. Also notice that 95 percent are comfortable in one-to-one witnessing, 87 percent believe they are successful in their work, and 82 percent say that husband and wife are agreed that God wants them in the pastoral ministry.
In the light of current theological controversies within the church, it is encouraging to report that only 19 percent of those pastors surveyed have had their faith in some of the church's historical teachings called into question (only 6.4 percent strongly agreed with the item) and that the mean (1.87) was the lowest of any of the twenty-one items.
Also, the relationships between pastor and wife are generally positive. No one disagreed with the statement "My wife and I always confer together before making a major decision." Other positive state ments on spouse relationships drew from 78 percent to 91 percent agreement.
Yet a closer inspection reveals some areas of concern. For example, 34 percent feel that they might not meet the approval of their superiors in the conference office, 21 percent hope to be "promoted" to some other form of ministry, 26 percent are disturbed by the faultfinding and criticism of members toward them, and 58 percent sometimes feel a loneliness and isolation in the ministry. Another 28 percent some times feel as if they would like to leave the pastoral ministry, and 33 percent have discussed the possibility of a transfer with their wives.
Even in the generally positive areas of spouse relationships, there are some problems. Notice that in 3 percent of the cases, the wife does not encourage and support her husband in the ministry, in 5 percent there is not an open relationship between pastor and wife in which they can discuss their deepest feelings with each other, in 6 percent the couple are not agreed that the pastoral ministry is where God wants them to be, in 9 percent they do not counsel together concerning the work of ministry in their area, and in 10 percent the pastor does not regularly take time for his wife and children.
While we may be grateful that these percentages are small, when they are applied to the hundreds of pastors in the division, the absolute number of those who are concerned, feeling alone, or in strained family relationships becomes significant. It represents a personal anguish and a potential loss of human resources to the working force of the pastoral ministry that is frightening. Even the 6.5 percent who strongly agreed to item 5 (questioning some of the church's teachings) translates into many pastors (this represents 11 in this sample alone).
At least two conclusions might be fairly drawn from this analysis: 1. The overall morale of most pastors is high, but a substantial minority struggle with some doubts and discouragements concerning their calling and a smaller minority are experiencing home-related stresses. 2. Even though negative attitudes may be found in only a small percentage of the pastors, these percentages still represent a considerable number of ministers because of the large size of the working force.
All this demonstrates a need. Some measure of this need can be determined by the fact that 23 percent indicated that they did not have an effective program for their own professional growth and 92 percent would welcome a continuing education program for the upgrading of their ministerial skills. Even more revealing may be the fact that 70 percent agreed that it would be good if a counselor with no ties to administration were provided with whom pastors and their wives could discuss problems.
Husband-wife relationships
Does this study lend any credence to the hypothesis that low pastoral morale might be related to stress in the pastor-wife relationship? All surveys of those who disagreed, either strongly or somewhat, to items 16, 18, or 19 were singled out. These are the pastors who reported that they and their wives do not counsel together concerning the work of ministry in their area, or do not have an open relationship where they can freely discuss their deepest feelings, or the wives do not encourage them and support them in the work of pastoral ministry. There were twenty-three such surveys, or about 13.4 percent of the total. Table 2 reveals the percentages of those pastors who disagreed or agreed with certain morale items.
When Table 2 is compared with the corresponding items in Table 1, a startling picture emerges. On every single one of these nine items, pastors indicating marital stress disagreed with positive morale statements and agreed with negative morale statements in a higher proportion than did the total sample of pastors! And the shifts in percentages are substantial. They range from five to thirty-one percent age points, with an average of seventeen points.
Of particular significance are these facts: Only 43 percent of these pastors reported a satisfying personal devotional life in contrast to 74 percent of the total sample; 39 percent do not have regular family worship in the home as opposed to 16 percent of the total group; only 35 percent have an effective professional-growth program compared with 57 percent overall; 39 percent disagreed with the statement that they sometimes felt like leaving the pastoral ministry in contrast with 61 percent of the whole sample; and 91 percent expressed a desire for a counselor with whom pastors and wives could discuss problems compared to 70 percent of all the pastors.
Although the number of pastors found in this situation is rather small to provide conclusive evidence, it does seem that a trend is being identified. In homes where there are barriers to deep-level communication and a minimum of mutual sharing and support, it is likely that pastoral morale will be lower than average. Certainly church leadership should consider it a top priority to develop programs that build the quality of interpersonal relation ships between pastors and their spouses.
Questioning doctrines
What kinds of responses might be expected from those pastors who agreed, strongly or somewhat, with the statement that "current internal theological challenges have caused me to question some of our teachings"? There were thirty-two such surveys, or 18.6 percent of the total sample. These too were compared to the total sample on the percentage of agree-disagree items.
On most items, these pastors did not differ significantly from the larger group. However, on items 11 to 14, the percent age agreeing was from eleven to twenty points higher than the corresponding item in the total sample.
