by | Aug 14, 2023 | Uncategorized
A new survey finds clergy well-being has become a more serious problem as the denomination splits.
United Methodist clergy have been through the wringer in recent years, with a worldwide pandemic, a church schism, and the ongoing decline of one of the nation’s largest Protestant denominations.
Those stresses have likely taken a toll on their health, a new report shows.
A survey of 1,200 United Methodist clergy found that half have trouble sleeping, a third feel depressed and isolated, half are obese, and three-quarters are worried about money.
Almost all of those measures have worsened in the past decade, according to the study from Wespath, which administers benefits for pastors and employees at United Methodist institutions.
Overall, United Methodist pastors feel worse and worry more than they did a decade ago.
“Even though we saw some areas of well-being improve in 2023 after very dismal results in 2021, the overall 10-year lookback tells us that clergy well-being, which was a problem a decade ago, is an even bigger problem today,” said Kelly Wittich, director of health and well-being at Wespath, in announcing the survey’s findings.
“We see that clergy struggle with well-being compared to their secular counterparts, in no small part due to the often unrealistic demands placed on clergy from multiple directions.”
The study found that 11 percent of pastors said they are in excellent health, down from 17 percent in 2013, while 1 in 10 (9%) said they are in fair health, double the number from a decade ago.
The report did not indicate whether clergy age might be a factor affecting health outcomes.
More than half said the pandemic negatively affected their emotional (54%) and social health (52%). Fewer said their spiritual (26%) or financial health (23%) got worse.
Pastors …
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by | Aug 14, 2023 | Uncategorized
Our hearts aren’t prepared for the Lord until they are ready to love others.
The Book of Luke, more than any of the other Gospels, presents a sweeping look at Jesus’ teachings on ethics. Over half the parables we have from Jesus are unique to Luke. They cover topics like how to steward money and how Jesus sees people the world overlooks, such as the poor, the disabled, and women.
At the foundation of it all is Jesus and his preaching about the kingdom of God.
I have spent more than 40 years of my professional academic life in Christian vocational service and in the study of Luke’s gospel. Key texts in it have opened my eyes to the scope of Jesus’ mission in ways I rarely heard about as a younger Christian.
The first such passage is in Luke’s first chapter. Gabriel foretells the birth and calling of John the Baptist to his father, Zechariah, saying John will prepare the way for the Messiah.
He will turn many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. And he will go as forerunner before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers back to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared for him. (vv. 16–17, NET throughout)
One of the things I have learned about reading Scripture is to define its terms by asking questions of the text. Here the question arises, “What does it mean to be a people prepared for the coming of the Lord?” This text gives a two-part answer.
First, the expected part: John will turn people back to God. This reflects quite rightly what prophets are supposed to do.
The second component—which is also part of John’s call and what God seeks from people ready for deliverance—is what had eluded me in the past. Gabriel announces that John …
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by | Aug 14, 2023 | Uncategorized
The apostle used his hellos and goodbyes to teach, bless, and worship.
You can learn a lot about a culture from the way people begin and end their letters.
Written correspondence in the email age, for example, is brief and functional. We start as quickly as we can (maybe with a “Dear” or a “Hi,” but often with nothing at all), and conclude with dismissive brevity (“Yours,” “Regards,” “Best”). By contrast, when people had more time and letter-reading was a moment of intimacy to be enjoyed by candlelight, correspondents would use ornate, florid sign-offs: “I need not say how much I am your ever-faithful friend,” “I have the honor to be your obedient servant,” and so forth.
In many parts of the world today, it is normal to begin by asking about the well-being of the recipient’s whole family; in the individualistic West, that is much less common. Our greetings communicate more than we realize.
One of the most striking examples of this in history, and certainly the most theologically significant, is in Paul’s epistles. In the first-century Greco-Roman world, letters opened in a standard format. You would give your name, then the name or names of whomever you were addressing, and then a one-word greeting: “Hilarion, to his sister Alis, many greetings.” Several letters in the New Testament follow this pattern exactly (Acts 15:23; 23:26; James 1:1).
But Paul (and subsequently Peter) developed a modified introduction. After identifying himself and the church he was addressing, he would offer “Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Paul was obsessed with grace, so it might come as little surprise that he starts all his letters with it. The addition of peace, …
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by | Aug 14, 2023 | Uncategorized
The particularities of people groups can aid the work of understanding and proclaiming the gospel.
The worldwide growth of Christianity has brought about a flowering of theological perspectives. Yet many Western theologians have little familiarity with theologians working in non-Western contexts. Stephen T. Pardue, a professor at the Asia Graduate School of Theology, addresses this problem in a new book, Why Evangelical Theology Needs the Global Church. J. Nelson Jennings, editor of the journal Global Missiology, spoke with Pardue about the blessings of engaging with majority-world theologians.
You grew up in the United States, but you’ve spent many years living and teaching in the Philippines. How has that background shaped your thinking on theology and the global church?
Like most culturally hybrid people, I couldn’t possibly trace all the intricacies of how I’ve been shaped. One of my joys in writing the book was getting to reflect on these complex realities, which often get either ignored or oversimplified in theological books. In my own book, I try to move beyond these simplifications—for example, speaking of “Eastern” and “Western” theologies as if all theologians within these categories think the same way. I hope readers will feel invited to consider how the cultural plurality of God’s people helps us hear the Good News more fully.
Why, to invoke your book title, does evangelical theology need the global church?
We need the input of the whole church to thrive. This means not just celebrating the church’s growing diversity for vague reasons of politeness or political correctness, but developing a coherent framework for how culture can inform our theology without undermining its primary focus: the triune God revealed in Scripture.
One of my big themes is that …
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by | Aug 14, 2023 | Uncategorized
As the toll of overdoses continue to rise, congregations provide recovery, medical care, and redemption.
It was the prayer requests that caught the new minister’s attention. Not long after Lisa Bryant arrived at the Madam Russell United Methodist Church, a historic congregation named for one of the original pioneers in Saltville, Virginia, she began to notice the repetition. The same underlying problem kept rearing up in the needs she heard.
“I got phone calls from some members: ‘Please pray for my grandson, he’s on drugs again,’” she said. “Or someone’s niece would get arrested again.”
Drugs—methamphetamines, oxycontin, heroin, fentanyl—were hiding everywhere in the prayers of the people.
The town of just 2,000 people in southwestern Virginia had almost nothing to help those struggling with addiction. The nearest recovery group was an hour’s drive away. Residential rehab facilities were even farther—out of reach of anyone without a decent income and reliable transportation, which is a lot of people in that part of the country. So Bryant believed that the church, in the Wesleyan spirit of doing all the good you can for all the people you can, could start a recovery group.
It shouldn’t be too hard, she thought. Churches have been hosting 12-step meetings across the country for decades.
She brought the idea to the church council: They should launch a program to help people in Saltville deal with the opioids crisis ravaging the region.
“Everybody was quiet,” Bryant told CT, recalling the moment from five years ago. “Then one guy spoke up and said, ‘We don’t really have that problem here. That doesn’t pertain to us.’”
“Really?” she asked, stunned to tears. “It’s all around us. You …
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