From Burnout to Flourishing with Dr Chris Adams

The Flourishing in Ministry project began over ten years ago at the University of Notre Dame. Dr. Matt Bloom, whose wife is a pastor, led a team of researchers (including Dr. Chris Adams, Executive Director) to develop insights about clergy well-being. 

Dr. Adams now leads the Flourishing in Ministry project at Rosemead School of Psychology, Biola University, as part of the Mental Health and the Church Initiative. The research study currently includes over 20,000 clergy surveys and several hundred in-depth interviews with a diverse group of clergy. 

In this conversation we learn about the key practices and implementable strategies that this research has found to make the difference in a flourishing ministry.

In this episode:

• The complex, multi-faceted role of pastors and how it differs from other helping professions

• The mental health challenges clergy face, including burnout rates comparable to teachers and social workers

• The impact of leadership styles—healthy versus pathological—and their effects on congregations

• The Five Dimensions of Flourishing: daily well-being, resilience, authenticity, social ecosystem, and how these interrelate

• Practical strategies for pastors to sustain daily well-being, including spiritual practices, boundary-setting, and community support

• The importance of organizational and community-level support for long-term health

• Unique challenges faced by pastors' families and the concept of front stage/backstage in ministry

• The role of relational ecosystems—mentors, friends, church community—in fostering resilience and authenticity

Take the free Flourishing in Ministry Assessment and get access to resources and tips that will help you: https://www.flourishinginministry.org/

Timestamps: 

00:00 - Introduction to Dr. Chris Adams and his work on clergy well-being
 02:13 - The influence of family history and pastoral lineage
 03:28 - Challenges of clergy killing congregations
 04:55 - How past experiences shape current research interests
 06:14 - Dual focus of the Mental Health and the Church Initiative
 07:44 - Differentiating ministry from other helping professions
 08:13 - Unique relational demands of pastors
 10:06 - The toll of role immersion and 24/7 responsibilities
 11:21 - The complexity of being a pastor: job analysis insights
 13:39 - Burnout rates among clergy in comparison to other helping professions
 15:05 - Addressing the myth that pastors should work as hard as their congregation members
 16:48 - How pastors can understand and manage their work hours
 18:58 - The flourishing model: origins, survey, and key constructs
 20:55 - The five dimensions of flourishing and the free assessment tool
 22:45 - Insights from the large clergy dataset and the importance of cultural adaptation
 24:28 - Longitudinal research findings: positive spirals and downward trends
 26:09 - Building daily well-being through spiritual practices and rhythms
 27:54 - Small, consistent practices that promote resilience and joy
 30:24 - The role of emotion regulation, assertiveness, and role crafting

Podcast Disclaimer:

Please be aware that the opinions and viewpoints shared on this podcast are personal to me and my guests, and do not represent the stance of any institution.  This podcast aims to present findings for open discussion and dialogue, inviting listeners to engage critically and draw their own conclusions. While the content serves informational purposes, it is not a substitute for professional advice. Thank you for joining me on this journey of exploration and conversation!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 1:08

I have the great privilege of speaking with Dr. Chris Adams this morning. Hello, Chris.

SPEAKER_03 1:15

Hello, how are you?

SPEAKER_00 1:16

I'm doing very well. Now let me read a little bit about you. Reverend Chris Adams is a third generation pastors kid, ordained minister, clinical psychologist, and certified well-being and leadership coach. Chris currently serves as professor and executive director of the mental health and the church initiative at Rosemead Graduate School of Psychology, Biola University. He is the lead researcher for the Flourishing in Ministry Project and is currently participating as a consultant and researcher with the Duke Clergy Health Initiative. Yay! Yes, so great to have you, Chris.

SPEAKER_03 1:54

So great to be with you. Thank you so much. It's my honor.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

Let's unpack your introduction a little bit. So, third generation pastor's kid.

SPEAKER_03 2:02

Yes. Yes. So my grandfather, my dad's side, my dad's dad was a pastor and was called to vocational ministry kind of in midlife and pastored mostly what I like to call clergy-killing congregations in New England, most of his ministry experience, but was very effective pastor, one of my heroes in ministry. And he back in in those days, he did everything. He preached, he directed the choir, led the music worship, he ran off the church bulletins on a mimeograph machine back before we had copiers, mowed the church lawn. I mean, the whole thing, you know, and and and unfortunately died young of a heart attack. And I'm convinced in retrospect, it was a lot of ministry stress. People weren't, you know, researching and talking about the kinds of stuff that the great work that you're doing back in those days. But lots of pastors and the family and and theological professors and stuff. And then my dad has been in music ministry. He's in his 80s now, but still is writing songs and plays the piano every day, and which he was called to do as a boy, actually, and has just done his whole life. So been around pastors all my life and have been in pastoral roles myself before becoming a psychologist, specializing in working with clergy and missionaries in their families. So it runs deep as the family business, as they say.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

Now, did I catch you right? Did you say clergy killing congregations?

SPEAKER_03 3:17

Yeah. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 3:18

What is that?

