The Importance of Training to Manage a Church as a Predictor of Emotional Exhaustion and Ministry Satisfaction

Abstract

The study found that pastors who agreed they were trained to manage a church ranked high in ministry satisfaction and low in emotional exhaustion compared to those who disagreed to receiving such training. This work has implications for seminaries, congregations, denominational leaders and clergy themselves to ensure clergy are properly prepared and continue their career journey. This study could be used to modify curricula at seminaries and produce post seminary training and educational information.

Keywords

Clergy burnout emotional exhaustion training

Christianity in the United States is in decline. The number of Americans claiming Christianity has shrunk to 65% and the religiously unaffiliated share of the population, consisting of people who describe their religious identity as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular,” is at 26%, up from 17% in 2009 (Pew Research Center, 2019). Protestantism continues to lose market share and could soon be a minority religious tradition. Declining membership has been concurrent with a drop in the number of clergies. For example, the Presbyterian Church USA has reported a dramatic drop in clergy between 2000 and 2021. There were 11,179 clergy in 2000, 10,038 in 2013, 9,004 in 2019, and 5,323 in 2021 (PC USA Research Services, 2021). The Presbyterian denomination is not the only one experiencing these declines. In 1988, there were 10,030 pastors and 11,120 congregations in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and 10 years later, there were 447 fewer pastors and 258 fewer congregations (Walker, 2001).

Clergy may be particularly susceptible to role stress because a minister must attempt to balance the frequently conflicting expectations of their congregations, denominational superiors, and family members, while attempting to stay true to their religious calling (Faucett et al., 2013). Francis et al. (2008) found clergy find themselves frustrated in their attempts to accomplish tasks important to them, feel drained in fulfilling their functions and say fatigue and irritation are part of their daily experience. Guerrier and Bond (2013) found that clergy felt tension between managing and making tough decisions while leading a church in terms of both religious and pastoral aspects.

Literature Review and Theoretical Framework on the Importance of Training

While it is understandable that initial training at seminaries focuses on theological learning and reflection (Guerrier & Bond, 2013), research clearly supports the need to do more training to help seminary students prepare for the nuts and bolts of administering and managing the complex nature of churches in developing budgets and working with committees, all while steering a church religiously (e.g., McKenna et al., 2007; Moran et al., 2005; Selzer, 2008; Visker et al., 2017).

Research has found that students need to understand the administrative and management expectations of running a church—putting out a budget, keeping the lights on, taking care of facility maintenance, managing often complex church committee structures, handling conflicts within the congregations and understanding that key congregation members come with high expectations. These are key experiences that affect a pastor's ability to lead and thus should be more closely addressed in training (McKenna et al., 2007).

Providing training in seminaries to help students prepare for accepting criticism, building relationships, and learning to deal with and resolve conflict has been a key area identified for improvement (Beebe, 2007; Lee & Iverson-Gilbert, 2003; McKenna et al., 2007; Visker et al., 2017). This was amplified by Miner (2007) who researched new clergy out of seminary and then reviewed them again a year later. His research noted conflicts were highly stressful, suggesting that theological students might benefit from more training in conflict resolution. Support for ministers as they deal with loss of friends and family-related issues would also help reduce relational aspects of stress and its impact on levels of burnout. White (2020) found that people management is an issue in small churches and effective volunteer management is of utmost importance for small-church pastors. Stress management was another key area identified for training to retain pastors in their first years, when challenges and stress are often the most difficult (Harbaugh & Rogers, 1984).

Guerrier and Bond (2013) found a tension clergy felt between managing and making tough decisions while leading a church. This was supported by Visker et al. (2017) who recommended that seminaries explore the feasibility and appropriateness of adding new courses or implementing stress or burnout reduction in current curricula. White (2020) stated the need for additional training in seminaries, specifically to help new clergy understand how to manage small churches, noting that pastoral educators need to develop at least one required course, focusing on pastoring small churches. Indeed, more recent research suggests additional training to support clergy is needed.

Visker et al. (2017) recommended that seminaries explore the feasibility and appropriateness of adding new courses or implement stress or burnout reduction within current curricula. White (2020) completed a qualitative study of a dozen Nazarene clergy who had pastored in small churches for at least five years and were experiencing burnout and found similar results. The study identified the need for additional training to help clergy understand how to lead small churches, manage volunteers, and deal with the current consumerism culture where church goers “shop” for a place to worship leaving small churches competing against larger, mega churches. Additional research also supports the need for training to help clergy understand the need for self-care in terms of appreciating a work life balance (Beebe, 2007; Francis et al., 2009; Joinson, 1992; Staley et al., 2013) and self-care in terms of hobbies, physical activity, yoga, and meditation (Diaconescu, 2015).

