November 8, 2023 • 44 mins
As our season draws to a close, I began to contemplate leadership in a wider context, beyond just Australia and parish settings, I was drawn to explore international issues of leadership in gospel work.
Our guest, Timothy Captain from Flourish San Diego, brings his unique insight derived from his PhD thesis, the Holistic Pastoral Well-being Assessment. Timothy provides a comprehensive understanding of pastoral well-being, examining it from spiritual, psychological, physical, social, and economic perspectives.
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!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Valerie Ling (00:01):
Dear listener, welcome to another episode of
the Clergy Wellbeing Down Underpodcast.
It's Valerie Ling.
I'm a clinical psychologist andI am your host for today.
The podcast is being producedunder the banner of the Centre
for Effective Serving, which isa leadership and workplace
well-being consulting arm that Ilead.
(00:21):
I also lead a Centre forEffective Living, which is a
psychology practice located inSydney.
Many of our psychologists areChristians and on any given week
are supporting our ministry andmission families of here in
Australia and around the world.
(00:42):
We are currently recruiting fortwo full-time equivalent
positions, that is, forpsychologists to join the Centre
for Effective Living to workwith us in our mission to see a
world without burnout.
If you know someone who is aregistered psychologist, a
(01:04):
student who is soon to be aregistered psychologist, someone
who is planning to move toAustralia and would love to be
registered as a psychologist,would you send them our way?
The best thing to do is to sendthem the link
wwweffectivelivercomau slashjoin-our-team.
(01:27):
I'll put the link in thepodcast description as well.
I hope you enjoy this episode.
Greetings everybody.
I'm so pleased to introduce youto a new guest.
I myself have just met himonline.
(01:48):
His name is Timothy Captain andhe is part of the Flourish San
Diego, a leadership developmentorganisation for churches, and I
love this.
That will love San Diego forlife.
I just love that so much.
Tim has also completed a PhDvery recently.
(02:13):
The title of that thesis wasthe development of the Holistic
Pastoral Well-being Assessment.
Timothy Captain (02:19):
That's correct.
Valerie Ling (02:21):
So welcome Tim to the podcast.
Timothy Captain (02:24):
Thank you very much.
It's so wonderful to be withyou.
Valerie Ling (02:28):
Tell us a little bit about Flourish.
Timothy Captain (02:31):
Yeah.
So I actually joined Flourishas a pastor.
I've about 15 years pastoralministry experience and one of
the things I was craving anddesiring was a group of people
that were thinking aboutholistic life to the
discipleship, thinking aboutways that were helping people
(02:51):
not just inside the church butalso outside the church in our
cities to flourish and to seetheir part in God's kingdom just
take part.
And so I just kind of found,honestly, this group of people
in San Diego that was juststarting up, and so really the
(03:13):
mission and the drive ofFlourish is to support pastors
that have this view of the city,and as we do that together,
we've started kind of looking atadding different elements of
support, and that's really wherewe got into the work of
researching and developingassessments for well-being but
also supporting pastors in theirwell-being.
Valerie Ling (03:34):
Incredible.
And what was the motivation ofyour thesis?
Why do a PhD devoted to thisissue?
Timothy Captain (03:42):
Right.
So my PhD is in leadership and,as I looked at my own journey
and kind of my years in ministrybut I also have two brothers in
ministry I grew up in aministry family and surrounded
with folks through seminary andotherwise, you just see burnout,
you see all sorts ofdestruction happen because of, I
(04:08):
would say, malpractice frompastors in many various ways,
and so really that caused me tosay there's got to be ways for
us to look at this and there's alot of great work from
psychologists such as yourself.
But I think there's a lot ofroom for different voices to
come in, and so I approached itmore from being somebody who has
(04:32):
worked for many, many years inpastoral ministry, trying to
take that experience and lookmore into why some of these
various aspects contribute towell-being or not.
Valerie Ling (04:46):
Malpractice too.
That's interesting.
Yes, I'd love to hear moreabout what you think about that.
Timothy Captain (04:53):
Well, I think that if we had other professions
so physicians, for example thatso poorly took their own advice
and or worked directly againsttheir own medical advice, we
would call that malpractice,because there's a sense in which
(05:14):
they are doing the exactopposite.
They are perhaps causing harmin a field in which they've
sworn or taken an oath to.
That's the number one rule notdo harm.
And so as we look globally, butas we look into very specific
local contexts, we see wherepastors have done harm and,
(05:36):
unfortunately, are developing areputation of being a profession
that has done harm.
Unfortunately, parishioners,they're doing harm to themselves
, and so those who areadvocating for caring and loving
and hope and salvation, allthese things that is a message
(05:56):
that is non-harmful, and theyare being trained in seminaries
to do this are, for whateverreason, not experiencing that,
oftentimes in their own lives.
Valerie Ling (06:08):
Oh, wow, I think you just gave me goosebumps
there.
You know, I presented at achurch looking at the mental
health situation for youngadults in a post-pandemic world
and I got off and I asked one ofthe young people listening in.
I said what do you think?
Have I kind of got it, you know, am I heading in the right
(06:29):
direction?
And they said to me one morething In our time we have seen
so many public pastors fall andchurches, you know, really
scattered and it's like we don'tknow anymore if we can even
trust when we walk into church.
There's no safety for us Evenwhen we walk into church.
(06:50):
Or, you know, when we'relistening to sermons, it's so
tiring because we don't knowwhether to take it into our
hearts or not.
I'm like, whoa, okay, that'spretty major.
So, you know, I think it ismuch like a health professional.
We don't just have aresponsibility to the individual
, we actually have aresponsibility to the public to
(07:13):
ensure that we're safe.
Wow, so I read your dissertationNot all of it, but most of it
and you were basically lookingto create an instrument that
looked at all the dimensions ofwell-being, and I really love
(07:34):
this.
So, you know, you looked atspiritual, psychological,
physical, social and economicdimensions of well-being, and I
think we'll put the link to thatto the PDF of your dissertation
it is online Because I thoughtthat even the instrument and the
questions that you were usingwere so telling of what happens
(07:54):
in the ministry space.
What were, if you can rememberwhat were some of your key
findings?
Timothy Captain (08:00):
Yeah.
So I was attempting to validatethis instrument, to kind of add
a potential tool to the toolboxfor so many professionals
trying to help pastors, and soone of the findings that I was
attempting to do was to validatethat as an instrument, and so I
have kind of a mixed bag onwhether it's statistically
(08:23):
validated there, and so folkswho are really numbers, people
like me can go in and dig intothat and make up their own minds
about how valid or not thisinstrument is.
But I think the moreinteresting feedback, if I may,
would be that there is a broadspectrum of where pastors are at
(08:45):
in their well-being and thatbroad spectrum in those five
different categories are not howto put it, totally related to
one another.
So, for example, a person maybe reporting that they are
spiritually doing really reallywell, meanwhile really
(09:06):
struggling socially, and so someof the hopefully helpfulness of
this kind of way of thinkingabout well-being is to
understand that there is auniqueness to each situation and
each pastor in their experienceof well-being and there's many
different ways to encouragepastors.
(09:29):
But there's also a lot of waysthat pastors can be tripped up,
and so pastors were sharing allsorts of different kind of
personal experiences andfollow-up interviews.
A couple of the kind ofmeta-analysis findings is that
age was highly correlated withoverall well-being.
So if you put all those fivecategories together a pastor's
(09:52):
age was a very tell tell sign ofkind of what their score might
be.
And the finding was that age, aspastors got older, their
well-being actually improved orincreased and so kind of suggest
to us that perhaps youngpastors specifically are in
(10:12):
times of life in which perhapsthey haven't developed the tools
or the skills, therelationships, things like that,
to cope with the anxiety andthe stresses of ministry.
