http://worldcat.org/entity/work/id/198508241

Clergy stress and coping spiritual maturity, marital satisfaction, social support, and burnout among evangelical protestant pastors

This study was intended to explore the relationship between perceived social support, marital satisfaction, spiritual maturity and burnout among pastors in full-time ministry. A sample of 197 full-time pastors was surveyed within an evangelical Protestant denomination across several regions of the United States. Three factors were identified as predicting burnout as defined by Maslach, C., Jackson, S.E. and Leiter. M.P. (1997). These included interpersonal support, psycho-spiritual trouble and psycho-spiritual power. Interpersonal support represents the degree of support one experiences within interpersonal relationships, including the marital relationship. The psycho-spiritual trouble factor describes an unstable, distressed and conflictual relationship with God and one or more persons. The psycho-spiritual power factor consists of three variables including high awareness of God, high grandiosity: and high impression management. Utilizing the Spiritual Assessment Inventory (SAl: Hall & Edwards, 1996; 2002) results indicate that emotional exhaustion and depersonalization is predicted by high psycho-spiritual trouble and low interpersonal support. Moreover, clergy's sense of personal accomplishment is predicted by high interpersonal support and low psycho-spiritual trouble. Interestingly, clergy tend to experience a greater frequency of personal accomplishment when they are aware of God's presence, overestimate their spiritual significance, and who engage in impression management. The study concludes with a discussion about the etiology of clergy burnout and protective factors serving to promote clergy health and coping. Recommendations are offered to individual pastors and denominations based upon the current study and previous research and literature in the area of clergy burnout.

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