In addition to research on training, there is also work on the benefits of other kinds of support from congregations including sabbaticals, time away, and better unbiased systems to handle complaints from higher authorities within a denomination (Elkington, 2013; Visker et al., 2017). Congregational support is a key to reducing burnout and improving overall well-being. Put another way, the more demanding the congregation, the higher the burnout and the lower the pastor's well-being and family satisfaction.

Justification for the Study, Theoretical Framework, Hypotheses Overview of the Research Design

Justification for the Study

There is a paucity of current research in the United States on clergy in general and specifically on rural and smaller churches. Miles and Proeschold-Bell noted three reasons that hinder analysis of clergy experiences in rural churches in United States. First, much of the research and articles that do exist are written by rural pastors and are designed to guide their colleagues and lack any true empirical data. Second, Miles and Proeschold-Bell noted that the majority of articles also have an inherent bias and love of rural churches. Last, most of the research that is available comes from the United Kingdom.

The purpose of this study was to conduct a quantitative analysis to investigate whether years of service, size of congregation, and three different types of training would have effects on emotional exhaustion levels and ministry satisfaction scores. This is a novel contribution of the current project given that past research has focused on non-quantitative methods and not investigated training. Using an existing, validated, and reliable survey, we also examined clergy emotional exhaustion and ministry satisfaction as a function of other demographic characteristics and the potential counterbalance of ministry satisfaction to emotional exhaustion and vice versa.

Theoretical Framework

The current study on the contributions of training to ministry satisfaction and emotional exhaustion is guided by the model of balanced affect. According to the model of balanced affect, clergy can experience both the high (ministry satisfaction) and low (emotional exhaustion) but the positive attributes of their work carry them forward in their work (Francis et al., 2011). Francis et al. (2008) developed a survey inventory, The Francis Burnout Inventory (FBI), to measure emotional exhaustion and ministry satisfaction. The FBI is made up of two survey instruments, the Scale of Emotional Exhaustion in Ministry (SEEM) and Satisfaction in Ministry Scale (SIMS). Francis et al. (2011) examined whether satisfaction in ministry can mitigate the effects of emotional exhaustion and tested the validity of the balanced affect model of burnout among religious leaders with a sample of 744 clergy serving in the Presbyterian Church (USA). This work validated the theory of balanced affect, that what enables clergy to keep going, in spite of elevated levels of emotional exhaustion, is the sense of satisfaction that they continue to receive from their vocation.

Hypotheses

The research hypothesized that training, especially in the area of managing and administering a church, would be a significant predictor of emotional exhaustion and ministry satisfaction levels. Specifically, these hypotheses were proposed:
H_1a: As Years of Service increases, Emotional Exhaustion decreases

H_1b: As Congregations Size increases, Emotional Exhaustion decreases

H_1c: As Administrative Training increases, Emotional Exhaustion decreases

H_2a: As Years of Service increases, Ministry Satisfaction increases

H_2b: As Congregations Size increases, Ministry Satisfaction increases

H_2c: As Administrative Training increases, Ministry Satisfaction increases.

Overview of the Research Design

To address the above hypotheses, we collected survey data from 332 protestant clergy. We used an existing survey inventory in the current study. Use of the FBI has been tested and validated in a number of studies, and reliability and validity details are available in past research (Faucett et al., 2013; Francis et al., 2017, 2019; Randall, 2013).

Method

Participants

Phone calls and emails were made to denominational leaders in North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin inviting them to participate in the study. In many cases, the Qualtrics survey was distributed to the email distribution list of the churches in a specific region, in other cases a link was provided and promoted through newsletters and correspondence to pastors. The sample (n = 332) comprised these protestant denominations: pastors from the Lutheran Church of the Missouri Synod (LCMS) (n = 129), Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) (n = 66), Presbyterian Church of the United States of America (PCUSA) (n = 53), United Church of Christ (n = 13), United Methodist (n = 18), Episcopalians (n = 16), and a variety of other protestant denominations (n = 47). The average age of the respondents was 52.6 years (ranging from 26 to 84) with an average of 20.75 years of experience (ranging from 2 to 55). The respondents recorded their race as 322 white, one black, six as other, and three as preferred not to answer. There were 236 males, 95 females, and 1 non-binary respondent. This work was approved by Concordia University Wisconsin, IRB (protocol number 1855119-1).