And that might be something thatwe could, as seminaries or as
supports go, let's pay attentionto specific pastors in early
(10:35):
years of life.
The other thing was that therewas specific denominational
backgrounds that had impact, forwhatever reason, on well-being
scores, and so the specificgroup of independent Christian
churches or restoration movementchurches in my study that had
(10:56):
almost a 10% deduction insomebody's expected well-being
just by being theologicallyaffiliated there.
So there's more work to be donebut we know that certain groups
or theological backgrounds maynot have support or may not be
providing enough support topastors there, or it may be
(11:20):
contributing to pastors who feelisolated because they don't
have a denominational systembehind them, or they've been
trained or taught to have kindof a Superman theology, that
they are it and they're going tosave the world, but that puts
them on a lonely island.
That, then, is a dangerousplace to be.
(11:42):
So those are a few of thefindings, real quick there.
Valerie Ling (11:45):
Well, I think you find that that resonates with
not just my tiny survey, which Idid, but also what's out there
in Australia.
So young people who are youngerin ministry and probably even
in mission, I'd say, fromrecollecting what I've read
probably have lower levels ofself-concept, lower levels of
self-awareness.
They just haven't seen enoughof life really to understand and
(12:10):
to navigate the hard knocks.
Plus, they usually come withfamily and kids as well.
That's right.
I mean, I think I noticed thisin your paper and this could be
the other reason is that thepeople who are older, who are
still in ministry, they haven'tresigned, attritioned, gotten
sick, so they're alsorepresenting probably a group of
(12:31):
people that have been able toendure, for whatever reasons.
So we certainly finding thathere, and a very small.
Just like you, you know, wehave to be so careful what
statistics we put out.
There was a very small effectcorrelation that I got that one
particular denomination whichwere the factors at slightly
(12:53):
lower levels of loneliness, forexample, than some of the other
denominations.
Now they also have women intheir clergy, whereas in Sydney,
particularly in Sydney, that'snot the case for all
denominations, but there wassome suggestion that the way
that denomination resourced theministers and the way the
(13:16):
governance was structured mayfacilitate more connectivity.
So I think that that's probablysomething that might want to be
looked at in the future.
Timothy Captain (13:28):
Yeah, and some of the things I think are good
about again considering pastors,and one of the things I urge as
a kind of a limitation but alsoa future place that we can, as
supporters of pastoral wellbeing consider, is to consider
pastors in their kind of matrixof relationships, in their
(13:52):
denominations, and see them notjust as an individual to be
studied but to really kind ofthink about them in that.
And so some of the follow upconversations that I had with
pastors kind of cause me torealize like, oh yes, this is
somebody who, as we see them, asa multi dimensional individual,
(14:13):
they also have multipledimensions of relationships, of
supports, of a lack thereof, andstories that come behind that.
So, for example, one pastorshared that their economic well
being was a key point in theirfamily stress.
At that time they had littlechildren.
(14:34):
They're trying to navigate allof that.
They're far away from familysupport to cover childcare and
at the same time, carrying debtfrom when they were a youth
minister and weren't paid verywell, and so they're really
struggling with all of thiseconomic impact in their family,
(14:55):
in their ministry, because ofthis specific time of life, not
because of spiritual downfall,not because of other pieces like
that, but because of the timeof life that they're going to be
in, and so that's the time oflife that they're in.
Valerie Ling (15:07):
Yeah, I wrote.
I read the sentence, I'vewritten it down here.
I think what you said was inyour mixed method and I thought,
yeah, this makes a lot of sense.
So what I think you were sayingis the ability to have the
agency to then talk about theirresults.
You were saying, you know thatwas really the meaningful thing.
It wasn't just here's a scaleand here's where you come up
with the results, but it was theability to dialogue, to reflect
(15:32):
, to make sense of the theirparticular context and the hope
then of what can we do with this.
I mean, you've written here Ithink you said personal
experience of well-being shouldbe handled with a sensitive,
with sensitivity, to appreciatenuance, complexity, pain that
the individual has.
I Think it's so right, like wehave ministry families, you know
(15:56):
, different states in Australia,for example, have different
financial arrangements andSometimes even a family of six
can be living in a three bedroomhouse.
You know, and and as thechildren are growing up and
becoming bigger, everybody'scontext is quite different, and
so I love how you you're reallygoing for, you know, checking in
(16:18):
individually with ministers andtheir well-being and pastors
and their families andUnderstanding their individual
context as well and making senseof the of the data.
Timothy Captain (16:30):
Yeah, yeah, it's so important.
Valerie Ling (16:34):
Now you might have had a chance to look to see
what my survey found.
I was curious.
Did anything kind of pop up foryou, tim, when you were looking
at it?
Timothy Captain (16:47):
Yeah, and so I think for me, the helpfulness
here is a Reiteration of thepoint in just some very clear
ways.
So great work to you and again,so glad that you're Others are
working in this space.
I think that for me, the thingthat pops up most importantly to
(17:08):
me is to think about howdemographics and some of those
pieces play in with folks'sexperience, because I do think
that there's a Individual levelcare and expertise that support
systems need to provide.
But this is also one of thethings that I think, as we can
(17:32):
look at a macro level, become soimportant to think about.
How do we influence, forexample, seminaries, or how do
we think about developing andmoving past just Telling the
story and finding ways to, forexample, measure like what I was
trying to do Pastoralwell-being to going well?
(17:55):
What are the things thatactually help people Rebound out
of seasons of burnout?
How do we help develop moreunderstanding about this in
seminaries or in trainingprograms and denominational
support systems?
And really, I think some of thedemographics that, from your
work, we're very telling aboutways that perhaps we have failed
(18:20):
has leaders and the supportsystems in specific groups, that
these are groups that we haveoverlooked, whether it's
supporting women, their roles,or whether it's certain, for
example, staff sizes and peoplethat maybe in I don't know
whether in your australiancontext is the same in us, but
(18:41):
oftentimes we platform leadersfrom mega churches or from large
Organizations and say this ishow you should do ministry.
Meanwhile, most Ministers aresolo ministers or those who are
really struggling.
That's not encouraging to thembecause they go back and go, oh,
but I can't pull this off, andso it adds on to that weight or
(19:05):
that burden, and so those werethe few of the things that I saw
in there that I was reallyencouraged to see a patience in
the termination and looking atthose individuals that may be.
We sometimes just forget thatEveryone's experiences aren't on
the same playing field.
They haven't been given thesame opportunities or care or
(19:28):
support, and so we need toRepent of that, I think.
I think we need to come backand say when are our systems of
support, of training, missingthese individuals?
Valerie Ling (19:40):
Yeah, I like what you're saying there.
I think you know that anindividualized concern.
Sometimes I think we can try tobe reductionistic to simplify
the picture, but you know, aFemale staff person in a large
church with multiple caringroles at home and at church, who
(20:01):
hasn't been theologicallyequipped, not being mentored, is
a really individualizedsituation that is vulnerable,
very vulnerable.
Yeah, and you know so.
We have had situations.
It is, you know, not a commonthing where a minister of a
Maybe a smaller church or a moreunder resourced, or even just
(20:23):
from a poorer suburb, you know,goes to a large Conference and
comes back with panic attacksbecause how are they going to do
that in their church of 40?
Where half of them are in a 70and above?
You know, how are we going todo them?
And all of those expectationsof self, the perfectionism, you
(20:44):
know, the, the fear of failure,just can really collapse on us.
So I think there are, there isa need for us to be interested
in the individuals as well asthe church history.
You know what, what makes thatchurch Joyful, thriving and
vulnerable, because that thatmarriage, if you like, is also
(21:08):
very unique.