SPEAKER_03 3:19

Yeah, well, it's uh a phrase I think I picked up from a book and the the author's, I think it's Reidiger, if I remember right, the author's last name, uh, came up with that phrase clergy killers. But one story comes to mind. My grandfather used to talk about one of his churches that was just one big happy family, but they just didn't want any more relatives, was how he described the church. So it was very much a closed system and very challenging, just you know, people sort of really entrenched, stuck in their ways, and would just wait out the pastor for however long they were there and not really grow, not really invite anybody to church, not really even open unlock the doors and turn the lights on on Sunday morning so the neighborhood knew that that church was happening. And so that's a very difficult congregation to lead to get them to think sort of missionally and look outwardly and that sort of thing. So one of the more challenging roles that he he ever had. It's a really difficult folks in that congregation that were even, I would say, abusive to him in some of the stories he would share, which certainly can happen with clergy too, unfortunately. Sort of bullying tactics and abusive ways people can sometimes treat their pastors. So that those kinds of things and on very little resources, lower SES communities, suburbs of Boston, and yeah, lots of challenges. But he was faithful and fruitful in amazing ways.

SPEAKER_00 4:31

To what extent has that filtered into your current work?

SPEAKER_03 4:35

Yeah, I think I think a great deal. I mean, part of what informs my current work too is because of my dad's career, I was just in hundreds and hundreds of pastors' homes all my life growing up across a wide spectrum of denominational traditions. And that was an amazing exposure to a lot of different ecclesiologies and models of ministry and so forth, and also exposure to a lot of common pain that I would hear about across a lot of different contexts, just what it's really like, sort of on the inside of being a pastor and pastor's family. And then got into my own pastoral roles and have about 15 or so years in in vocational pastoral roles in a local church context and university chaplaincy. And I've been privileged to work with and work for just some absolutely phenomenal healthy leaders. And also I've seen up close some examples of really unhealthy leadership, and even what I would call pathological leadership, and seeing how destructive that can be. And so I think a lot of that fuels my passion to both uh um, you know, sort of help people flourish long-term in this very complex, very joyful, but very complex and stressful work in ministry leadership, as well as address, you know, when leadership behaviors really are out of bounds and problematic, you know, how do we how do we do church discipline with leaders in in ways that are redemptive for everyone if we can, and that's hard, but also have a lot of passion around that because I've just seen spiritually abusive leadership as well.

SPEAKER_00 5:59

Yeah, you've just described both sides of the coin. You've got and it's it's that's the human condition, whether you're that's plays out as a church that is being quite destructive and helpful, as well as the leader who who's doing that. Does that is that therefore the purview of the mental health and church initiative that you sit as yeah?

SPEAKER_03 6:21

It is. And in some senses, we've got two sort of main emphases. One is the the larger just mental health of a congregation. So how do we help pastors and leaders address pastoral care issues essentially? And pastors, people go to their pastor first often, which is a wonderful thing. And pastors may or may not have a lot of training in more complex, you know, severe, especially mental health kinds of issues. So we want to try to curate resources from across Roseme that some of my wonderful colleagues are working on and other key partners that have developed some really great resources for local congregations to be able to care for themselves well and their surrounding communities. And then the other main thrust is the Flourishing and Ministry project, which is really studying from a research perspective what are the factors and conditions and practices that not only prevent the things that we know are common and prevalent challenges for ministry leaders, but what promotes the long-term sustainability and flourishing. And so that research is ongoing, and we've developed a whole coaching initiative where we do group and individual coaching and have a coach training program to train flourishing ministry coaches that's accredited by the International Coaching Federation. And so it's a real joy to do that as well. So kind of two-pronged approach.

SPEAKER_00 7:38

Brilliant. So we caught up at the common table gathering in Houston, though you've been so generous with your time with me. We've we've had uh prior Zoom conversations as well. And um I wanted to chat with you, I think, about some of the things that you covered in your presentation. Sure. Firstly, you started off actually by saying that ministry is the role of clergy and ministry is quite unique.

SPEAKER_03 8:04

It is.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

It has very specific challenges. Could you just share a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_03 8:08

