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Health of Seminarians Research Findings

By: Karen Webster

health research seminarians

September 2021

One of our commitments as an organization is to conduct research specifically focused on the current state of seminarian health and wholeness.  In the summer and fall of 2020, Travis Webster (HSHC co-founder) conducted his dissertation research study* among seminarians who attend Christian seminaries and divinity schools in the United States.  The purpose of his study was to explore whether the factors that contribute to pastoral unhealth are already present in pastoral formation.  While Travis is closing in on finishing his dissertation, we did not want to wait any longer to share some of what he discovered!  Here is a “sneak peek” at some of his results.  

Note: very little research has been done on the health of seminarians.  Therefore, we believe that the information Travis has gathered will positively contribute to addressing the overall health and wellbeing of seminarians, clergy, and congregations.  

When Seminarians Were Asked…

What best reflects your practical and theological understandings of pastoral health?
  • 92.31% believe that “a pastor’s concern about their own health is part of their vocation.”
  • 90.77% believe that “God is concerned about pastoral health.”
  • 90.77% believe that “For a pastor to maintain their health is part of, and enhances, their service to the church.”
In what ways have you observed pastors experiencing unhealth?
  • 88.52% “Overweight/Obese.”
  • 81.97% “Stressed.”
  • 77.05% “Fatigued.”
How do you feel you have observed pastors impair their health?

  • 85.25% “Taking on excessive responsibility.”
  • 83.61% “Eating poorly.”
  • 77.05% “Ignoring their mental health.”
How do you feel you have observed pastors tend effectively to their health?
  • 85.48% “Taking vacation at least yearly.” 
  • 77.42% “Exercising”
  • 75.81% “Delegating responsibilities.”

Study Snapshot:

  • Conducted in the summer and fall 2020.
  • Participants came from at least 10 different seminary communities and represented at least 6 different denominational affiliations.
  • 65 surveys were fully completed.
  • 13 interviews were conducted.
  • 61.54% of the participants are seeking ordination (23.08% not, 15.38% undecided).

*Travis anticipates graduating from Columbia Theological Seminary in May 2022 with a doctoral degree in pastoral counseling.

Introducing HSHC’s 2020 Summer Intern: Lucas Mburu!

By: SuzanneYoder

Introducing HSHC’s Summer 2020 Intern – Lucas Mburu!

June, 2020 – Lucas will be working with us part-time in partnership with Columbia Presbyterian Church, which is located across the street from HSHC’s office, and Columbia Theological Seminary (Decatur, GA).

Snapshot Bio

Home Country: Kenya

Studying: This fall, Lucas will be a second-year student in the Master of Arts in Theological Studies program at Columbia Theological Seminary, emphasis on the New Testament.

Family: His wife Eunice, daughter Grace (13 years old), and son Timothy (8 years old).

Personal Statement: Each human is God’s work in progress, whom God created “sovereign,” able to imagine and create meaningfulness in their environment for flourishing.

Vision: To build a community that lives into this “sovereignty.”

Mission: To live my call, passion, training, analytical, and stewardship potential by exercising love, faithfulness, professionalism, and ethical conducts in communicating God’s love to humans in their day-to-day matters, for the glory of God.

Slogan: Doing good to as many people as I can, in as many ways as I can, in as many places as I can, and as often as I can.

2020 HSHC Lenten Challenge Retrospect

By: SuzanneYoder

June, 2020 – “Why does it always seem to take our world being turned upside down before we recognize ourselves in each other? . . . A thoughtful reflection written by a Lenten Challenge participant & HSHC supporter Ann M. Frensley.

The Lenten Challenge was timely for me and affirmed much in my spiritual journey of the past two years. While it is easier for me to avoid the difficult questions, to even deny the necessity of them, what I learned by staying with those questions during this season of Lent is significant. I prayed for deeper discernment and wanted to reflect with greater intention on the questions. I did not want to throw down rote responses.

What did my relationships look like? Did they feel authentic? Had I been authentic, i.e., honest, patient, present, vulnerable, forgiving? God knows I lack patience sometimes, especially with family. I thought I knew what to expect by asking for deeper discernment. Ha! After reading the daily reflections, I wrote them in my journal to revisit later. I was surprised by my responses as the prayer for depth began to open up to me. But I was uncomfortable. It had not always been easy to be honest with my thoughts and feelings, even to myself. I experienced life differently from others.

The Challenge offered an opportunity to be authentic, my true self before God, my family, and friends. It might be too much to ask from me. Could I allow myself to be vulnerable, answer honestly, even to myself? The ugly and uninvited, vicious and deadly coronavirus thrust itself into the midst of Lent, taunted and dared me to reexamine my relationships and my responses to the Lenten Challenge with more urgent intention. The cause and effect that the pandemic was having on so many lives was affecting me, my community, and the entire world. The event was expanding exponentially and holding humanity emotionally hostage. Why was this happening? How long will we have to be separated? Life will surely be different. But how? No answers. Doubts? Many. I missed my weekly interactions with people I had come to know and was aware of how much I had relied on facial expressions, gestures, and body language in conversations. Visual cues and tone of voice do not exist in emails and texts. Virtual face-to-face encounters are helpful and can brighten my day, but nothing compares with the actual presence of a loved one, a friend, a confidante. It has not been easy for me to accept the loss of physical presence, and I grieve it like a death. Whatever the pandemic serves up, I can still choose how to respond, but I’ve had a hard time with that.

The unexpected has burdened me with many questions. How can I communicate with others in a clearer and more conscious way? How can I create new ways to be present from a distance and celebrate meaningful moments of intimacy in my relationships, and for how long? What’s next? Why me? Why us? Why now? Can I manage to be kinder to myself? Maybe the seasons of Lent and Pandemic occurred together so I can appreciate how fragile and interconnected my relationships are. I must celebrate them now in as many imaginative and creative ways as possible. Why does it always seem to take our world being turned upside down before we recognize ourselves in each other?

Easter was celebrated differently this year, and I celebrate the Resurrection from a new perspective. I have another chance to renew my relationships, soften tough scars, forgive and be forgiven, reconcile with and be kinder to others and to myself. I continue to hold the questions with no answers in tension with hope and the expectation of clarity.

In Letters to a Young Poet, Rainier Maria Rilke wrote, “…be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and… try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

Ann M. Frensley April 2020

Congratulations Anna Grace!

By: SuzanneYoder

June, 2020 – HSHC’s student intern, Anna Grace Claunch, graduated from Columbia last month. She served as our intern for the past two years and we are thrilled that she will now be on HSHC’s board of directors! Anna Grace is currently moving to Pelham, New York, where, at the end of the month, she will begin a year-long residency at Huguenot Memorial Church (Pelham, NY).

She is eager to show her new congregation the many ways in which one’s faith and health overlap, and teach them how to live more fully into a life of wholeness, not only for themselves, but for the world in which we live.

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