This is the midpoint break forthe podcast, if you want to put
a pause and walk away and comeback.
Make sure you do check out thedescription for all the various
downloads that we have for you,including my full report,
research and reflections.
You might also want to rememberto like, share and subscribe.
(21:30):
So stop now or keep going.
That's right, yeah, yeah, andwhat did you think about?
The sum of the correlationsbetween burnout and the
destructive leadership practicesare?
Be curious what you thought,because Flourish being
leadership, this is your, thisis your space.
I mean, what are your thoughtsthere?
(21:50):
I?
Timothy Captain (21:51):
think that One of the things that we have had
multiple kind of round tableconversations with is the role,
at least in the United States,that violence, that Continued
acts of hatred againstparticular racial groups, and
(22:14):
how these things affect peoplein ministry and their experience
of ministry.
And so I think, first of all,being able to bring these
conversations to the surface isso important, and so I think
clergy in general and are havingto respond, oftentimes before
(22:39):
they have been formed in theseAreas, and so I think that I
really appreciated the Kind ofparallel that you draw between
pastors or clergy and Thenprinciples, because I think
that's very, very true in that Ican imagine principles needing
(23:02):
to have a response, needing tohave Policy or needing to have
well, we're gonna wake uptomorrow and it's another school
day and I felt that as a very,very good Kind of connection
point for a lot of folks torealize that you know, pastors
do this every single day andweek is they get up and they go,
(23:24):
another Sunday's coming or anact of violence happens and I
have to be there to participate,and so I've found that to be
true in our flourished groups ofpastors in the research.
But I'll just tell a briefstory personally, where this
happens in many different waysof for me as a young pastor,
(23:48):
calling on those who are sick orin hospitals.
I knew that was going to happen.
One day I got called in and toa hospital and and got ushered
straight through the emergencyroom into a very, very gory
scene.
A young woman had had aterrible accident and Basically
I was not prepared to walk inand see blood and all sorts of
(24:13):
different things going on,meanwhile being asked to support
the husband as he watches hiswife die in front of him.
And I went home that night andhad basically I would say, some
kind of post-traumatic stresskind of reaction where I was not
able to sleep and I was goingwho do I talk to?
(24:36):
And realizing in my supportsystem, in my support network, I
don't know who to talk to aboutwhat just happened.
I can't talk to anybody in mycongregation because they're
mourning and grieving and notable in some ways to support me
in that.
(24:56):
Fortunately, because I'm in afamily of pastors, I was able to
call out my own dad in themiddle of the night and say dad,
I don't really know what to dowith this.
I can't sleep.
This is a horrible, horriblesituation.
I just keep seeing the scenesreplay in my mind, and so I
think exposure to these thingsis something that we don't need
(25:20):
to over glorify it, we don'tneed to make it something that
is going well.
You're not a real pastor unlessyou've seen or done these
things.
But for many pastors, theywould be able to tell a whole
litany of stories like this thatcome to mind for them that
they've been exposed to thesethings, and oftentimes,
(25:42):
unfortunately, like for me earlyon in the ministry at that time
I didn't have a psychologist,friends or people on call that I
was ready to call up and havethat support.
And so I think, absolutely thisresearch that you're doing,
that is, saying these are thelevels of exposure to these
(26:02):
things on the front end, explainsome of the emotional numbness,
some of the responses ofisolation, of isolating because
I feel like I can't talk toanybody.
Then I think it also leads toquestions about how much do we
see patterns of response wherethat malpractice or that
(26:26):
actually harming others comes in, and so that's a missing link
for me.
I would love to see continuedresearch, for example, of those
pastors who are overly exposedto this, with heightened
awareness to these things?
Do they go home and have higherlevels of violence in the home,
higher levels of burnout?
(26:46):
That contributes to all sortsof different pieces in their
congregations, and so I wasn't.
As I read your work there, Iwasn't sure whether that was
linked at all, but I'm socurious about that.
Valerie Ling (27:00):
Yes, I think that was the.
I did my Masters of Leadershipin a secular environment and I
think my supervisors went onquite the journey with me.
They were mind blown, I think,about some of these things and
the potential for futureresearch.
And one of those things is howunaware we are to the exposure
(27:26):
that not just clergy but anybodyreally in pastoral ministry
gets exposed to, and we'vecertainly seen it in the schools
team.
So, quite aside from doing ourministry work, we actually are
regular psychologists and we'reseeing all the professions in
this post pandemic, in theteachers, doctors, all of the
(27:51):
people, people, professionscoming in and the types of
things that teachers are exposedto now is vastly different from
what they were exposed to adecade or 20 years ago.
So I think I read in yourdissertation I could be wrong,
but I thought that you mighthave said that people in
ministry who had early exposureto some traumatic material
(28:14):
possibly may have also had lowerlevels of well-being.
Well, this is definitely beingreplicated in the teaching
profession.
I think they're finding thatthere are high and even in
health professionals so highlevels of attrition at three to
five years post graduation andthat is because they're exposed
to a lot of trauma.
So, for example, teachers firstgoing out and having kids throw
(28:37):
a chair at them or even hitthem, or really tall adolescent
boys standing over a littleyoung teacher and just
threatening them.
And is that helplessness of notjust about how do I manage that
situation, but I don't evenknow where to go for help?
Can I leave the classroom andgo and get someone?
(29:00):
Well, that seems negligent.
Who do I go and tell that thishappened to?
Well, they think that I'm weak.
And this is very similar, Ithink, to what we're seeing in
ministry.
Context is this level of chaosin our community and the level
of threat in ministry, with noroom to escape and no real sense
(29:22):
of where do I go with this justkeeps going.
And that's making quite avulnerable group, I think,
people fresh out from collegesinto ministry.
Timothy Captain (29:34):
Yeah.
Valerie Ling (29:36):
So I love that you said that you come from a
family of pastors.
I thought to myself thatactually can be a good thing.
It can be a negative thing.
I wonder if also some of thepatterns that we see in ministry
have come from a kind of a heroworship of overdoing or not
having any weaknesses and justkeep going Like it seems to be a
(30:00):
bit of that too from thestories I hear.
Does that happen in the Statesas well?
Timothy Captain (30:08):
Yeah, so one of the funny things that I was
able to see in my survey pieceof my dissertation was the
perfect scores.
We'll put it that way, andwe're very telling and
interesting to me, meaning thathardly anybody scored themselves
perfectly across physical orsocial or other dimensions, but
(30:33):
I had a lot of people pastorswho were perfectly doing just
perfectly.
When it came to spiritualwell-being.
They were the perfect modelsaints, and so I didn't quite
dig too much into that, otherthan to say that other work and
things does suggest that pastorsare prone to, like many of us,
(30:58):
overstating how they are doingin the realm that they feel like
they're performing in, and so Ithink that, in the performative
sense, this is a place where weneed to have conversations, for
what are the metrics, what arethe things that our pastors feel
(31:24):
like they're being watched in?
And so I think this is again atelling sense of if you go to a
conference or if you're to go toa place and even just to do the
simple thing of how do youintroduce yourself as a pastor
to somebody, do you say hi, myname is Tim, I pastor.
(31:45):
In this fill-in-the-blanktheological kind of background,
here's how big my church is, andso these different kind of
ideas of the self that we putforward oftentimes reflects what
is kind of, in an economicspeak, rewarded, or what are the
(32:09):
places that we kind of see assuccessful, and so for different
backgrounds in different placesthat's the case.
So again, I come from abackground, the group that had
the minus 10% on their scores,that is my theological
affiliation and so I can't speakfor all independent Christian
(32:29):
churches or restoration movementchurches, but certainly my
experience and my brothers andmy parents' experience has been
that if you lead a big,successful place or you go and
minister in a particularly hardcity or something like that,
then you are saying success isabout numbers or success is
(32:52):
about I can endure or take itwhen it comes to kind of abuse
or hardship or lack of financialresources.