Absolutely. So um uh especially when you think about it as a helping profession, which it is, it certainly has things in common with other helping professions. So, for example, social workers, teachers, physicians, therapists, aspects that those professions have in common as caregivers and being sort of immersed in the human condition every day and trying to help people. But pastors have an absolutely unique role in the social ecology in which they live. So it's just a very unique role in terms of the way people relate to the role and the way that you're in people's lives is different than any other helping profession. For example, I have therapists that ask me, you know, what's it like to be a pastor? Help me understand. Therapists typically have, if they have a private practice, they're seeing clients in their office and they never see the clients outside of that 45, 50-minute hour. And I said, Well, imagine your whole caseload and they all know where you live and have your home phone number, and you see them at birthday parties and funerals and worship services and church potlucks, and just can't imagine what that would be like. I said, Well, that's that's the life of a pastor to sort of live in all these complicated dual, triple, quadruple relationships from birth to death. You're caring for people in a holistic way. There is nobody else, no other helping profession that that is in people's lives and that can be incredibly effective the way that pastors are. But the challenge in that is what psychologists call role immersion, which is being immersed in a role 24-7. One of my uh probably the greatest mentor I've had in my life was a man named Dr. Archibald Hart, who studied ministry stress and burnout uh really starting back in the 60s and 70s. And he was fond of saying that uh pastors don't get into difficulty because they forget that they're pastors, they get into difficulty because they forget that they're persons. And it's the toll of that 24-7 always in the role to some extent. Even when we're not at church or not sort of officially working, we're often thinking about a sermon or run into somebody in town at the grocery store, you know, late at night, let's say, and they see the pastor, and all of a sudden you're working to some extent, you know, doing pastoral care on the produce aisle of the grocery store or whatever it is. And and there are beautiful things about that, but that 24-7 nature of the role is just really unique. And it's a very complex role. The research I've been a part of looked at what's called a job analysis of pastors, which is what organizational psychologists do for all kinds of different jobs. And they they look at what are the sort of hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly tasks someone has to do to do this job well, and what are the competencies a person would need to have and the knowledge base and so forth. And the conclusion was there is no job that is as complex as being a pastor. The the different domains of expertise and knowledge and competency are so broad, and then switching rapidly between those in any given day, there just is no other job that really requires that breadth and rapid switching like pastoral ministry does. And so it's just a very complex, demanding role, and at the same time, very fulfilling and joyful. I think most pastors would say that I love this, I wouldn't change it for anything in the world, and at times I'm exhausted and it negatively impacts my emotional health, my physical health, my family at times, and all that sort of all in the mix together. But it's a wonderfully unique role. And so we want we try to help people think about what are the advantages of that you can leverage because of how you're in people's lives uniquely, and then what are the pitfalls, things we need to kind of watch out for, be mindful of.

SPEAKER_00 11:42

Yeah, there's some Australian data that uh mirrors that Chris, I don't know if it's been published, but um Archie Poulos, one of the academics, Bible College um academics here in in Sydney, his PhD thesis found um, I think up to nine different roles that has of those nine roles will have various competencies. So, you know, you've got the shepherd, you've got the um I think networker as well, but needing to actually network across the denomination. So for their listeners, you can Google Archie Pulos. I don't know if it's published yet, but he's mirrored that in um Australian data as well.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 12:20

Now I do recall reading a very old paper of yours that you actually concluded that clergy's levels of burnout as compared to different professionals, that same or worse than other helping professionals?

SPEAKER_03 12:34

Yeah, great question. Um, and and thank you for reading that article, by the way. What seemed to be the case, and and this was connected to the the Duke Clergy Health Initiative research, was that the level of burnout among the clergy in that study seemed to be about equivalent with teachers and social workers. It was the most similar to those other helping professions. So it wasn't the highest burnout rate. The highest burnout, I think maybe still is, at least in the United States, is uh law enforcement and first responders. So it wasn't as high as that, but it was a bit higher than some other helping professions. I mean, this is also pre-COVID. So I think during and after the pandemic, certainly medical professions, the burnout rate has just skyrocketed and probably gone up for pastors as well through that. But um But yeah, so it wasn't the absolute worst, but it also wasn't the lowest. It was kind of in the middle with teachers and social workers.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

Nevertheless, those are still professions that in Australia at least we're really concerned about the burnout and attrition rates.

SPEAKER_02 13:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:34

A recent article has just been published, I think 2025, trying to understand why we're losing so many teachers in Australia and why school principals actually experience self-harm and suicidal ideation. So even if they're on par, Chris, it's it's probably that's good news. Yeah, maybe. Um and I have a burning question for you. I have heard it said in conferences, and I've been challenged myself in conferences where someone will stand up and say, but if if our congregants are working full-time jobs and they're doctors and they're lawyers, and you know, they've got a rough job, and they turn up to church and they still volunteering Cube, therefore our pastors need to do more than what these people are doing. What are your thoughts about that?

SPEAKER_03 14:23

Yeah, no, I've heard that as well. Um kind of a multifaceted response to that, maybe. I think what what our research suggests is that most pastors are even if you take into account, let's say they're gonna volunteer, if you will, say 10% of their time in some ministry capacity through the church, they're still overworking. They probably need to dial it back about 20 to maybe even as much as 30% to be sustainable. And so what I think often is the case is parishioners and sometimes even church board members maybe aren't aware, haven't asked, have never done the role. So they're not aware of that role immersion piece and how much work pastors are putting in. And what I find is pastors actually are not aware of that themselves. So one of the things that I have folks do in like a doctorate ministry course or or a coaching client is go back for at least three or three to six months in their schedule and actually add up how much they've been working and how much time have you spent doing what in which category. So how many hours of sermon prep, how many hours of pastoral care, you know, how many hours of facilities management are you worrying about, you know, getting the plumbing fixed in the church building or whatever it is. And inevitably pastors come back and say, A, I wasn't aware of how much I was working total on average every week. And I wasn't aware of how much time I was spending doing certain things. And then the question is, should I be spending that much time doing those things based on the priorities of the congregation's mission and ministry at this in this season, my own strengths, my own time and energy management? Every pastor's gonna put in, you know, the 80, 90, 100-hour week, maybe from time to time because it's holy week or because there were three deaths in the congregation that week, or whatever it is. But but to do that every week, 90 hours a week, week after week after week, is gonna take a toll. It's gonna show up somehow in terms of physical health issues, emotional health issues, marriage and family issues, something. And so so often I think parishioners aren't aware of how much people are working who are just the multifaceted nature of it and the all-consuming nature of it. And the truth is sometimes they might be workaholics themselves, and for the for their own sake and rhythms may need to dial back how much they're working and not expect their pastor to to be a workaholic and overfunction.

