Clergy Emotional Health

Clergy, as well as other leadership positions in a church, experience emotional stress in many forms. In addition to crisis, emotional stress can come from good experiences, successes, trivia, and the routines of church life. Nerve endings that are rubbed raw take longer to heal than tired muscles and physical exhaustion. This book offers strategies and actions that not only clergy, but also other church leaders, congregations, and judicatories can take to support healthy leadership. You can make use of the strategies to evaluate the emotional health of clergy, churches, and judicatories.You can recognize how an honest evaluation of spiritual leadership can provide an opportunity for faithful growth.You can identify some specific steps that can be taken to support healthy leadership.You can work in relationship with others who share your goal for a healthy church.You can begin with a few steps and evaluate what your experience suggests as a next step. Whether lay or clergy, you can grow to trust that as you act, God will guide you in your decisions. Many of the strategies suggested can be fun and invigorating.This book challenges you to test the thesis that Healthy Clergy Make Healthy Congregations. The church and its leadership are imperfect members of the human community. Learning how to make healthy responses to the imperfections of ourselves and the world provides a witness of Good News to the world.