<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><blockquote type="cite"><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">Please forward to Europe list.<div>PWW<br><div><br><div>Début du message réexpédié :</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;"><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1);"><b>De : </b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;">"The Rev. John Beach" <<a href="mailto:rector@emmanuelchurch.ch">rector@emmanuelchurch.ch</a>><br></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;"><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1);"><b>Date : </b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;">2 août 2010 06:34:41 UTC-04:00<br></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;"><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1);"><b>À : </b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;">Roy Taylor <<a href="mailto:roytaylor16@bluewin.ch">roytaylor16@bluewin.ch</a>>, Bishop Whalon <<a href="mailto:bishop@tec-europe.org">bishop@tec-europe.org</a>>, Luk de Volder <<a href="mailto:lukdevolder@mac.com">lukdevolder@mac.com</a>><br></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;"><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1);"><b>Objet : </b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;"><b>Réexp : Evidence Grows of Problem of Clergy Burnout</b><br></span></div><br><div topmargin="0" lefmargin="0" bottommargin="0" rightmargin="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0"><p>Here is telling article from today's New York Times<br><br></p>
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<td>----- Original message -----</td>
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<td><strong>From:</strong> "The Rev. John Beach" <<a href="mailto:rector@emmanuelchurch.ch">rector@emmanuelchurch.ch</a>></td>
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<td><strong>Date:</strong> Mon, 02 Aug 2010 12:23:44 +0200</td>
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<td><strong>Subject:</strong> Evidence Grows of Problem of Clergy Burnout</td>
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<td><strong>To:</strong> "The Rev. John Beach" <<a href="mailto:rector@emmanuelchurch.ch">rector@emmanuelchurch.ch</a>></td>
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</table><p style="margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: black; font-size: 18pt;">Evidence Grows of Problem of Clergy Burnout</span></p><p style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 1.5pt 0cm;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: gray; font-size: 7.5pt;">By <a title="More Articles by Paul Vitello" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/v/paul_vitello/index.html?inline=nyt-per"><span style="color: #004276; text-decoration: none;">PAUL VITELLO</span></a></span></p><p style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: gray; font-size: 7.5pt;">Published: August 1, 2010</span></p><div style="line-height: 18pt; margin-bottom: 3.75pt; "><span style="font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: #333333; font-size: 7.5pt;"> </span><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><p style="line-height: 17.6pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;">The findings have surfaced with ominous regularity over the last few years, and with little notice: Members of the clergy now suffer from obesity, hypertension and depression at rates higher than most Americans. In the last decade, their use of antidepressants has risen, while their life expectancy has fallen. Many would change jobs if they could. </span></p><div style="line-height: 18pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; ">
<br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div style="line-height: 15.25pt; "><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: #666666; font-size: 8.5pt;"> </span><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;">Public health experts who have led the studies caution that there is no simple explanation of why so many members of a profession once associated with rosy-cheeked longevity have become so unhealthy and unhappy. </span><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><p style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;">But while research continues, a growing number of health care experts and religious leaders have settled on one simple remedy that has long been a touchy subject with many clerics: taking more time off. </span></p><p style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;">“We had a pastor in our study group who hadn’t taken a vacation in 18 years,” said Rae Jean Proeschold-Bell, an assistant professor of health research at <a title="More articles about Duke University." href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/d/duke_university/index.html?inline=nyt-org"><span style="color: #004276;">Duke University</span></a> who directs one of the studies. “These people tend to be driven by a sense of a duty to God to answer every call for help from anybody, and they are virtually called upon all the time, 24/7.” </span></p><p style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;">As cellphones and social media expose the clergy to new dimensions of stress, and as health care costs soar, some of the country’s largest religious denominations have begun wellness campaigns that preach the virtues of getting away. It has been described by some health experts as a sort of slow-food movement for the clerical soul. </span></p><p style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;">In the United Methodist Church in recent months, some church administrators have been contacting ministers known to skip vacation to make sure they have scheduled their time, Ms. Proeschold-Bell said. </span></p><p style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;">The church, the nation’s largest mainline Protestant denomination, led the way with a 2006 directive that strongly urged ministers to take all the vacation they were entitled to — a practice then almost unheard of in some busy congregations. </span></p><p style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;">“Time away can bring renewal,” the directive said, “and help prevent burnout.” </span></p><p style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;">The Episcopal, Baptist and Lutheran churches have all undertaken health initiatives that place special emphasis on the need for pastors to take vacations and observe “Sabbath days,” their weekday time off in place of Sundays. </span></p><p style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;">The Lilly Endowment, a philanthropic foundation based in Indiana, has awarded grants of up to $45,000 each to hundreds of Christian congregations in the past few years, under a project called the <a title="News release on 2010 grant process." href="http://www.clergyrenewal.org/"><span style="color: #004276;">National Clergy Renewal Program</span></a>, for the purpose of giving pastors extended sabbaticals. </span></p><p style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;">And while recent research has focused largely on mainline Protestant churches, some Jewish leaders have begun to encourage rabbis to take sabbaticals. </span></p><p style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;">“We now recommend three or four months every three or four years,” said Rabbi Joel Meyers, a