SPEAKER_00 16:44

Which brings me to the flourishing in ministry research that you're doing. Tell us about that. You've got a model and you've collected data. Yes. And then we'll get into some of the findings.

SPEAKER_03 16:54

Great, sure. So I I always have to give credit to the originator of this research, Dr. Matt Bloom, B L O O M, who was at the University of Notre Dame when all of this began. And I was a part of the the team of folks for a number of years that were working on this, and then Dr. Bloom decided to retire from academia and handed the project off, which now has a home here at Rosemead, which I'm very uh honored to sort of steward. And what what he did so brilliantly initially was look at all of the leading models of human flourishing in the now global research on human flourishing and positive psychology. So I'm sure you know, Valerie, and many of your listeners know there's a huge, massive body of research now on the good life, the human flourishing. What does it mean to flourish? What does that look like? How do we define that? How do we measure it? How do we help that to happen in every culture and every context around the world sort of idea? And there isn't one definition of that, there isn't one model of that, but we looked at a lot of the leading models that do overlap significantly and put that in conversation with hundreds and hundreds of interviews with clergy from a diverse variety of backgrounds, all North American, by the way. And then developed a survey with a lot of the leading instruments that people had developed that we knew were sound in terms of the research behind them and scientifically valid and reliable and all those kinds of things, um, and refined that survey over years till we developed this model of flourishing that has five dimensions: daily well-being, resilience, thriving, authenticity, then the social ecosystem uh that that pastor is sort of living in, meaning like the congregational family system, if you will. And uh and then there's subcategories to each one of those. So we we developed uh an assessment tool that's free on our website for clergy to take. It's a web web-based app and takes about 20 minutes to complete, and people get a personalized profile in those key categories, and then the the app will suggest practices to them based on their scores that we know from the broader human flourishing research will boost their well-being in a particular area if they practice them with a certain frequency and and duration. And the amazing thing about those practices, by the way, that that positive psychology research is quote unquote discovering, and I put that in air quotes, is many, if not most of them, are ancient Christian spiritual practices. So they're not they're not really new to people of Christian faith, but science is sort of amazed that Christian meditation and scripture memorization and ignation spiritual exercises for St. Ignatius and all these practices that have been around for centuries are lo and behold, the very practices that help human beings and especially ministry leaders flourish when they they really engage in these sort of contemplative Christian spiritual practices. And so then we developed a coaching program out of that as well to help leaders kind of put together their own personalized rule of life or rhythm of practices to help sustain them long term and form their their healthy leadership.

SPEAKER_00 19:50

Aaron Powell Yeah. Well, your data set, how large is it?

SPEAKER_03 19:53

Uh it's somewhere north at the moment of about 12,000 clergy, again, all from North America, fairly diverse culturally, ethnically, and denominationally, mainline evangelical and Catholic clergy, men and women. Um and we're hoping to to grow that, of course, all the time.

SPEAKER_01 20:10

Fantastic.

SPEAKER_03 20:10

Especially in other parts of the world. And we're working on having the the resources translated into Spanish and Korean, because I get a lot of requests for that, so we can make that available to other folks who don't have English as a first language.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

Yeah. It's having dinner with the some friends, and um, you know, it's like, oh, I've been exposed to the amazing research that's coming out of the US and said, Oh yes, but you know, is it good research? I said, it's impressive research, you know. We can read uh journal articles when we're students where the sample size might be, you know, a couple of hundred, just enough to meet what you need for statistics. But when we're talking tens of thousands, um it's it's pretty impressive. And therefore the insights you get you can be pretty confident with. Well, let's go there then. Um what have you discovered, Chris? Yeah, out of your model and what what helps, what works clergy flourish?