These things are kind ofelevated in our background and
I've seen these are things thathave negatively impacted me and
I'm still trying to work throughbefore the Lord about how I
(33:16):
view success and therefore theself that I put forward as again
being a superhero.
In some ways it comes back toalso my family background and
growing in that too.
Valerie Ling (33:28):
Yeah, and so what are some of the protective
things in the denomination thathas?
Do you think hypothesize?
Like I know you, we can't tell,but what does seem to help to
improve?
Timothy Captain (33:42):
well-being.
So one of the things that someof my participants kind of
shared in their journey isspecifically having mentors, and
so I think that denominationslargely have some protections in
them that don't just let20-something girls go and go
(34:04):
straight to the top.
Even the most talentedoftentimes have people that they
have to report to, as innon-denominational settings,
oftentimes people's talent getsin front of their experience and
to their own detriment, and soI think that that is a
(34:24):
protective force where somebodythat is incredibly talented,
incredibly successful indeveloping even power for
themselves at a local level hassomebody that they have to
respond to and report to, and Ithink that's a very important
thing.
But non-denominational orindependent churches often don't
(34:46):
have that, and then I thinkvice versa, there's
understanding of kind ofindividual churches on a much
broader level, and so that canprotect younger pastors as well.
So, for example, I believe Iwrite about thinking carefully
about pastor-eater churches.
Now, again, I love Jesus' bride, the church, and so I don't
(35:12):
want to talk negatively abouther at all.
However, there arecongregations and structures and
leadership structures that havemade a name for themselves as
being a place that is unfriendlyor uncaring about the pastor's
well-being.
They see them as somebody tojust be used or used up for
(35:34):
their talents or skills, with nodesire to care for them as
actual Christ followers andpeople.
And so sometimes that is aneasier kind of rotation of
switching in pastors and usingthem up for a season and just
getting the next one, gettingthe next one if there is no
(35:54):
denominational support, to saywait, wait, wait, wait, no, no,
no, that's not how you treatsomebody that is an clergy
person and we're going to helpyour board or we're going to
help your local leadership tobetter understand what is going
on, and so sometimes I thinkthat's an important protective
piece too.
(36:14):
So, again, these are some ofthe things that I see
systemically.
I think one of the things thatalso happens systemically too is
both in the age of the churchas well as again thinking about
the dimension of economicwell-being for pastors.
So some pastors again know,going into the ministry, that
(36:38):
the financials may have animpact, but when maybe, for
example, you accept a pastorateand you're married and you have
no kids, that is a totallydifferent financial situation
than later on when you havechildren or the demographics
change around you.
And so some of these thingsneed to not just be training
(37:00):
pastors to be better with theirfinances.
It's to think systemicallyabout going.
We are sending pastors onmission fields or into areas
that are economically depressedperhaps.
Now what is our financial planto support that pastor to do
that work?
And so denominations oftentimesare able to supplement local
(37:25):
church income, oftentimes forpastors that are in those
situations, versus oftentimes,if they're totally independent,
what you're perhaps earning fromthere or your spouse's income.
Those become things that areonly on that pastor, which can
obviously provide a lot ofdifficulty for them.
Valerie Ling (37:47):
So I think I like to think about as I think about
doing a PhD.
I love that you've just shed alight on how important
demographics can be, because I'mactually thinking about a
similar dynamic that happens inpsychologists.
Those of us who live in quitewell resourced suburbs and we
practice in one such suburb cansometimes look judgmentally on
(38:13):
our colleagues who arepracticing in suburbs.
We call them housingcommissions.
They're subsidized housing,high rates of alcohol abuse,
high rates of just social issues, and they have a very different
set of stresses and they have avery different set of pressures
(38:34):
on them and many of them chooseto live not far from the
practice, so they're actuallyalso embedded in that system.
The kids will be going toschools, for example, that are a
little bit more underprivileged, et cetera.
So I think you've given me a lotto think about that we can
gloss over demographics as beinghere's the basic average figure
(38:56):
and not actually have anindividualized concern for the
person who is being placedwithin that demographic.
So maybe what I'm hearing isthat it's also quite important
for us to almost have a intimateprofile, to know, when we're
(39:17):
placing people, how much supportthey probably even need.
Are they going to need like amore protracted support, like in
12 months, even because ofwhere the church is situated and
what they've been through andthe individualized need of the
minister and if they're singleor their family.
I think that's very interesting.
Have you seen anything likethat coming out?
(39:38):
Is that what?
Is there something happening inyour neck at the woods?
Timothy Captain (39:45):
No, I think so.
I'm encouraged that some churchplanting organizations here in
the US are starting to developthis kind of support Nominations
, are beginning to think aboutthis, so we're definitely on the
front edge.
We have not figured things outhere, so we're waiting for you
to tell us how you all are doingit, and I think one of the
(40:09):
things that's encouraging to meis, as we tell these stories and
talk about them again, it's sohelpful to start creating
language and a desire to do this, because I think we've and the
church historically being ableto celebrate that we have
figured out how to support oneanother's needs.
(40:29):
One of the hallmarks of achurch in many ways is that kind
of potluck where we're bringingthings to the table from all
different aspects.
I think that this is what thismovement of pastoral well-being
needs is a more robust bringingto the table of different
professions and experiences tosay, hey, these are the ways
(40:53):
that we can support pastors, andso we need economists, we need
psychologists, we need medicalprofessionals, we need pastors
to pastors, we need a team ofpeople that are coming in
considering this.
So, for example, in the UnitedStates, one of the big problems
that we don't talk about.
It's kind of taboo to talk aboutis clergy, physical health,
(41:17):
that clergy.
One of the ways that wesometimes kind of deal with this
stress and emotion is we eat it, and so no one is going to talk
in the church about the sin ofoverindulgence, of eating
oftentimes, and so pastors instressful jobs and situations
(41:38):
are not allowed to go and drinkor do other things like that to
kind of take away their pain,but they are allowed to go eat
whole things of ice cream.
That was one of my go-tos, alate at night sitting and
wanting to eat ice cream on thecouch, and no one was going to
talk to me about that, nor say,hey, your medical health is at
(42:01):
jeopardy and a risk that you aredoing this as a way to do that,
unless we start opening up tovoices that say, actually you
are an embodied person and yourbody matters.
And so it took me having tohave more conversations with
medical professionals that lovedJesus and loved me To see, no,
(42:25):
this is integrated with anunhealthy way that I'm dealing
with burnout and stress, but I'mnow able to have these
conversations.
So I'm very encouraged to knowthat on the individual levels, I
think in small places, there'swork being done that's opened
these doors up for conversations.
(42:46):
I'm hopeful that it's going tomake big systemic changes into
the future, because this work, Ithink, is just beginning.
Valerie Ling (42:55):
Well, tim, I think that's such a wonderful note to
finish today.
I really resonated with a lotof what you said and it's given
me a sense of courage thatactually connecting with other
people such as yourself likeliterally found your thesis,
sent you a LinkedIn message,said, hey, I want to put the
(43:17):
pieces of puzzles together, wemight discover more things.
I think it's a great word ofencouragement that we can
include more conversation fromdifferent people to really
address what is a significantissue.
I think you're right.
The burden of health in clergywas one of the things that
(43:38):
kickstarted me a decade ago tothink about it, because I was
looking at some results from theUK and going not only is it
attrition from ministry ifphysically compromised, how can
we allow this to happen?
This can't be right.
We need to do something aboutthis.
And if we don't have our peoplein ministry enduring and
(44:01):
physically and emotionally andspiritually well, we also lose
people who can share the word ofJesus to a world that needs to
know Him.