In this group, 41 percent sometimes felt as if they would like to leave the pastoral ministry, 44 percent had talked with their wives about the possibility of transferring to another type of ministry, 81 percent thought it would be good to have a counselor for pastors and their wives, and 78 percent sometimes feel a loneliness and isolation in the ministry. The corresponding percentages for these items among the overall group, as given in Table 1, are 28, 33, 70, and 58 percent.
So it does seem that doctrinal uncertainty may be related to some aspects of the morale problem. It has not been established which, if either, is the causative factor. This does suggest, however, that providing an opportunity for the exploring of questions and finding answers in a nonthreatening atmosphere may be another means by which church leadership can elevate morale in the ministry.
A measure of morale
Thus far, morale has been considered as a collection of separate items. The analysis is now carried a step further to develop a morale scale on which every pastor may receive a score. The scale was constructed from eleven of the twenty-one items: numbers 5-12, 14, 15, and 20. Each pastor was assigned a score of 1 to 5 on each item, with 5 representing the highest morale (reverse scoring had to be used with negatively worded items). Then the scores for each item were totaled to yield a morale score for each pastor. Since there were eleven items, the lowest possible score would be 11, while the highest possible would be 55. The scale had a reliability coefficient alpha of . 74.
Actually the range was from 27 to 55 points, with three pastors receiving 55 and four scoring 54. If everyone were completely neutral, the mean score would have been 33. The actual mean was 42.3, which reveals that as a group the pastors were on the -high side of the morale scale. Only fifteen pastors, or about 9 percent, fell on the lower side. Yet if this proportion holds true for the division, many pastors may be suffering a morale problem, even though they are in the distinct minority.
A measure of pastor-wife relationships
Since a relationship has been established between pastoral morale and the quality of pastor-wife relationships, a pastor-wife relationship scale has also been constructed similar to the measure of morale described above. This scale was based on seven of the twenty-one items: numbers 3, 16-21. Since there were seven items, the lowest possible score would be 7, while the highest possible score would be 35. This scale also had a reliability coefficient alpha of . 74.
The scores ranged from 16 to 35, with nearly 27 percent of the pastors receiving 33, 34, or 35. If everyone had been neutral, the mean score would have been 21. The actual mean was 29.6, which places pastors as a group on the high side of the scale. Only five pastors, or about 3 percent, fell on the lower side. Pastors report good overall relationships with their wives, yet, as has been seen, in selected areas the percentage with problems is somewhat higher.
Sources of satisfaction
The last four questions on the survey were open-ended. Question 22 asks, "Which areas of pastoral ministry provide the greatest sources of satisfaction for you?" Many answers were given. To make the data more comprehensible, the responses were carefully studied and placed into classes. Table 3 displays the percent age of pastors who named satisfactions in each category. Because pastors could list as many sources of satisfaction as they wished, the percentages total more than 100 percent.
Several other categories were listed, but they contained 2 percent or less of the responses. It may come as no great surprise to learn that "reaching financial goals" and "Ingathering" were each chosen as sources of satisfaction by only 1 percent of the pastors.
Doubtless some of the categories over lap. "Leading people to Christ and baptizing them" may have been stated by only 11 percent of the pastors because others had it in mind when they wrote "personal evangelism" or "public evangelism." Likewise, "training members to witness" or "involving members in the church's ministries" may be subsumed under "nurturing members' spiritual, personal, and interpersonal growth."
Ministers fortunately find the greatest satisfactions generally in the kinds of service that ministers do a great deal of. The listing appears reasonable for the most part. However, the high ranking of preaching and the low ranking of personal study may comment on the quality of sermons being presented at Sabbath worship services.
Areas of frustration
Question 23 asks, "Which areas of pastoral ministry furnish the most frustrations and disappointments for you?" A large variety of answers were given. They were classified in forty-four categories. Those chosen by a significant percentage of pastors are shown in Table 4.
Twenty-four other categories were chosen by 2 percent or fewer of the pastors. As in the case of satisfaction, categories doubtless overlap. The free-response question produces a great variety of answers, and the present listing is an arbitrary attempt to make the data easier to grasp quickly.
It will certainly be noticed that the areas of frustration are more diversified than the sources of satisfaction. Nevertheless, an inspection of this listing leads to the conclusion that they may be summed up in two general themes: difficulties involved in getting members to be and do what they should, and details of church administration.
Suggestions for changes
Question 24 asks, "What changes would you like to see in the profession of pastoral ministry?" Approximately 25 percent of the pastors either did not answer the question or recommended no changes. The others gave a wide variety of suggestions, which were placed in fifty categories. Thirty-two of these were mentioned by 2 percent or fewer of the pastors and are disregarded. The other eighteen categories have been ranked in the order of choice and are displayed with their respective percentages in Table 5.
The categories are arbitrary, and possible combinations will be readily discerned. Several general areas seem to emerge from the data:
1. Pastors would like to see improvements in their own training, both pre-service and in-service, and in the development of their talents and abilities so that they can function more effectively in their ministerial roles.