SPEAKER_03 20:59

Yes. Well, we we are and I'll just mention this sort of the cutting edge of that research is we're we're a subset of those 10,000, not all 10,000 or 12,000 we have, I have longitudinal research on. So in other words, multiple data points over time, so we can look at what's shifting over time, either flourishing more or less. And that what's that gonna what that is gonna help us to do is understand how these different dimensions of flourishing are related to one another. And if someone sort of is in a positive spiral, which we know can happen, that the more resilient we are, then the more we thrive and have deeper authenticity, which leads to even more daily well-being and so forth. But to know a specificity, what does that really look like practically? What are the kind of the positive spiral phases and practices people go through? And then the same the other way around. What does that look like if a leader is sort of in a downward spiral, a spiral of ill-being, one might say? And we do know so far that daily well-being is the first thing that gets low for pastors. So just that sense of basically feeling pretty good physically, emotionally, relationally, spiritually, vocationally, and that's the first thing that takes a dip because of the daily stress and strain. And if it takes a uh a dip for too long, it starts to pull down all the other dimensions of well-being as well. So that's often where I'll start when I'm speaking to groups of clergy or coaching someone is just let's talk about your rhythms, your exercise and sleep, your physical health, and let's start there because that's often the first area to kind of take a look at and let's get that kind of on a good path, and then we can talk about some of the deeper issues, perhaps. But generally speaking, what we find, I think, is the contemplative spiritual practices from the Christian faith are particularly important for ministry leaders to build into their lives with some regularity. Not that other spiritual practices are unimportant, but these seem to me especially important, and we think in part because they're sort of about just listening to God, receiving from God, just being with God as a disciple, as a child of God. I don't have to perform in any sense, which is what religious leaders are called upon to do all the time is sort of religiously perform in some way. And To just step outside of that and just be a person loved by God and sort of bask in that in some way and remember who I am in that is really, really important and and sometimes challenging to do in the midst of all the busyness and demands of ministry. So taking a step back from the flow. We're also finding that small steps make a difference over time. So doing small practices, but doing them frequently and consistently. And this is the good news. For example, just five minutes of silent prayer a day, sometime in the middle of the day. Doesn't have to be long, doesn't have to be particularly profound, just sitting in God's presence and be quiet and still for five minutes. Not going to take away the bad day, but doing that every day, day in and day out, week in and week out, actually makes a significant difference over time to increase and enhance positive well-being, physical health, emotional health, spiritual well-being, all kinds of things. And so small practices done consistently and frequently really do make a difference. And then doing that in community in some way. I think that's the other big thing I would say we found is the isolation is what can be really difficult for leaders. And so having some place in your life to just be a person, to be cared about, to be able to process your own thoughts and feelings and to be known and loved is really, really important to long-term well-being.

SPEAKER_00 24:29

So I've got a couple of follow-up questions. So the when it comes back to the five factors in your model, does that speak to resilience, authenticity, the social ecosystem as well?

SPEAKER_03 24:40

Yeah, and there are there are practices in each one of those areas that we found that really jump out as particularly important. So I could I could jump through those two if you want. So in the resilience dimension, what seems to be the case that really helps people recover from or prevent burnout, promote resilience, are sort of emotional intelligence kinds of competencies. If if you and your listeners, I'm sure you are familiar with that concept, which is the capacity to cultivate self-awareness. What am I thinking and feeling and how am I behaving? Why am I thinking and feeling and doing what I'm doing? Where's that coming from? What's getting activated in me? And learning how to be aware of that and then respond rather than knee-jerk react out of that. And it just takes an enormous amount of emotional self-regulation skill to be a pastor. It really does. And so the research is is positive or hopeful in the sense that we can all grow in that. We can develop skills to get better and better at that. And that's that's one of the things that's so exhausting is because pastors are taking in all these interactions with all kinds of different people, some of which are very challenging at times. And I'm going to try to be kind and pastoral in response. And then what do I do with sort of the reservoir of stuff that I'm holding as a result of all of that? And am I processing that somewhere and learning how to grow in that and and so forth? A big piece of that too is assertiveness skills. We find that those are really helpful to develop. A lot of ministry leaders are uh are nice people, which is wonderful. They're care, they're caregivers, they're nurturers, and so they can even be conflict avoidant at times and not have developed conflict management skills or the capacity to be assertive, not aggressive, but just appropriately assertive. And that seems to be a really helpful skill to develop as well. The authenticity piece, we talk a lot about what's called job crafting, which is to sort of artfully design your time management, your energy management, your role around your strengths and gifts and passions at least 60% of the time or more over the course of, say, a year or more. Just because if it gets too far below that for too long, then anybody is going to burn out more quickly or disengage from their role more quickly. If they're spending most of their time doing stuff that they're not really gifted in, don't care about that much, doesn't breathe life into them. They've never been trained for it, as opposed to leading out of your strengths most of the time, which again, given the complex demands and role, the role overload you were describing earlier, can be challenging. So you have to be intentional about it. And that that job crafting piece uh can be really helpful. And then last thing I'll say, Valley, these are sort of macro level findings. There are many other things I could say. The strongest single predictor of long-term flourishing just by itself was if there is a a mutually supportive, mutually respectful relationship between pastor and congregational leadership, which, you know, duh, do we need research to tell us that? But but what what we're doing now is looking into that with more depth. What does that look like when that's going well? And what does that look like when it's not going well? How do we intervene so that the the congregational leadership is creating the kind of environment in which a pastor can flourish that the pastor still has to do their part, certainly. But it really is a both and it's both the organizational health and the leader health together that that lead to that long-term flourishing for everyone.

SPEAKER_00 28:03

I mean, that's my passion space. Yeah, I know it is. I'm very happy that.