Procedures

The survey included questions found in the Scale of Emotional Exhaustion in Ministry (SEEM) and in the Satisfaction in Ministry Scale (SIMS). Each item was assessed on a five-point Likert scale: ranging and coded on points from agree strongly (5), agree (4), not certain (3), disagree (2) to disagree strongly (1). In addition to the SEEM and SIMS, participants were asked three additional questions that used the same Likert 5-point coded scale: I was prepared and trained to preach to my congregation; I was prepared and trained for the administrative/management functions of running a church—developing a budget, paying bills, ensuring maintenance, working with church committees; I was prepared and trained for pastoral care—helping the congregation through mental health, grief, dying and other challenges. Last, clergy were asked these demographic questions: age, sex, years of service after completing seminary, current position title, years in current church, number of pastors at church, size of current congregation, population of the community, and race/ethnicity.

Results

A series of analyses were used in this study. First, linear regression was used to predict emotional exhaustion levels. Second, linear regression was used to predict ministry satisfaction scores. Next, backward regression was used to better understand the key variables that best predict emotional exhaustion and ministry satisfaction. Last, we used t-tests to examine group differences in ministry satisfaction scores and years of service. Overall, it was found that older more experienced clergy tended to have higher ministry satisfaction and lower emotional exhaustion compared to the levels found in newer clergy, especially those in smaller, more rural churches. The research also found that clergy who felt they received proper church management training were better able to cope with the challenges of preaching, caring for, and managing churches at a higher level over those who have low training perceptions.

Emotional Exhaustion

A linear regression model was used to determine the significant variables to predict emotional exhaustion levels. The sum score of the eleven FBI questions on emotional exhaustion was used as the dependent variable. Years of service, congregation size, and the scores to the survey questions regarding perceptions of training to manage a church were each analyzed originally as the only proposed variables to be significant predictors of emotional exhaustion. The regression for each of the Likert answers to perceptions to manage a church used strongly disagree as the baseline to determine the slopes of the four remaining answers (Tables 1 and 2).

Table 1.
Linear regression for predicting emotional exhaustion with independent variables of years of service, congregation size, and perception of training to administratively manage.

95% CI

Effect Estimate SD LL UL p

(Intercept) 34.40 1.15 32.13 36.67 .000

YearsOfServ −.10 .03 −.16 −.04 .002

CongSize −.0002 .0002 −.0006 .0001 .169

AdminManage-Disagree −.41 1.17 −2.70 1.89 .729

AdminManage-NotCertain .21 1.60 −2.93 3.36 .896

AdminManage-Agree −3.18 1.22 −5.59 −0.77 .010

AdminManage-AgreeStrongly −5.36 1.87 −9.04 −1.68 .004**

Note. AdminManage variable p-value = .001.

R² score .094, adjusted R² .077.

p ≤ .05, p ≤ .01, p ≤ .001.

Table 2.
Linear regression for predicting ministry satisfaction with independent variables of years of service, congregation size, and perception of training to administratively manage.

95% CI

Effect Estimate SD LL UL p

(Intercept) 40.05 .88 38.32 41.77 .000

YearsOfServ .05 .0246 −.003 .09 .066

CongSize .0002 .0001 .0000 .0005 .086

AdminManage-Disagree 1.62 .89 −.12 3.37 .069

AdminManage-NotCertain 1.24 1.22 −1.15 3.62 .310

AdminManage-Agree 2.47 .93 .64 4.30 .008

AdminManage-AgreeStrongly 4.94 1.42 2.15 7.73 .002*

Note. AdminManage variable p-value = .001.

R² score .066 and adjusted R² .050.

p ≤ .05, p ≤ .01, p ≤ .001.

Emotional exhaustion is significantly affected by the perception of training to administratively manage a church (p = .001). Those who agree strongly that they were prepared for administrative functions had an overall emotional exhaustion score decrease by 5.36 points compared with those who disagree strongly which was a significant difference (p = .004). Emotional exhaustion also decreases as years of service increases (p = .002) and congregation size was found to not be significant (p = .169).