2. Pastors would like relief from many tasks such as administrative minutiae, fund-raising, promotional programs, and related duties that they perceive are draining their time and strength from high-priority ministerial functions.
3. Pastors would like to relate to conference leadership more on a basis of equals complementing each other than on an employer-employee relationship. They would like to have more input into conference programs and would like administrators to be more sensitive to their needs and problems.
The nature and intensity of feeling of many of the suggestions shed light on the problems of morale in the pastoral ministry. While most pastors want to remain in the pastorate, large numbers struggle against discouragement over certain aspects and customs that have grown up around the profession. Some of the suggestions may not be feasible for economic or practical reasons, but where it is possible to move in the direction of these changes, it is highly likely that pastoral morale could be greatly heightened and many workers saved for the ministry.
Counselors for pastors
Question 25 asks, "If you or your wife were confronted with a personal or family problem, to whom would you turn for counsel?" This question elicited some of the most heart-touching replies. About 23 either gave no answer, were not sure, didn't know, or felt there was no one they could trust. The answers in this category ranged from a rather smug "If a pastor needs counsel, then he is not fit to counsel others!" to this poignant statement:
"There simply isn't anyone! So for twenty years of ministry, we've suffered through several major dilemmas with no one to talk to whom we can trust!"
The remaining 77 percent of the pastors named possible counselors. These were placed in categories, and those categories named by at least 3 percent of the pastors are shown in Table 6 in their order of strength.
Certainly all SDA ministers (and church members) should seek counsel from such sources as God, the Bible, and the Spirit of Prophecy. But sometimes, under standing human help is needed to provide the necessary exchange and objectivity needed in problem solving, to say nothing of emotional support. The high number selecting only these spiritual resources may indicate that this is their way of joining the 23 percent who simply could not think of any human helper who would be both competent and trustworthy.
Responses to this question and the fact that 70 percent of the pastors agreed that it would be good if a counselor with no ties to administration were provided for pastors and their wives suggest a real need in this area. That some conference leaders are meeting success in establishing helping relationships with their pastoral workers is evidenced by the 26 percent who stated that they would turn to these leaders for counsel on personal problems. Other conferences are beginning to appoint someone trained in counseling and familiar with pastoral ministry to meet this need. Herein lies a promising direction for the lifting of pastoral morale.
Conclusions
The findings that have been presented may be summed up in several conclusions:
1. Most pastors are generally happy in their work, feel as if they are successful, and wish to remain in the pastoral ministry.
2. A substantial minority do find discouragements from time to time and in certain areas. In 1980 there were 2,763 ordained and licensed pastoral and evangelistic workers in the North American Division. Thus even a small percentage in trouble translates into many workers.
For example, only 9 percent of the pastors scored on the low side of the overall morale scale. But if this sample is representative of the workers in the division, this represents 249 pastors. Also, 13.4 percent of the pastors were found to have at least one indicator of marital stress in their profiles. This means 370 pastors in the division. And the 19 percent who agreed that current theological challenges have caused them to question some of the church's teachings translate into 525 ministers.
3. There does seem to be a correlation between pastoral morale and the quality of the relationship between the pastor and his wife. Building this relationship must be a concern of conference leadership, not only because it is vital to the effectiveness of the pastor but also because the pastoral home serves as a model to families in the church.
4. There does seem to be a relationship between questioning the church's teachings and some key areas of pastoral morale. Conference leadership cannot afford to have these doubts bottled up. Every effort must be made to aid the ministers in resolving their questions and regaining strong confidence in the message they are called to proclaim.
5. The greatest sources of satisfaction in the ministry are found in preaching, personal evangelism, visiting people, public evangelism, counseling, leading people to Christ, and baptizing them. These are key functions of the ministry, and pastors must be allowed to focus more of their energies on the kinds of tasks that bring fulfillment.
6. The greatest areas of frustration and disappointment in the ministry concern motivating and involving members and being overwhelmed with administrative trivia. Pastors need help in the form of guidance and resources that will enable them to motivate and mobilize their members to accomplish the mission of the church and to relieve the pastor of most of the maintenance ministries of the local congregation.
7. Pastoral morale could be raised by instituting certain changes in the structure of the pastorate. In addition to relieving pastors of administrative minutiae, these changes should involve more continuing education, with its development of talents and abilities, as well as a more equal relationship with conference administrators, including input into conference goals and programs.
8. There is a real need to appoint counselors who have no administrative functions but who have a deep under standing of pastoral ministry to work with pastors and their wives in the solution of personal and professional problems.
Church leadership cannot afford to ignore the issue of morale in pastoral ministry. The problem is widespread and serious enough to require urgent attention. The pastor is the key person in mobilizing the church for the finishing of the work. Only as this calling is satisfying, meaningful, and fulfilling will the best and brightest talents of the church be willing to dedicate their lives to the pastoral ministry.