SPEAKER_03 28:09

Which is why you're you're like my Australian BFF or something. But yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:13

Um I think that's powerful. And I think it's uh it's not an outdated thought. It's actually a very current thought in occupational health. I mean, one of the lovely things about being in Houston was hearing over and over again this is a public health concern. Yes. This is an occupational health concern.

SPEAKER_02 28:32

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 28:32

Um it's virtually impossible. I mean, in any role, even as a parent, it's virtually impossible for um me as a mom to self-care if the environment around me is is not healthy, is not great. So um, yeah, I'm I'm really pleased that the research shows that. And I suspect that the more we drill down into that, the more we'll actually discover the truth, the truth of that.

SPEAKER_03 28:57

Yes. There's there was a gentleman, I don't know, did you happen to meet Dr. Richard Dawkins uh in in Houston? So he he was there, he's come to the last several common tables. He's a retired MD, but was an occupational uh medicine guru for global companies and a really quite an amazing man. And in his retirement, he got really interested in like the health of pastors and caring for his own pastor. And so he just got more interested. And and he, through his occupational health lens, he said to me in a conversation once, he said, if this was any other profession, like if it was physicians, let's say, or nurses or lawyers or whatever, the profession itself would do something about these health issues. You you go in and you study a population, what's causing this, even in terms of their own choices, but also the organizational factors, and the profession itself would get together and do something about this and said, well, yeah, I I don't disagree with that, but that's a little harder to do in in the church for lots of reasons. But in some ways, that's what we're trying to do with something like Common Table and some of the other efforts to say, what is the research that seems to be true even in different countries, different cultures, and what can we do to intervene at a congregational level, at a denominational level, in the cases of churches that are in denominational structures that sometimes unintentionally are contributing to um the stress of pastors. They don't mean to be, but just the way it's set up sometimes is one of the contributing factors. And so so that's sort of the leading edge of the research and application of the research is how do we think about the organizational health side of it also.

SPEAKER_00 30:35

Yeah. And that relates to your um your relational, social and ecosystem that part of the model as well, isn't it? It's and it's at so many different levels. I think when we did the kids ministry well-being, ministry kids well-being, we saw that there's also very few occupations where the role filters into your family carrying the weight and the burden and the identity of it as well. So it actually eats into your family resources as well. So, you know, when we when we talk about other professions like the work family interference, we're really talking about maybe task intrusions. So maybe emails coming at night or you having to take a call in another time zone or traveling or things like that. Very rarely did the level of work family interference and intrusion go to the immersive space.

SPEAKER_02 31:27

Yes, that's exactly right. So well said.

SPEAKER_00 31:29

Right. Um, that is unique.

SPEAKER_02 31:32

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 31:33

Except maybe for military, but even then, in the military, you know, your your spouse and your kids are are protected from knowing to such soul classified anyway.

SPEAKER_03 31:43

Yes. Well, and even in the military, there are times when you're on and times on duty and times when you're not. And the military has figured out how to pull people off the front lines after a certain period of time because it's not psychologically sustainable, you know, to be exposed to combat trauma and all those kinds of things. And you're absolutely right. There are implications for pastoral marriages and families and kids that are unlike any other job because that the family, it's a whole family deal, and the whole the families also goes to church there and also knows all the same people, and it just gets really, really complicated really quickly. There are many wonderful things about that as well. And a lot of pastors' kids, including me, would tell you there have been wonderful benefits to that, but there are also some hard things for sure.

SPEAKER_00 32:25

Absolutely. Well, let's go to some practical things now. So the daily well-being, I thought that that was fascinating. I'm currently reading myself and the scholarly literature about looking at a job or work at a daily level. Um I think ministry is so granular at the daily level. You could be dealing with a crisis, you could be dealing with emails coming in to prepare for your annual general meeting. There's there's a lot of daily intrusions and variety, and and a lot of it is not predictable.

SPEAKER_03 33:01

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 33:02

Do you think that you know you were saying that when your well-being at a daily level goes down, it's hard, I think, for pastors to set regular rhythms for their well-being? They might get busy, they might get discouraged. Yes. And then just think, oh, well, you know.

SPEAKER_03 33:16

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 33:17

That sort of daily When you talk about practices at a daily level, what do you know to be from your research some of the most effective things the pastor can engage in and just know that that's a non-negotiable.

SPEAKER_03 33:30

Yes. Such a wonderful question. And in some ways, that's sort of the million-dollar question, Valerie. Because and this is where some form of coaching can be helpful too, because a lot of pastors will go on retreats and take a sabbatical, which is a wonderful practice, highly encourage that. The the challenge with that, though, is you have to come back from the sabbatical or the retreat and go back into the daily. So, what can I do on a daily basis to help is is really, you know, it's also very important. Um, a couple of things from a time management perspective, I think about pace and boundaries. And so, for example, it is an inherently unpredictable job. In fact, early in the flourishing ministry research, we set out to do through really sophisticated research methodology to kind of track the typical rhythm of your average North American pastor in terms of well-being and stress. And we were just curious what would that typical ebb and flow look like? And the big research finding was there is no typical ebb and flow. It's an inherently unpredictable job, right?