Ministry Satisfaction

A similar linear regression model was used to determine significant variables to predict ministry satisfaction scores. The sum score of the eleven FBI questions on ministry satisfaction was used as the dependent variable here. The independent variables were years of service, congregation size, and the scores to the survey question regarding perceptions of training received in the key areas of managing a church were the only proposed variables to be significant predictors of satisfaction. The regression for each of the Likert answers to perceptions to manage a church used strongly disagree as the baseline to determine the slopes of the four remaining answers.

Ministry satisfaction is significantly affected by the perception of training to manage a church (p = .001). More specifically, those who agree strongly that they were prepared for these administrative functions had their overall ministry satisfaction score increase by 4.94 points above those who disagree strongly (p = .002). The contribution of the variables years of service (p = .066) and congregation size (p = .086) were marginally significant.

Identifying Significant Independent Variables From the Entire Survey to Predict Emotional Exhaustion

To understand which independent variables were the best predictors of emotional exhaustion scores, a backward regression utilizing race, age, gender, years of service, years in the current church, number of active pastors in the church, congregation size, population size, the respondent's perception of training to manage a church, the training perceptions on the ability to preach, the training perceptions on the ability to provide pastoral care, denomination, and the sum score of the eleven FBI questions on ministry satisfaction were used.

After removing variables that were found to not be significant, we have the results in Table 3 predicting emotional exhaustion. The respondent's sum score for ministry satisfaction was most significant (p < .001) predicting a decrease of 0.82 in emotional exhaustion for each point increase in satisfaction. Age was also highly significant (p = .006), predicting a decrease of 0.07 in emotional exhaustion for each year added to age. Respondent's gender predicted emotional exhaustion levels would increase by 1.37 if female over the baseline of male (p = .044). Emotional exhaustion levels would increase by 10.60 points if non-binary over the males (p = .054), but only one respondent identified as non-binary. While perceptions of training to manage a church were only marginally significant with a p-value = .068, when added to the other variables, the R² values had large increases to 45.2% and adjusted R² of 44%.

Table 3.
Backward regression predicting the sum of emotional exhaustion with all available variables.

95% CI

Effect Estimate SD LL UL p

(Intercept) 68.88 2.68 63.60 74.13 <.001***

Age −.07 .02 −.12 −.01 .006*

Gender-Female 1.37 .68 .04 2.70 .044*

Gender-Non-binary 10.60 5.47 −.17 21.36 .054*

AdminManage-Disagree .86 .92 −.95 2.68 .350

AdminManage-NotCertain 1.48 1.27 −1.01 3.98 .243

AdminManage-Agree −.91 .98 −2.83 1.02 .355

AdminManage-AgreeStrongly −1.15 1.48 −4.08 1.77 .438

MinistrysatisfactionSum −.82 .06 −.93 −.71 <.001***

Note. Gender variable p-value = 0.024 and AdminManage variable p-value = .068.

p ≤ .05, p ≤ .01, p ≤ .001.

R²= .4525.

R²a = .4389.

Identifying Significant Independent Variables From the Entire Survey to Predict Ministry Satisfaction

Backwards regression was used to determine the best variables to predict ministry satisfaction scores. Again, all independent variables from the survey, race, age, gender, years in the current church, number of active pastors in the church, congregation size, population size, the respondent's perception of training to manage a church, the training perceptions on the ability to preach, the training perceptions on the ability to provide pastoral care, denomination, and the sum score of the 11 FBI questions on emotional exhaustion were removed one by one, leaving the best predicting variables listed in Table 4.

Table 4.
Backward regression predicting ministry satisfaction with all available variables.

95% CI

Effect Estimate SD LL UL p

(Intercept) 55.64 1.94 51.82 59.46 <.001

Preach-NotCertain −2.46 2.05 −6.49 1.57 .231

Preach-Agree −1.12 1.48 −4.04 1.77 .442

Preach-AgreeStrongly −.06 1.50 −3.01 2.90 .970

Pastoral-NotCertain .61 1.22 −1.81 3.02 .622

Pastoral-Agree 1.30 .82 −.31 2.92 .113

Pastoral-AgreeStrongly 2.77 .95 .91 4.64 .004

eeSum −.44 .03 −.50 −.38 <.001*

Note. Preach variable p-value = 0.092 and pastoral variable p-value = 0.013.

p ≤ .05, p ≤ .01, p ≤ .001.

R²= .45.

R²a = .44.