So it's been so fantastic.
Thank you so much for your time.
Timothy Captain (44:16):
The pleasure is all mine.
Valerie Ling (44:33):
Thank you very much.
Dear listener, welcome to another episode of
the Clergy Wellbeing Down Underpodcast.
It's Valerie Ling.
I'm a clinical psychologist andI am your host for today.
The podcast is being producedunder the banner of the Centre
for Effective Serving, which isa leadership and workplace
well-being consulting arm that Ilead.
(00:21):
I also lead a Centre forEffective Living, which is a
psychology practice located inSydney.
Many of our psychologists areChristians and on any given week
are supporting our ministry andmission families of here in
Australia and around the world.
(00:42):
We are currently recruiting fortwo full-time equivalent
positions, that is, forpsychologists to join the Centre
for Effective Living to workwith us in our mission to see a
world without burnout.
If you know someone who is aregistered psychologist, a
(01:04):
student who is soon to be aregistered psychologist, someone
who is planning to move toAustralia and would love to be
registered as a psychologist,would you send them our way?
The best thing to do is to sendthem the link
wwweffectivelivercomau slashjoin-our-team.
(01:27):
I'll put the link in thepodcast description as well.
I hope you enjoy this episode.
Greetings everybody.
I'm so pleased to introduce youto a new guest.
I myself have just met himonline.
(01:48):
His name is Timothy Captain andhe is part of the Flourish San
Diego, a leadership developmentorganisation for churches, and I
love this.
That will love San Diego forlife.
I just love that so much.
Tim has also completed a PhDvery recently.
(02:13):
The title of that thesis wasthe development of the Holistic
Pastoral Well-being Assessment.
Timothy Captain (02:19):
That's correct.
Valerie Ling (02:21):
So welcome Tim to the podcast.
Timothy Captain (02:24):
Thank you very much.
It's so wonderful to be withyou.
Valerie Ling (02:28):
Tell us a little bit about Flourish.
Timothy Captain (02:31):
Yeah.
So I actually joined Flourishas a pastor.
I've about 15 years pastoralministry experience and one of
the things I was craving anddesiring was a group of people
that were thinking aboutholistic life to the
discipleship, thinking aboutways that were helping people
(02:51):
not just inside the church butalso outside the church in our
cities to flourish and to seetheir part in God's kingdom just
take part.
And so I just kind of found,honestly, this group of people
in San Diego that was juststarting up, and so really the
(03:13):
mission and the drive ofFlourish is to support pastors
that have this view of the city,and as we do that together,
we've started kind of looking atadding different elements of
support, and that's really wherewe got into the work of
researching and developingassessments for well-being but
also supporting pastors in theirwell-being.
Valerie Ling (03:34):
Incredible.
And what was the motivation ofyour thesis?
Why do a PhD devoted to thisissue?
Timothy Captain (03:42):
Right.
So my PhD is in leadership and,as I looked at my own journey
and kind of my years in ministrybut I also have two brothers in
ministry I grew up in aministry family and surrounded
with folks through seminary andotherwise, you just see burnout,
you see all sorts ofdestruction happen because of, I
(04:08):
would say, malpractice frompastors in many various ways,
and so really that caused me tosay there's got to be ways for
us to look at this and there's alot of great work from
psychologists such as yourself.
But I think there's a lot ofroom for different voices to
come in, and so I approached itmore from being somebody who has
(04:32):
worked for many, many years inpastoral ministry, trying to
take that experience and lookmore into why some of these
various aspects contribute towell-being or not.
Valerie Ling (04:46):
Malpractice too.
That's interesting.
Yes, I'd love to hear moreabout what you think about that.
Timothy Captain (04:53):
Well, I think that if we had other professions
so physicians, for example thatso poorly took their own advice
and or worked directly againsttheir own medical advice, we
would call that malpractice,because there's a sense in which
(05:14):
they are doing the exactopposite.
They are perhaps causing harmin a field in which they've
sworn or taken an oath to.
That's the number one rule notdo harm.
And so as we look globally, butas we look into very specific
local contexts, we see wherepastors have done harm and,
(05:36):
unfortunately, are developing areputation of being a profession
that has done harm.
Unfortunately, parishioners,they're doing harm to themselves
, and so those who areadvocating for caring and loving
and hope and salvation, allthese things that is a message
(05:56):
that is non-harmful, and theyare being trained in seminaries
to do this are, for whateverreason, not experiencing that,
oftentimes in their own lives.
Valerie Ling (06:08):
Oh, wow, I think you just gave me goosebumps
there.
You know, I presented at achurch looking at the mental
health situation for youngadults in a post-pandemic world
and I got off and I asked one ofthe young people listening in.
I said what do you think?
Have I kind of got it, you know, am I heading in the right
(06:29):
direction?
And they said to me one morething In our time we have seen
so many public pastors fall andchurches, you know, really
scattered and it's like we don'tknow anymore if we can even
trust when we walk into church.
There's no safety for us Evenwhen we walk into church.
(06:50):
Or, you know, when we'relistening to sermons, it's so
tiring because we don't knowwhether to take it into our
hearts or not.
I'm like, whoa, okay, that'spretty major.
So, you know, I think it ismuch like a health professional.
We don't just have aresponsibility to the individual
, we actually have aresponsibility to the public to
(07:13):
ensure that we're safe.
Wow, so I read your dissertationNot all of it, but most of it
and you were basically lookingto create an instrument that
looked at all the dimensions ofwell-being, and I really love
(07:34):
this.
So, you know, you looked atspiritual, psychological,
physical, social and economicdimensions of well-being, and I
think we'll put the link to thatto the PDF of your dissertation
it is online Because I thoughtthat even the instrument and the
questions that you were usingwere so telling of what happens
(07:54):
in the ministry space.
What were, if you can rememberwhat were some of your key
findings?
Timothy Captain (08:00):
Yeah.
So I was attempting to validatethis instrument, to kind of add
a potential tool to the toolboxfor so many professionals
trying to help pastors, and soone of the findings that I was
attempting to do was to validatethat as an instrument, and so I
have kind of a mixed bag onwhether it's statistically
(08:23):
validated there, and so folkswho are really numbers, people
like me can go in and dig intothat and make up their own minds
about how valid or not thisinstrument is.
But I think the moreinteresting feedback, if I may,
would be that there is a broadspectrum of where pastors are at
(08:45):
in their well-being and thatbroad spectrum in those five
different categories are not howto put it, totally related to
one another.
So, for example, a person maybe reporting that they are
spiritually doing really reallywell, meanwhile really
(09:06):
struggling socially, and so someof the hopefully helpfulness of
this kind of way of thinkingabout well-being is to
understand that there is auniqueness to each situation and
each pastor in their experienceof well-being and there's many
different ways to encouragepastors.
(09:29):
But there's also a lot of waysthat pastors can be tripped up,
and so pastors were sharing allsorts of different kind of
personal experiences andfollow-up interviews.
A couple of the kind ofmeta-analysis findings is that
age was highly correlated withoverall well-being.
So if you put all those fivecategories together a pastor's
(09:52):
age was a very tell tell sign ofkind of what their score might
be.
And the finding was that age, aspastors got older, their
well-being actually improved orincreased and so kind of suggest
to us that perhaps youngpastors specifically are in
(10:12):
times of life in which perhapsthey haven't developed the tools
or the skills, therelationships, things like that,
to cope with the anxiety andthe stresses of ministry.
And that might be something thatwe could, as seminaries or as
supports go, let's pay attentionto specific pastors in early
(10:35):
years of life.