SPEAKER_01 34:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 34:30

And so, and all pastors know this. So part of what we suggest and people find really helpful is to leave part of your schedule, maybe even up to at least 10, but up to maybe even 30% of your day unscheduled, which sounds counterintuitive and counterproductive. But um, and for pastors, we know something's coming, don't know exactly what, maybe, or exactly when, or you may have some inklings, but if you're scheduled completely full and then the unpredictable thing comes, then we're stressed because we don't have margin to absorb that and address it. So building in margin for the unpredictables, unpredictable stuff. Also, faceting the job can be helpful. So in fact, I was doing group coaching yesterday with a group of clergy here in LA and they were talking about this, that they they've created blocks of time for certain things. And so as as opposed to jumping from answering this email to doing that pastoral care conversation to back to my sermon prep, and then somebody else comes in and interrupts and to actually block out, I'm gonna do sermon prep for several hours in this chunk. You know, unless there's some kind of major emergency and you define what that is for your staff or your volunteers, I'm gonna leave that uninterrupted. Then I'm gonna take this couple of hours and respond to email, then I'm gonna take this block of time and do pastoral visitation or pastoral counseling. It can't always flow and nice and neatly that way, but to try to do things in blocks can be really helpful. The other one that I've had people contact me after they heard me share with a group of clergy somewhere or read an article, they've gone out of their way like a year later and come back to find me and say, hey, this was a game changer for me. And it's a practice we call ending on a high note. And the idea is that you go back to one of the things that brings you the most joy in ministry and that really matters to your church or to your ministry context at the end of the workday for at least 20 minutes or so minimum, which often is not gonna be at 5 p.m. like most jobs, it might be at 7 p.m. or midnight or whatever, but for at least 20 minutes to go back to one of those things that brings you joy that really matters. Again, that's not it's not a panacea, it's not gonna take away the really bad day, but doing that regularly, day in and day out, week in and week out, just staying in touch with the joy of ministry as the last thing that you do for the day makes a big difference over time in terms of preventing burnout, promoting flourishing. Just stay in touch with that joy that that's part of why you said yes to God's voice in the first place, part of what you love about what you get to do, um breathes life into you in some way, that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_00 37:05

This reminds me, I've got one of your slides in front of me now. You talk about perspective taking. Some of the positive daily coping practices is to have that perspective, helps you then focus on what is in your control, what you need to let go, and then to for the things that you can is to work out what you can do.

SPEAKER_02 37:22

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 37:23

And then, you know, finishing with your ministry day, really focusing on where um I like to say to my clients too, where you saw God working, yes, where you saw yourself working in partnership with that. Because I think that helps us shape the perspective that this is a job that I'm responsible for. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 37:40

Um and and that's such an important one. In fact, we found that pastors who flourish long term really approach ministry in exactly the way you just articulated, with the assumption that God's already at work in the world and I'm gonna join in with what God's doing, and ultimately leave the results of that up to God, which is difficult because you know, we all want to have sort of markers of achievement and be able to see what you've accomplished, and that's sometimes very difficult on any given day in ministry. How how do you see the results, if you will, of spiritual formation in a congregation or people's lives? And we get glimpses and encouragements, but I've had so many pastors say to me, I wish I could be a landscape architect for like a week. I could go at the end of the day, I could see what I had done, I could go by the next day and still see it.

SPEAKER_01 38:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 38:27

And to learn to rely on that process of being in ministry with God makes all the difference in the world.

SPEAKER_00 38:34

It really does. And I'd love to finish with asking you about something that you said in the conference, front stage, backstage, off stage. Can you say a bit of about that, Chris?

SPEAKER_03 38:45

Absolutely. And and this I I borrow from um from Dr. Bloom, who I think borrowed this from I'm blanking on the researcher's name. It wasn't a psychologist, I think it was a whole nother field of of scholarship altogether. But the the idea is that a lot of what uh clergy do, at least that people experience in a congregation or community, is on the front stage, so to speak. So in other words, it's highly visible. They're performing a role, preaching, officiating, weddings and funerals, administering sacraments, leading community meetings, board meetings, Bible studies, whatever it is. And so we need those healthy front stage relationships like what I described earlier, that are allies in ministry that are mutually supportive, respectful, kind of on board it in appropriate ways, can defer to pastoral leadership, and not that there isn't appropriate accountability and even healthy conflict to some extent. But generally speaking, you know, are are sort of those helpful allies. But then we also need a backstage. What's the backstage? That's where we prepare for the front stage, all the behind-the-scenes work that happens in the life of a church. We rehearse. People often, until they've done it or really see the backstage, don't understand the hours and hours and some ways years of work that go into making Sunday morning happen well in a worship service and sermon preparation and all of that. In fact, seminary students that come to seminary, they they've seen one of your listeners in action on a Sunday morning, you know, phenomenal gifts and teaching and preaching, and they think, oh, I could see myself doing that. And they come to seminary thinking it's like 90% front stage. Only to find out that it might even be the reverse. And I've asked pastors to say this, they say, Oh, no, no, it's about 90% backstage. The 10% people see has an enormous amount of backstage behind it. And so what we say is people need healthy backstage relationships. Other colleagues, if they're at a church large enough to be blessed to have staff in some way, a community of practice, other people that do what you do in the same profession that get your world, you can at least every now and then get together with and uh be supportive, even be transparent and vulnerable and accountable and encouraging, all those wonderful things. It's enormously life-giving. Mentoring relationships, having what uh Dr. Bloom called a wise guide, someone to who's a bit further along, been there and done that, and can can help you avoid pitfalls and speak into your life in wise kinds of ways. Those kinds of backstage relationships are key. And then what we suggest everybody needs is an offstage. You need a place to step out of the role and be a person in a healthy sense. So that certainly happens in a healthy marriage and family where you're fully known, fully loved, can be a whole person, and don't have to be in your role. But I also recommend that pastors have at least one close personal friendship, ideally outside of their congregation. And the the reason I say that is it's someone who knows you're a ministry leader, believes in that, knows your gifts, is fully supportive. Um, but you don't have to be their pastor. You don't have to always be mindful of that role and in some ways the inherent power differential that comes with that role. You can just be a person, you can just be a friend and fully spontaneously laugh, cry, vent, talk about your fears, enjoy a hobby, all those kinds of things. And really important to have that offstage space.