The respondent's sum of their emotional exhaustion scores was the most significant variable (p < .001). Respondents who agreed strongly they were trained to provide pastoral care led to ministry satisfaction levels increasing by 2.77 points over respondents who disagreed strongly, which was a significant difference (p = .004). Including the respondent's perceptions on training to preach, provide pastoral care and including the sum scores of emotional exhaustion levels resulted in R² values increasing drastically again up to 45.9% and the adjusted R² of 43.7%.

Comparing Training for Two Extreme Groups

In order to differentiate the importance of the training variables, t-tests compared two extreme subgroups that were created on either end of the survey. Respondents with high emotional exhaustion (n = 47) were respondents where the sum of their emotional exhaustion scores exceeded the sum of their ministry satisfaction scores. A second group termed satisfaction overachievers (n = 39), was determined by pastors where their ministry satisfaction scores exceeded their emotional exhaustion scores. In order to derive a comparable sample size to the high emotional exhaustion clergy, an additional 25 points was subtracted from that satisfaction sum.

Tables 5 and 6 demonstrates the importance of the perception of training in all three areas which did turn out significant. Satisfaction overachieving pastors had significantly higher perceptions on the training they received to preach (M = 4.59, SD = .64) than did high emotional exhaustion pastors (M = 4.06, SD = .73), a significant difference of .53, t(84) = 3.55, p < .001. Satisfaction overachievers had a difference of .89 (M = 3.10, SD = 1.43) compared to high emotional exhaustion clergy (M = 2.21, SD = 1.14) in training to administer t(84) = 3.50, p = .002 and satisfaction overachievers had a difference of .68 (M = 4.28, SD = .83) in the area of pastoral care over those that are emotionally exhausted (M = 3.60, SD = .99), t(72)= 3.15, p < .001.

Table 5.
Means (SD) for high EE and satisfaction overachievers on training questions.

Preach Administer Pastoral care

Satisfaction Overachievers 4.59 (.64) 3.10 (1.43) 4.28 (.83)

High Emotional Exhaustion 4.06 (.73) 2.21 (1.14) 3.60 (.99)

Difference .53 .89 .68

p-value .001* .002* .001***

p ≤ .05, p ≤ .01, p ≤ .001.

Table 6.
Means (SD) for high EE and overly satisfied on their average years of service.

Years of Service n

High Emotional Exhaustion 15.67 (10.57) 47

Rest of sample 21.39 (12.08) 285

p = .002**

Satisfaction Overachievers 24.26 (13.24) 39

Rest of Sample 20.10 (11.80) 293

p = .068

p ≤ .05, p ≤ .01, p ≤ .001.

Comparing Years of Service to the Rest of the Sample

Using the same two groups, a t-test was completed comparing group differences for years of service. In this case each of these extreme groups was compared to the rest of the sample.

When splitting respondents, pastors with more years of service had significantly higher ministry satisfaction scores and lower emotional exhaustion scores. High emotional exhaustion respondents had fewer years of service (M = 15.67, SD = 10.57) compared to the rest of the sample (M = 21.39, SD = 12.08) with a difference of 5.7 fewer years, t(330) = 3.07, p = .002. Respondents with high ministry satisfaction levels had marginal differences and tended to have more years of service (M = 24.26, SD = 1.24) than the rest of the sample (M = 20.10, SD = 11.80) with a difference of 4.16 more years t(330) = 2.04, p = .068.

Discussion

Summary of Results and Comparison and Contrast With Past Research

Overall, the hypotheses are supported by the results. The initial prediction that emotional exhaustion levels for newer clergy, serving typically in smaller more rural churches, was supported. Years of service was a significant variable in the original regression models to predict both emotional exhaustion and ministry satisfaction. The study found that pastors who agreed they were trained to administratively manage a church consistently ranked high in ministry satisfaction and low in emotional exhaustion compared to those who disagreed. It also found that pastors who ranked training high in the areas of pastoral care and preaching had higher ministry satisfaction scores compared to the rest of the pastors in the survey. These pastors also tended to be older and more experienced. Randall (2007) found that two explanations are often proposed to account for this; pastors who suffered from emotional exhaustion or depersonalization at a younger age may have left the job either on grounds of ill-health or to seek alternative employment, and older workers may have learned how better to pace themselves in their work to minimize opportunities for burnout and found support.