The other thing was that therewas specific denominational
backgrounds that had impact, forwhatever reason, on well-being
scores, and so the specificgroup of independent Christian
churches or restoration movementchurches in my study that had
(10:56):
almost a 10% deduction insomebody's expected well-being
just by being theologicallyaffiliated there.
So there's more work to be donebut we know that certain groups
or theological backgrounds maynot have support or may not be
providing enough support topastors there, or it may be
(11:20):
contributing to pastors who feelisolated because they don't
have a denominational systembehind them, or they've been
trained or taught to have kindof a Superman theology, that
they are it and they're going tosave the world, but that puts
them on a lonely island.
That, then, is a dangerousplace to be.
(11:42):
So those are a few of thefindings, real quick there.
Valerie Ling (11:45):
Well, I think you find that that resonates with
not just my tiny survey, which Idid, but also what's out there
in Australia.
So young people who are youngerin ministry and probably even
in mission, I'd say, fromrecollecting what I've read
probably have lower levels ofself-concept, lower levels of
self-awareness.
They just haven't seen enoughof life really to understand and
(12:10):
to navigate the hard knocks.
Plus, they usually come withfamily and kids as well.
That's right.
I mean, I think I noticed thisin your paper and this could be
the other reason is that thepeople who are older, who are
still in ministry, they haven'tresigned, attritioned, gotten
sick, so they're alsorepresenting probably a group of
(12:31):
people that have been able toendure, for whatever reasons.
So we certainly finding thathere, and a very small.
Just like you, you know, wehave to be so careful what
statistics we put out.
There was a very small effectcorrelation that I got that one
particular denomination whichwere the factors at slightly
(12:53):
lower levels of loneliness, forexample, than some of the other
denominations.
Now they also have women intheir clergy, whereas in Sydney,
particularly in Sydney, that'snot the case for all
denominations, but there wassome suggestion that the way
that denomination resourced theministers and the way the
(13:16):
governance was structured mayfacilitate more connectivity.
So I think that that's probablysomething that might want to be
looked at in the future.
Timothy Captain (13:28):
Yeah, and some of the things I think are good
about again considering pastors,and one of the things I urge as
a kind of a limitation but alsoa future place that we can, as
supporters of pastoral wellbeing consider, is to consider
pastors in their kind of matrixof relationships, in their
(13:52):
denominations, and see them notjust as an individual to be
studied but to really kind ofthink about them in that.
And so some of the follow upconversations that I had with
pastors kind of cause me torealize like, oh yes, this is
somebody who, as we see them, asa multi dimensional individual,
(14:13):
they also have multipledimensions of relationships, of
supports, of a lack thereof, andstories that come behind that.
So, for example, one pastorshared that their economic well
being was a key point in theirfamily stress.
At that time they had littlechildren.
(14:34):
They're trying to navigate allof that.
They're far away from familysupport to cover childcare and
at the same time, carrying debtfrom when they were a youth
minister and weren't paid verywell, and so they're really
struggling with all of thiseconomic impact in their family,
(14:55):
in their ministry, because ofthis specific time of life, not
because of spiritual downfall,not because of other pieces like
that, but because of the timeof life that they're going to be
in, and so that's the time oflife that they're in.
Valerie Ling (15:07):
Yeah, I wrote.
I read the sentence, I'vewritten it down here.
I think what you said was inyour mixed method and I thought,
yeah, this makes a lot of sense.
So what I think you were sayingis the ability to have the
agency to then talk about theirresults.
You were saying, you know thatwas really the meaningful thing.
It wasn't just here's a scaleand here's where you come up
with the results, but it was theability to dialogue, to reflect
(15:32):
, to make sense of the theirparticular context and the hope
then of what can we do with this.
I mean, you've written here Ithink you said personal
experience of well-being shouldbe handled with a sensitive,
with sensitivity, to appreciatenuance, complexity, pain that
the individual has.
I Think it's so right, like wehave ministry families, you know
(15:56):
, different states in Australia,for example, have different
financial arrangements andSometimes even a family of six
can be living in a three bedroomhouse.
You know, and and as thechildren are growing up and
becoming bigger, everybody'scontext is quite different, and
so I love how you you're reallygoing for, you know, checking in
(16:18):
individually with ministers andtheir well-being and pastors
and their families andUnderstanding their individual
context as well and making senseof the of the data.
Timothy Captain (16:30):
Yeah, yeah, it's so important.
Valerie Ling (16:34):
Now you might have had a chance to look to see
what my survey found.
I was curious.
Did anything kind of pop up foryou, tim, when you were looking
at it?
Timothy Captain (16:47):
Yeah, and so I think for me, the helpfulness
here is a Reiteration of thepoint in just some very clear
ways.
So great work to you and again,so glad that you're Others are
working in this space.
I think that for me, the thingthat pops up most importantly to
(17:08):
me is to think about howdemographics and some of those
pieces play in with folks'sexperience, because I do think
that there's a Individual levelcare and expertise that support
systems need to provide.
But this is also one of thethings that I think, as we can
(17:32):
look at a macro level, become soimportant to think about.
How do we influence, forexample, seminaries, or how do
we think about developing andmoving past just Telling the
story and finding ways to, forexample, measure like what I was
trying to do Pastoralwell-being to going well?
(17:55):
What are the things thatactually help people Rebound out
of seasons of burnout?
How do we help develop moreunderstanding about this in
seminaries or in trainingprograms and denominational
support systems?
And really, I think some of thedemographics that, from your
work, we're very telling aboutways that perhaps we have failed
(18:20):
has leaders and the supportsystems in specific groups, that
these are groups that we haveoverlooked, whether it's
supporting women, their roles,or whether it's certain, for
example, staff sizes and peoplethat maybe in I don't know
whether in your australiancontext is the same in us, but
(18:41):
oftentimes we platform leadersfrom mega churches or from large
Organizations and say this ishow you should do ministry.
Meanwhile, most Ministers aresolo ministers or those who are
really struggling.
That's not encouraging to thembecause they go back and go, oh,
but I can't pull this off, andso it adds on to that weight or
(19:05):
that burden, and so those werethe few of the things that I saw
in there that I was reallyencouraged to see a patience in
the termination and looking atthose individuals that may be.
We sometimes just forget thatEveryone's experiences aren't on
the same playing field.
They haven't been given thesame opportunities or care or
(19:28):
support, and so we need toRepent of that, I think.
I think we need to come backand say when are our systems of
support, of training, missingthese individuals?
Valerie Ling (19:40):
Yeah, I like what you're saying there.
I think you know that anindividualized concern.
Sometimes I think we can try tobe reductionistic to simplify
the picture, but you know, aFemale staff person in a large
church with multiple caringroles at home and at church, who
(20:01):
hasn't been theologicallyequipped, not being mentored, is
a really individualizedsituation that is vulnerable,
very vulnerable.
Yeah, and you know so.
We have had situations.
It is, you know, not a commonthing where a minister of a
Maybe a smaller church or a moreunder resourced, or even just
(20:23):
from a poorer suburb, you know,goes to a large Conference and
comes back with panic attacksbecause how are they going to do
that in their church of 40?
Where half of them are in a 70and above?
You know, how are we going todo them?
And all of those expectationsof self, the perfectionism, you
(20:44):
know, the, the fear of failure,just can really collapse on us.
So I think there are, there isa need for us to be interested
in the individuals as well asthe church history.
You know what, what makes thatchurch Joyful, thriving and
vulnerable, because that thatmarriage, if you like, is also
(21:08):
very unique.
This is the midpoint break forthe podcast, if you want to put
a pause and walk away and comeback.
Make sure you do check out thedescription for all the various
downloads that we have for you,including my full report,
research and reflections.
You might also want to rememberto like, share and subscribe.
(21:30):
So stop now or keep going.
