Clergy Support Trust's Annual Assembly took place on Thursday 10 October 2024, at St. Mellitus College, the largest theological college in the Church of England.
Our Trustee, The Revd Nancy Goodrich, Vicar of Bollington in the Diocese of Chester, led a Eucharist in the morning. Our Senior Treasurer, Richard Farmbrough and Chief Executive, The Revd Ben Cahill-Nicholls then presented the Treasurers' Report and the Chief Executive's Report.
We were also delighted to welcome Dr Liz Graveling, Senior Researcher at The Church of England, to give this year's keynote speech to our Governors. Liz explored wellbeing, and the challenges posed to the wellbeing of serving clergy, especially those in their first incumbency.
She shared some eye-opening, concerning statistics, including a suggestion that 1 in 5 incumbents in her study had probable clinical depression, and that 1 in 3 may have mild depression. She also found that 42% were anxious about their financial situation.
Challenges to wellbeing
"I'm not ordained. My job is just to listen to their stories, to understand their experiences, and to represent those experiences in such a way that the church can better support them.
So, over the next few minutes I want to tell you about some of the things we've been learning since 2017, when we started the Living Ministry research, which is exploring clergy wellbeing by following four cohorts of clergy (some were ordinands when we began) through their ministry, going back to the same people every couple of years to find out what they're doing now, and how they're doing now.
Wellbeing is a huge area of study encompassing a vast array of disciplines and models. In Living Ministry, we're taking what's known as a Quality of Life approach to wellbeing, recognising that it varies according to demographics, circumstance, role and through time; that it's a shared responsibility; and that it encompasses the whole of life - including both life beyond work (whatever that means for ordained ministers), and also multiple aspects of life: physical and mental health, spiritual and vocational wellbeing, financial and material wellbeing, relationships, and participation in the life of the wider church.
As well as the longitudinal panel study, we've also commissioned several related stand-alone studies, exploring the experiences of first incumbents working collaboratively, of mixed ecology ministers, of UK minority ethnic and global majority heritage clergy, of working-class clergy, and we have a project underway at the moment looking at the wellbeing of disabled clergy. And we've been grateful to Clergy Support Trust for making some of these projects possible through your generous funding. I have some of the reports here for you to look at, although sadly not to take away, although you can find them all online, along with the longitudinal reports.
There are four key challenges to wellbeing that we've consistently observed through all this research."
Tiredness
"This is partly to do with workload in terms of the sheer number of hours clergy put in - because ordained ministry is all-encompassing and there are no fixed working hours or places and, as more than one person has pointed out, you're never not ordained. Six days a week including weekends and evenings, and nearly one in three Living Ministry participants don't regularly take a day off at all.
It's partly to do with the nature of the work: the constant giving out (‘everyone else is always more important’), caring for others, facilitating worship for other people; and the continual gear-shifting between talking with a couple about to be married, delivering a school assembly, taking a funeral, chairing a PCC meeting, supporting someone in court, organising rotas... This is exhausting work and, along with the other challenges, it impacts mental health.
Our most recent report, using the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale, suggested that more than one in five incumbents who responded had probable clinical depression, and, including those, more than one in three possible or mild depression."
Demoralisation
"When we ask clergy how they know when they're doing a good job, the answer is often, 'I don't.' Because those twin measures of church attendance and finances - paying parish share to the diocese - might be the figures that get reported, and they might be how clergy feel their success is judged, but they are blunt instruments to put it mildly.
It's far harder to measure the value of hours spent listening to and supporting a person whose world has fallen apart, or the long, hard work of reconciliation between parishioners with differences that go back decades.
When the messages coming from the diocese and the national church are, with good reason, all about growth - and cuts - a vicar in a church whose attendance rates are not rising can feel they are being told, as one put it, 'you are making a mess of it.'
Many clergy feel a deep sense of responsibility for the Church of England and are anxious about its future, not only because of the insecurity that decline brings to their own job."
Isolation
"This might be geographical isolation, being a long way from the centre of the diocese. It might be professional isolation, working without lay or ordained colleagues, or being in a chaplaincy or self-supporting role.
It might be exclusion based on social or theological difference: gender, class, race, sexuality, disability. It might be the kind of isolation that comes with responsibility: no one to pass the buck to, no one to talk to about difficult issues, uncertainty about levels of friendship because everyone is work.
By the way, the transition that shows a consistent change in wellbeing is the move from curacy to first incumbency, when wellbeing tends to fall, partly as a result of increased responsibility and isolation.
One participant noted ‘being the incumbent puts you in a different position, so although people are becoming friends here, it’s never the same relationship as I can have with other people.’ While family and friends are consistently rated the most beneficial support, they're also the relationships that get neglected in the face of the demands of ministry."
Financial anxiety
"It won't surprise you to hear that this has intensified over the past two or three years. The cost-of-living crisis has hit stipendiary clergy particularly hard. When we last asked them in March last year, compared with other clergy (employed, retired, self-supporting), they were:
- More likely to be finding it difficult to manage financially;
- More likely to be anxious about their current financial situation;
- Most negatively affected by the cost-of-living crisis;
- Most likely to need financial help; and
- Least likely to be prepared for retirement.
42% were anxious about their financial situation, and the proportion finding it quite or very difficult financially doubled to 15% since 2019. Clergy Support Trust's team knows well the impact this is having and your Annual Report documents the dramatic increase in applications for support. It’s mentioned repeatedly by research participants.
Often this is covering immediate needs like a washing machine breaking down, general living expenses, or simply the desperate need for a holiday. There are longer term concerns as well, especially for stipendiary clergy who don't own property and are unsure how they are going to finance their retirement or where they are going to live."
"Yet, one of the striking things that I hear repeatedly from people who share their stories with me is this: 'I wouldn't do anything else.' Because every single person who wears a clerical collar has at some point in their life pursued a calling from God - and from the church - to ordained ministry.
If there's one thing I've learnt from this research, it's that, for clergy, vocation is utterly central to wellbeing. It's a double-edged sword: you can sacrifice a lot - sometimes too much - to pour yourself into a vocation. But when a person knows they are in the place God has called them to be, doing what God has called them to do, being who God has called them to be - when their spiritual and vocational wellbeing is flourishing - there is nothing like it, and it can sustain them through a great deal.
The challenge for the church is to support clergy and develop structures and systems that enable them to flourish in their calling, so the vocational aspect of their ministry doesn't get squeezed out by other concerns, so they can truly fulfil the ministry they were ordained for: to preach, baptise, nurture, preside, teach, bless, pray.
Work is being done. The Covenant for Clergy Care and Wellbeing has been adopted by dioceses across the country; there have been improvements to family-friendly working policies; pastoral supervision and mentoring schemes are being developed; at the most recent meeting of the General Synod, members endorsed clergy taking 36 instead of 24 hours off a week (the challenge now is to support and enable them actually to do that).
The Living Ministry research, including the reports funded by Clergy Support Trust, is informing this work and creating resources to support clergy, not least the How Clergy Thrive book which was printed and distributed thanks to your generosity. Just a miniscule fraction of the contribution you make to the wellbeing of clergy, but one that has made a difference.
I want to end with the words of two participants in the research. One told me this:
‘I wouldn’t do anything else. This is my vocation. I’m with people that are in their darkest times, searching for meaning in life. They’re searching for God’s grace in life. And I’ve been empowered to be there during those times. I couldn’t think of anything better to do.’
The other simply said:
'Clergy Support Trust makes life work.'
This is what you are making work, amid the turmoil of the world we live in, and we are grateful for it."