Another key finding of this study was the need for improved management training for newer clergy and training in all three areas for all clergy, especially less experienced ones. While past research has argued for the need for training, this study clearly quantifies that need and links emotional exhaustion and ministry satisfaction levels to training. Pastors who perceive high training in the key areas of management, pastoral care and preaching tend to have lower emotional exhaustion scores and higher ministry satisfaction scores. To retain pastors, especially newer clergy but also more experienced clergy, seminaries, congregations, denominations and other stakeholders need to improve and offer a path of continual training. The literature presents the pressures clergy face in the three main functions they perform: preaching, administering and managing churches, and providing pastoral care. While better prepared in seminaries for preaching, too often clergy receive limited training for the administration and pastoral care challenges (e.g., Beebe, 2007; Lee & Iverson-Gilbert, 2003; McKenna et al., 2007; Visker et al., 2017).

Theoretical Contribution

Moreover, the current quantitative work has an important theoretical contribution. The results clearly support the importance of considering training in the theory of balanced affect. Training prepares clergy for the challenges in their work and the results showed that clergy who rated training high felt more prepared. They had lower emotional exhaustion and higher ministry satisfaction. Training, then, may help enable clergy to keep going through the lows and highs of the profession.

Practical Implications

This research quantifies the need for specific training to aid all clergy with the challenges of managing and administering a church, as well as pastoral care and preaching. One tool to reduce emotional exhaustion and improve ministry satisfaction could be development and promotion of an on demand, online web site academy with specific “Ted Talk” type videos of nationally recognized experts on the key areas of managing a church, conflict resolution with church members, importance of self-care, handling compassion fatigue, promotion of the servant leadership model and development of emotional intelligence. The study clearly indicates the need for seminaries and other ordination sites to offer additional courses in church administration to properly prepare students. In addition, the current work demonstrates the need for continuing ongoing education resources and tools that can be offered by denominations and churches, especially for newer clergy.

This study further emphasizes the use of the FBI and the need to balance emotional exhaustion with ministry satisfaction. These two factors clearly correlate and impact each other, with ministry satisfaction serving as a variable that reduces emotional exhaustion while emotional exhaustion impacts to a lesser degree ministry satisfaction.

Limitations

A limitation of the survey was its recruitment by emailing and calling potential districts and parishes. While this was a truly random method to gather respondents, it also could be criticized over other literature review studies where the surveys are distributed with the blessing and support of congregation members and hierarchical elders to avoid bias and representation of the population. The respondents were also overwhelmingly white and older.

Future Directions

Francis has a long history of research in this area. He was key in developing the FBI (Francis et al., 2009), and he demonstrated and validated the importance of adding the balance of ministry satisfaction to emotional exhaustion to judge clergy burnout (Francis et al., 2011, 2017, 2019). In 2021, Francis continued to explore other variables to better understand clergy burnout by including the importance of screening for specific personality factors of emotionality and subclinical psychopaths to predefine potential burnout in clergy. He was also part of research that emphasized the importance of a purpose in life as a predictor of burnout. While this research has been consistently quantitative, a mixed-methods approach and adding a qualitative study might be the best next step. Researchers could more fully explore several of the FBI questions, for example, the importance of support and proper resources from their parishes, in order to identify what additional factors predict emotional exhaustion and ministry satisfaction since R² values of these models remain fairly low.

In addition, specific research on the most effective training techniques should be explored. Qualitative research following the performance and burnout levels of graduates from specific seminaries could help answer questions about the impacts of specific training techniques. What specific training did the respondents with high ministry satisfaction and low emotional exhaustion receive? What parts of the training did respondents feel best prepared them for the rigors of managing the complex role of leading a church? What mixture of training beyond the traditional seminary curriculum had the biggest impact? These questions could best be answered with qualitative research and then amplified with quantitative and longitudinal research.

Conclusion

This research clearly supports the need for improved clergy training as a tool to decrease emotional exhaustion and avoid clergy of all ages leaving their calls and the profession. It adds to previous research by more clearly defining what type of training—specifically training that prepares clergy for the challenges of leading, administering and managing churches. It also adds to the importance of training in terms of pastoral care and even preaching challenges. While the initial prediction was that this training should be targeted towards younger, newer clergy fresh out of seminary, it now more generally can be seen as needed for clergy of all ages and experience with an emphasis for female pastors.

The movement of some seminaries to develop partnerships with nearby business universities to provide some management training should be supported. In addition, denominations should be encouraged to develop additional online and in person training seminars in these additional key areas supported by research from the literature review: emotional intelligence, conflict resolution, self-care, change cycle theory and providing pastoral care.