That's right, yeah, yeah, andwhat did you think about?
The sum of the correlationsbetween burnout and the
destructive leadership practicesare?
Be curious what you thought,because Flourish being
leadership, this is your, thisis your space.
I mean, what are your thoughtsthere?
(21:50):
I?
Timothy Captain (21:51):
think that One of the things that we have had
multiple kind of round tableconversations with is the role,
at least in the United States,that violence, that Continued
acts of hatred againstparticular racial groups, and
(22:14):
how these things affect peoplein ministry and their experience
of ministry.
And so I think, first of all,being able to bring these
conversations to the surface isso important, and so I think
clergy in general and are havingto respond, oftentimes before
(22:39):
they have been formed in theseAreas, and so I think that I
really appreciated the Kind ofparallel that you draw between
pastors or clergy and Thenprinciples, because I think
that's very, very true in that Ican imagine principles needing
(23:02):
to have a response, needing tohave Policy or needing to have
well, we're gonna wake uptomorrow and it's another school
day and I felt that as a very,very good Kind of connection
point for a lot of folks torealize that you know, pastors
do this every single day andweek is they get up and they go,
(23:24):
another Sunday's coming or anact of violence happens and I
have to be there to participate,and so I've found that to be
true in our flourished groups ofpastors in the research.
But I'll just tell a briefstory personally, where this
happens in many different waysof for me as a young pastor,
(23:48):
calling on those who are sick orin hospitals.
I knew that was going to happen.
One day I got called in and toa hospital and and got ushered
straight through the emergencyroom into a very, very gory
scene.
A young woman had had aterrible accident and Basically
I was not prepared to walk inand see blood and all sorts of
(24:13):
different things going on,meanwhile being asked to support
the husband as he watches hiswife die in front of him.
And I went home that night andhad basically I would say, some
kind of post-traumatic stresskind of reaction where I was not
able to sleep and I was goingwho do I talk to?
(24:36):
And realizing in my supportsystem, in my support network, I
don't know who to talk to aboutwhat just happened.
I can't talk to anybody in mycongregation because they're
mourning and grieving and notable in some ways to support me
in that.
(24:56):
Fortunately, because I'm in afamily of pastors, I was able to
call out my own dad in themiddle of the night and say dad,
I don't really know what to dowith this.
I can't sleep.
This is a horrible, horriblesituation.
I just keep seeing the scenesreplay in my mind, and so I
think exposure to these thingsis something that we don't need
(25:20):
to over glorify it, we don'tneed to make it something that
is going well.
You're not a real pastor unlessyou've seen or done these
things.
But for many pastors, theywould be able to tell a whole
litany of stories like this thatcome to mind for them that
they've been exposed to thesethings, and oftentimes,
(25:42):
unfortunately, like for me earlyon in the ministry at that time
I didn't have a psychologist,friends or people on call that I
was ready to call up and havethat support.
And so I think, absolutely thisresearch that you're doing,
that is, saying these are thelevels of exposure to these
(26:02):
things on the front end, explainsome of the emotional numbness,
some of the responses ofisolation, of isolating because
I feel like I can't talk toanybody.
Then I think it also leads toquestions about how much do we
see patterns of response wherethat malpractice or that
(26:26):
actually harming others comes in, and so that's a missing link
for me.
I would love to see continuedresearch, for example, of those
pastors who are overly exposedto this, with heightened
awareness to these things?
Do they go home and have higherlevels of violence in the home,
higher levels of burnout?
(26:46):
That contributes to all sortsof different pieces in their
congregations, and so I wasn't.
As I read your work there, Iwasn't sure whether that was
linked at all, but I'm socurious about that.
Valerie Ling (27:00):
Yes, I think that was the.
I did my Masters of Leadershipin a secular environment and I
think my supervisors went onquite the journey with me.
They were mind blown, I think,about some of these things and
the potential for futureresearch.
And one of those things is howunaware we are to the exposure
(27:26):
that not just clergy but anybodyreally in pastoral ministry
gets exposed to, and we'vecertainly seen it in the schools
team.
So, quite aside from doing ourministry work, we actually are
regular psychologists and we'reseeing all the professions in
this post pandemic, in theteachers, doctors, all of the
(27:51):
people, people, professionscoming in and the types of
things that teachers are exposedto now is vastly different from
what they were exposed to adecade or 20 years ago.
So I think I read in yourdissertation I could be wrong,
but I thought that you mighthave said that people in
ministry who had early exposureto some traumatic material
(28:14):
possibly may have also had lowerlevels of well-being.
Well, this is definitely beingreplicated in the teaching
profession.
I think they're finding thatthere are high and even in
health professionals so highlevels of attrition at three to
five years post graduation andthat is because they're exposed
to a lot of trauma.
So, for example, teachers firstgoing out and having kids throw
(28:37):
a chair at them or even hitthem, or really tall adolescent
boys standing over a littleyoung teacher and just
threatening them.
And is that helplessness of notjust about how do I manage that
situation, but I don't evenknow where to go for help?
Can I leave the classroom andgo and get someone?
(29:00):
Well, that seems negligent.
Who do I go and tell that thishappened to?
Well, they think that I'm weak.
And this is very similar, Ithink, to what we're seeing in
ministry.
Context is this level of chaosin our community and the level
of threat in ministry, with noroom to escape and no real sense
(29:22):
of where do I go with this justkeeps going.
And that's making quite avulnerable group, I think,
people fresh out from collegesinto ministry.
Timothy Captain (29:34):
Yeah.
Valerie Ling (29:36):
So I love that you said that you come from a
family of pastors.
I thought to myself thatactually can be a good thing.
It can be a negative thing.
I wonder if also some of thepatterns that we see in ministry
have come from a kind of a heroworship of overdoing or not
having any weaknesses and justkeep going Like it seems to be a
(30:00):
bit of that too from thestories I hear.
Does that happen in the Statesas well?
Timothy Captain (30:08):
Yeah, so one of the funny things that I was
able to see in my survey pieceof my dissertation was the
perfect scores.
We'll put it that way, andwe're very telling and
interesting to me, meaning thathardly anybody scored themselves
perfectly across physical orsocial or other dimensions, but
(30:33):
I had a lot of people pastorswho were perfectly doing just
perfectly.
When it came to spiritualwell-being.
They were the perfect modelsaints, and so I didn't quite
dig too much into that, otherthan to say that other work and
things does suggest that pastorsare prone to, like many of us,
(30:58):
overstating how they are doingin the realm that they feel like
they're performing in, and so Ithink that, in the performative
sense, this is a place where weneed to have conversations, for
what are the metrics, what arethe things that our pastors feel
(31:24):
like they're being watched in?
And so I think this is again atelling sense of if you go to a
conference or if you're to go toa place and even just to do the
simple thing of how do youintroduce yourself as a pastor
to somebody, do you say hi, myname is Tim, I pastor.
(31:45):
In this fill-in-the-blanktheological kind of background,
here's how big my church is, andso these different kind of
ideas of the self that we putforward oftentimes reflects what
is kind of, in an economicspeak, rewarded, or what are the
(32:09):
places that we kind of see assuccessful, and so for different
backgrounds in different placesthat's the case.
So again, I come from abackground, the group that had
the minus 10% on their scores,that is my theological
affiliation and so I can't speakfor all independent Christian
(32:29):
churches or restoration movementchurches, but certainly my
experience and my brothers andmy parents' experience has been
that if you lead a big,successful place or you go and
minister in a particularly hardcity or something like that,
then you are saying success isabout numbers or success is
(32:52):
about I can endure or take itwhen it comes to kind of abuse
or hardship or lack of financialresources.
