Focus On The Family Survey Of Stressful Pastors Considering Leaving The Ministry

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A research of pastors’ self-care shows that “over 70% of pastors considering leaving the ministry due to stress” and around 90% pastors think of leaving the ministry once and feel “worn out on a weekly or daily basis”. The number is surprising. When a person hears the calling and comes to the seminary to equip himself/herself with the knowledge of God, s/he may never think about someday s/he will want to quit this scary job. The Focus on the Family survey finds out that “most of the full-time pastor work over forty hours a week, 62% of the pastors work more than fifty hours, and 20% work more than sixty hours a week”. High intensive working load occupies the pastors’ personal time. They do not have enough time to sleep or eat well, not even to mention the leisure time. The pastors work as hard as the lawyers and consultants, but they only gain less than one-tenth salary. With the lack of both material and spiritual sources, it is not difficult to imagine how stressful the pastors are. The stress pastors have in the ministry is not accumulated after years’ work in the church. The ministry work is always stressful. A research from Duke University shows that “85% seminary graduates entering the ministry leave within five years and 90% of all pastors will …show more content…

One characteristic of Chinese church is that the ministry heavily relies on the volunteers. Lack of human source forces the pastors to do everything by themselves. They do not have time to take care of their family. Some of them ask their family members to volunteer in the church ministry. Then they do not have a boundary between their workplace and personal life. The entire family may burnout. This reminds me of the couple pastors of HopeGateWay. Since both of the couple work in the church, it is difficult to make a clear line between church ministry and family