			95% CI
(Intercept)	34.40	1.15	32.13	36.67	.000
YearsOfServ	−.10	.03	−.16	−.04	.002**
CongSize	−.0002	.0002	−.0006	.0001	.169
AdminManage-Disagree	−.41	1.17	−2.70	1.89	.729
AdminManage-NotCertain	.21	1.60	−2.93	3.36	.896
AdminManage-Agree	−3.18	1.22	−5.59	−0.77	.010**
AdminManage-AgreeStrongly	−5.36	1.87	−9.04	−1.68	.004**

			95% CI
(Intercept)	40.05	.88	38.32	41.77	.000
YearsOfServ	.05	.0246	−.003	.09	.066
CongSize	.0002	.0001	.0000	.0005	.086
AdminManage-Disagree	1.62	.89	−.12	3.37	.069
AdminManage-NotCertain	1.24	1.22	−1.15	3.62	.310
AdminManage-Agree	2.47	.93	.64	4.30	.008**
AdminManage-AgreeStrongly	4.94	1.42	2.15	7.73	.002***

			95% CI
(Intercept)	68.88	2.68	63.60	74.13	<.001***
Age	−.07	.02	−.12	−.01	.006*
Gender-Female	1.37	.68	.04	2.70	.044*
Gender-Non-binary	10.60	5.47	−.17	21.36	.054*
AdminManage-Disagree	.86	.92	−.95	2.68	.350
AdminManage-NotCertain	1.48	1.27	−1.01	3.98	.243
AdminManage-Agree	−.91	.98	−2.83	1.02	.355
AdminManage-AgreeStrongly	−1.15	1.48	−4.08	1.77	.438
MinistrysatisfactionSum	−.82	.06	−.93	−.71	<.001***

			95% CI
(Intercept)	55.64	1.94	51.82	59.46	<.001
Preach-NotCertain	−2.46	2.05	−6.49	1.57	.231
Preach-Agree	−1.12	1.48	−4.04	1.77	.442
Preach-AgreeStrongly	−.06	1.50	−3.01	2.90	.970
Pastoral-NotCertain	.61	1.22	−1.81	3.02	.622
Pastoral-Agree	1.30	.82	−.31	2.92	.113
Pastoral-AgreeStrongly	2.77	.95	.91	4.64	.004**
eeSum	−.44	.03	−.50	−.38	<.001***

	Preach	Administer	Pastoral care
Satisfaction Overachievers	4.59 (.64)	3.10 (1.43)	4.28 (.83)
High Emotional Exhaustion	4.06 (.73)	2.21 (1.14)	3.60 (.99)
Difference	.53	.89	.68
p-value	.001***	.002***	.001***

	Years of Service	n
High Emotional Exhaustion	15.67 (10.57)	47
Rest of sample	21.39 (12.08)	285
p =	.002**
Satisfaction Overachievers	24.26 (13.24)	39
Rest of Sample	20.10 (11.80)	293
p =	.068

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Bret T. Voorhees

Bret T. Voorhees is retired after serving in Iowa State government for 31 years in various roles including Bureau Chief for Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency Management. He has a Doctorate in Education from the University of Concordia, Wisconsin, an MBA from Iowa State with a focus on strategic planning and marketing, and an MS in Journalism and Mass Communication also from Iowa State.

Kathleen N. Kannass is a professor of Education at Concordia University Wisconsin. She received her PhD in Psychology from The University of Iowa. Her research interests include attention, distractibility, and cognitive development in infancy and early childhood.

Amy G. Vaughan is an associate professor of Statistics at Drake University in the Zimpleman College of Business. She received her PhD and Master's degree in Statistics from the University of Georgia, her MBA from Georgia Southern University, and her Bachelor's in Business Administration from Murray State University. Her research interests include applied data analysis, nonparametrics, and structural equation modeling.

References

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			95% CI
Effect	Estimate	SD	LL	UL	p
(Intercept)	34.40	1.15	32.13	36.67	.000
YearsOfServ	−.10	.03	−.16	−.04	.002**
CongSize	−.0002	.0002	−.0006	.0001	.169
AdminManage-Disagree	−.41	1.17	−2.70	1.89	.729
AdminManage-NotCertain	.21	1.60	−2.93	3.36	.896
AdminManage-Agree	−3.18	1.22	−5.59	−0.77	.010**
AdminManage-AgreeStrongly	−5.36	1.87	−9.04	−1.68	.004**