These things are kind ofelevated in our background and
I've seen these are things thathave negatively impacted me and
I'm still trying to work throughbefore the Lord about how I
(33:16):
view success and therefore theself that I put forward as again
being a superhero.
In some ways it comes back toalso my family background and
growing in that too.
Valerie Ling (33:28):
Yeah, and so what are some of the protective
things in the denomination thathas?
Do you think hypothesize?
Like I know you, we can't tell,but what does seem to help to
improve?
Timothy Captain (33:42):
well-being.
So one of the things that someof my participants kind of
shared in their journey isspecifically having mentors, and
so I think that denominationslargely have some protections in
them that don't just let20-something girls go and go
(34:04):
straight to the top.
Even the most talentedoftentimes have people that they
have to report to, as innon-denominational settings,
oftentimes people's talent getsin front of their experience and
to their own detriment, and soI think that that is a
(34:24):
protective force where somebodythat is incredibly talented,
incredibly successful indeveloping even power for
themselves at a local level hassomebody that they have to
respond to and report to, and Ithink that's a very important
thing.
But non-denominational orindependent churches often don't
(34:46):
have that, and then I thinkvice versa, there's
understanding of kind ofindividual churches on a much
broader level, and so that canprotect younger pastors as well.
So, for example, I believe Iwrite about thinking carefully
about pastor-eater churches.
Now, again, I love Jesus' bride, the church, and so I don't
(35:12):
want to talk negatively abouther at all.
However, there arecongregations and structures and
leadership structures that havemade a name for themselves as
being a place that is unfriendlyor uncaring about the pastor's
well-being.
They see them as somebody tojust be used or used up for
(35:34):
their talents or skills, with nodesire to care for them as
actual Christ followers andpeople.
And so sometimes that is aneasier kind of rotation of
switching in pastors and usingthem up for a season and just
getting the next one, gettingthe next one if there is no
(35:54):
denominational support, to saywait, wait, wait, wait, no, no,
no, that's not how you treatsomebody that is an clergy
person and we're going to helpyour board or we're going to
help your local leadership tobetter understand what is going
on, and so sometimes I thinkthat's an important protective
piece too.
(36:14):
So, again, these are some ofthe things that I see
systemically.
I think one of the things thatalso happens systemically too is
both in the age of the churchas well as again thinking about
the dimension of economicwell-being for pastors.
So some pastors again know,going into the ministry, that
(36:38):
the financials may have animpact, but when maybe, for
example, you accept a pastorateand you're married and you have
no kids, that is a totallydifferent financial situation
than later on when you havechildren or the demographics
change around you.
And so some of these thingsneed to not just be training
(37:00):
pastors to be better with theirfinances.
It's to think systemicallyabout going.
We are sending pastors onmission fields or into areas
that are economically depressedperhaps.
Now what is our financial planto support that pastor to do
that work?
And so denominations oftentimesare able to supplement local
(37:25):
church income, oftentimes forpastors that are in those
situations, versus oftentimes,if they're totally independent,
what you're perhaps earning fromthere or your spouse's income.
Those become things that areonly on that pastor, which can
obviously provide a lot ofdifficulty for them.
Valerie Ling (37:47):
So I think I like to think about as I think about
doing a PhD.
I love that you've just shed alight on how important
demographics can be, because I'mactually thinking about a
similar dynamic that happens inpsychologists.
Those of us who live in quitewell resourced suburbs and we
practice in one such suburb cansometimes look judgmentally on
(38:13):
our colleagues who arepracticing in suburbs.
We call them housingcommissions.
They're subsidized housing,high rates of alcohol abuse,
high rates of just social issues, and they have a very different
set of stresses and they have avery different set of pressures
(38:34):
on them and many of them chooseto live not far from the
practice, so they're actuallyalso embedded in that system.
The kids will be going toschools, for example, that are a
little bit more underprivileged, et cetera.
So I think you've given me a lotto think about that we can
gloss over demographics as beinghere's the basic average figure
(38:56):
and not actually have anindividualized concern for the
person who is being placedwithin that demographic.
So maybe what I'm hearing isthat it's also quite important
for us to almost have a intimateprofile, to know, when we're
(39:17):
placing people, how much supportthey probably even need.
Are they going to need like amore protracted support, like in
12 months, even because ofwhere the church is situated and
what they've been through andthe individualized need of the
minister and if they're singleor their family.
I think that's very interesting.
Have you seen anything likethat coming out?
(39:38):
Is that what?
Is there something happening inyour neck at the woods?
Timothy Captain (39:45):
No, I think so.
I'm encouraged that some churchplanting organizations here in
the US are starting to developthis kind of support Nominations
, are beginning to think aboutthis, so we're definitely on the
front edge.
We have not figured things outhere, so we're waiting for you
to tell us how you all are doingit, and I think one of the
(40:09):
things that's encouraging to meis, as we tell these stories and
talk about them again, it's sohelpful to start creating
language and a desire to do this, because I think we've and the
church historically being ableto celebrate that we have
figured out how to support oneanother's needs.
(40:29):
One of the hallmarks of achurch in many ways is that kind
of potluck where we're bringingthings to the table from all
different aspects.
I think that this is what thismovement of pastoral well-being
needs is a more robust bringingto the table of different
professions and experiences tosay, hey, these are the ways
(40:53):
that we can support pastors, andso we need economists, we need
psychologists, we need medicalprofessionals, we need pastors
to pastors, we need a team ofpeople that are coming in
considering this.
So, for example, in the UnitedStates, one of the big problems
that we don't talk about.
It's kind of taboo to talk aboutis clergy, physical health,
(41:17):
that clergy.
One of the ways that wesometimes kind of deal with this
stress and emotion is we eat it, and so no one is going to talk
in the church about the sin ofoverindulgence, of eating
oftentimes, and so pastors instressful jobs and situations
(41:38):
are not allowed to go and drinkor do other things like that to
kind of take away their pain,but they are allowed to go eat
whole things of ice cream.
That was one of my go-tos, alate at night sitting and
wanting to eat ice cream on thecouch, and no one was going to
talk to me about that, nor say,hey, your medical health is at
(42:01):
jeopardy and a risk that you aredoing this as a way to do that,
unless we start opening up tovoices that say, actually you
are an embodied person and yourbody matters.
And so it took me having tohave more conversations with
medical professionals that lovedJesus and loved me To see, no,
(42:25):
this is integrated with anunhealthy way that I'm dealing
with burnout and stress, but I'mnow able to have these
conversations.
So I'm very encouraged to knowthat on the individual levels, I
think in small places, there'swork being done that's opened
these doors up for conversations.
(42:46):
I'm hopeful that it's going tomake big systemic changes into
the future, because this work, Ithink, is just beginning.
Valerie Ling (42:55):
Well, tim, I think that's such a wonderful note to
finish today.
I really resonated with a lotof what you said and it's given
me a sense of courage thatactually connecting with other
people such as yourself likeliterally found your thesis,
sent you a LinkedIn message,said, hey, I want to put the
(43:17):
pieces of puzzles together, wemight discover more things.
I think it's a great word ofencouragement that we can
include more conversation fromdifferent people to really
address what is a significantissue.
I think you're right.
The burden of health in clergywas one of the things that
(43:38):
kickstarted me a decade ago tothink about it, because I was
looking at some results from theUK and going not only is it
attrition from ministry ifphysically compromised, how can
we allow this to happen?
This can't be right.
We need to do something aboutthis.
And if we don't have our peoplein ministry enduring and
(44:01):
physically and emotionally andspiritually well, we also lose
people who can share the word ofJesus to a world that needs to
know Him.
So it's been so fantastic.
Thank you so much for your time.
Timothy Captain (44:16):
The pleasure is all mine.
Valerie Ling (44:33):
Thank you very much.
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