SPEAKER_00 42:15

Yeah, I heard um someone say that, you know, who is who is your 2 a.m. friend? Um who is your 2 a.m. friend you can call? Actually, I I know who said that. Sheridan Voisey has a thing called a friendship lab. Um, listeners can look that up. I think it's good.

SPEAKER_03 42:28

Wonderful. What a great title.

SPEAKER_00 42:29

It's yeah, who who I wasn't, you know, as soon as soon as I heard it, I actually got off and I asked myself the question. I asked my husband the question, who's your 2am friend other than us? Another would just nudge one another. Yeah. And if we can't name that person, I think we need to go and find that person.

SPEAKER_03 42:44

Yes. You know, I had pastors say that. So many of them say, well, I used to have a close friend or so and so, and I I can't like make that happen, which is true. I mean, you have to pray for that, and that has to evolve over time. But I'll I'll give you a quick example. I'm I'm blessed to have several long-term friendships with my best friend I've known since seventh grade. We met in youth group at church, and um this is probably two years or so ago. I was driving here in LA, Los Angeles in traffic, and was was a little down, not not severely, but I had a really heavy couple of weeks of work, really good work, but really intense. I was a little depleted, frankly, probably had not been taking care of myself the way that I know I should have been. My friend, his name's Trey, he called me. He's in Nashville, Tennessee, where I grew up, a couple thousand miles away. Calls me on the phone, I said hello, and he just heard me say one word, and he said, What's wrong? And I started to tear up, and then I shared, and he cared for me. And I thought, you know, that's a friend who, in one word over the phone, could tell I wasn't a hundred percent. Now, he can also call me out on my issues and my own brokenness and my own unhealthy patterns like nobody else in my life because he's known me since seventh grade, right? And I also need that in my life too. He will tell me the truth about myself in love. He'll do it in love.

SPEAKER_00 44:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:00

And and vice versa. I mean, that's that's and we all need that.

SPEAKER_00 44:03

Yeah. I mean, that's the thing. He's speaking not to the role, to the person. So it's the love comes from being able to tell you the truth because he loves you and knows you that's right.

SPEAKER_03 44:13

And what's the best for me? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:15

To finish up, if there is one thing that you could say to congregations, because I think you've given loads of gems to our pastors. If there's one thing you could say to congregations about being that ecosystem for their pastor, what would you want to say?

SPEAKER_03 44:31

Wow, what a wonderful question. And there's so many things I think I'm trying to narrow down in my mind what's what's the one thing I'd want to say. I think probably uh to think about what it means to be a healthy church family or the healthy body of Christ is analogous to the immune system in the body. So if in our bodies, if there's an infection, a dis-ease, then our immune system mobilizes and the white blood cells surround the infection and either take care of it or somehow eject it from the body, that kind of thing. And really healthy churches are able to function that way, where the congregation will lovingly conversation. confront itself when there are people that are behaving in toxic ways, disruptive ways, ways that are certainly inappropriate to treat their leadership. And so it doesn't leave the pastor to be the only one all the time who has to deal with the really difficult parishion. But the system itself will come around that in love, but also you know, sort of firm loving boundaries and say that's not acceptable behavior here. Let let us help you live differently. And so that that takes an enormous amount of stress off the pastor when there's sort of healthy conflict resolution processes that other people are willing to engage in and not just leave the pastor to be the one to do it all the time.

SPEAKER_00 45:48

That's wonderful. Oh well thank you so much, Chris for spending time with myself and our listeners and viewers too goes on video. Yes I'm very much looking forward to connecting with you as I continue with my own research.

SPEAKER_03 46:01

Anytime Valerie it's such a privilege to be with you and thank you for what you're doing. It's just fantastic work and I look forward to staying connected and uh thanks for the privilege. It's a real blessing.