past executive vice president of the Rabbinical Assembly, the international association of Conservative rabbis. “There is a deep concern about stress. Rabbis today are expected to be the C.E.O. of the congregation and the spiritual guide, and never be out of town if somebody dies. And reply instantly to every e-mail.” </span></p><p style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;">Some nondenominational evangelical Christian ministers have embraced a similar approach, outlined in two best-selling books by the Rev. Peter Scazzero, pastor of the <a title="The church’s Web site." href="http://www.newlifefellowship.org/"><span style="color: #004276;">New Life Fellowship Church</span></a> in Elmhurst, Queens. </span></p><p style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;">Mr. Scazzero, 54, is the unofficial leader of a growing counterculture among independent pastors who reject the constant-growth ethic that has contributed to the explosion of so-called mega-churches. </span></p><p style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;">In the books, “Emotionally Healthy Spirituality” and “The Emotionally Healthy Church,” he advocates more vacation time for members of the clergy, Sabbath-keeping, and a “rhythm of stopping,” or daily praying, that he learned from the silent order of Trappist monks. </span></p><p style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;">Mr. Scazzero said that depression and alienation from his wife and four children prompted him a half-dozen years ago to try living more consciously and less compulsively. </span></p><p style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;">“It’s hard to lead a contemplative life on Queens Boulevard,” Mr. Scazzero said. “But the insight I gained from the Trappists is that being too ‘busy’ is an impediment to one’s relationship with God.” </span></p><p style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;"><a title="National review of research (PDF)." href="http://healthcarechaplaincy.org/userimages/Mental%20Health%20Issues%20Among%20Clergy%20and%20others.pdf"><span style="color: #004276;">Clergy health studies</span></a> say that many clerics have “boundary issues” — defined as being too easily overtaken by the urgency of other people’s needs. </span></p><p style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;">Dr. Gwen Wagstrom Halaas, a family physician who is married to a Lutheran minister and who wrote a 2004 book raising the alarm about clergy health (“The Right Road: Life Choices for Clergy”), described the problem as a misperception about serving God. </span></p><p style="line-height: 17.6pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;">“They think that taking care of themselves is selfish, and that serving God means never saying no,” she said. </span></p><p style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;">Larger social trends, like the aging and shrinking of congregations, the dwindling availability of volunteers in the era of two-income households, and the likelihood that a male pastor’s wife has a career of her own, also spur some ministers to push themselves past their limits, she said. </span></p><p style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;">The <a title="Church’s Web site." href="http://www.highmountainchurch.org/"><span style="color: #004276;">High Mountain Church of the Nazarene</span></a> in North Haledon, N.J., started with 25 members 10 years ago and grew to 115 before its pastor, the Rev. Steven Creange, noticed strains in his marriage and decided to slow down. </span></p><p style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;">Mr. Creange said he and his wife feel lavishly rested — and much happier — since they began observing Sabbath days on Fridays and making occasional weekend getaways. </span></p><p style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;">“I just don’t go to every graduation and every communion anymore,” he said. “And people accept it.” </span></p><p style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;">In May, <a title="Its Web site." href="http://www.divinity.duke.edu/initiatives-centers/clergy-health-initiative"><span style="color: #004276;">the Clergy Health Initiative</span></a>, a seven-year study that Duke University began in 2007, published the <a title="The results." href="http://faithandleadership.com/features/articles/body-and-soul"><span style="color: #004276;">first results</span></a> of a continuing survey of 1,726 Methodist ministers in North Carolina. Compared with neighbors in their census tracts, the ministers reported significantly higher rates of arthritis, diabetes, high blood pressure and asthma. Obesity was 10 percent more prevalent in the clergy group. </span></p><p style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;">The results echoed recent internal surveys by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which found that 69 percent of its ministers reported being overweight, 64 percent having high blood pressure and 13 percent taking antidepressants. </span></p><p style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;">A 2005 survey of clergy by the Board of Pensions of the Presbyterian Church also took special note of a quadrupling in the number of people leaving the profession during the first five years of ministry, compared with the 1970s. </span></p><p style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;">Roman Catholic and Muslim clerics said the symptoms sounded familiar. </span></p><p style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;">“We have all of these problems, but imams are reluctant to express it because it will seem like a sign of weakness,” said <a title="A profile." href="http://www.masjidalhikmahnewyork.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=79&Itemid=90&lang=in"><span style="color: #004276;">Imam Shamsi Ali, director of the Jamaica Muslim Center in Queens</span></a>. “Also, mosques do not pay much and many of them work two jobs.” </span></p><p style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;">Catholic canon law requires priests — “unless there is a grave reason to the contrary” — to take a spiritual retreat each year, and four weeks of vacation. </span></p><p style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;">That vacation regulation has led Msgr. Gus Bennett of Brooklyn to take a camping trip on horseback in the Wyoming wilderness with friends every year for 30 years. </span></p><p style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;">Monsignor Bennett, 87, a canon lawyer, now semi-retired, who spent most of his working years setting up and managing the pension plan for priests and lay employees of the Diocese of Brooklyn, says he has always felt his religious side to be most alive during those nights in Wyoming, “sleeping on the ground, under the whole of creation.” </span></p><p><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;">He does not know how it affected his health. “I just know it made it easier to come back and jump into the books,” he said. </span></p>
The Rev. John Beach, Rector, Emmanuel Church, 3, rue de Monthoux, 1201 Geneva, Switzerland, +41 22 732 80 78</td>
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<br><br>
The Rev. John Beach,
Rector, Emmanuel Church,
3, rue de Monthoux,
1201 Geneva, Switzerland,
+41 22 732 80 78</div></blockquote></div><br>
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