What It Takes to Survive and Thrive in Ministry

We study everything these days. By that I mean we poll and survey and analyze and conduct studies on so many things, some of which you'd think would be obvious.

That seems to be the case with the following by Bob Burns on The Gospel Coalition:

What does it take for pastors to survive and thrive in ministry?

This was the key question asked in an eight-year study funded by the Lilly Endowment that I had the privilege to coordinate through Covenant, Reformed, and Westminster Seminaries....After hundreds of hours of meeting with pastors and their spouses, then working through the data, our research team identified five primary themes for fruitful ministry, which are shared in the book Resilient Ministry. While these themes aren’t the holy grail of ministry survival, my co-authors and I believe each one plays an important role in pastoral resilience.

Those themes are spiritual formation, self-care, emotional and cultural intelligence, marriage and family, and leadership and management.

On the one hand, it shouldn't take an eight-year study to figure that out. On the other hand, I am constantly amazed by how my ministry friends and colleagues ignore and neglect those priorities.

In fact, chances are you neglect those things too. So read more about the study and its results here. And please...if you're in ministry, make spiritual formation, self-care, emotional and cultural intelligence, marriage and family, leadership and management top priorities in your calendar, schedule, and life. Now.