Senta Eastern

Document Type

Dissertation

Date of Award

5-2022

School/College

College of Education (COE)

Degree Name

Ed.D., Counselor Education

Committee Chairperson

Candy H Ratliff

Committee Co-Chairperson

Joyce K Jones

Committee Member 1

Ronnie Davis

Committee Member 2

Jessica Davis

Keywords

Burnout, Church leadership burnout, Emotional burnout, Job Stress, Minister burnout

Abstract

Church leaders met with increasing workload demands, meeting high expectations and being able to manage their time are subject to elevated and prolonged levels of stress leading to burnout. The burnout phenomenology evolved from observations made of helping professionals working with chronic drug users while becoming increasingly fatigued and experiencing a daily loss of motivation. In a similar fashion, ministers’ emotional, physical, cognitive, and even spiritual reserves may be depleted when faced with elaborate demands. Meanwhile, few studies have been conducted to examine job satisfaction and implications for burnout within ministry. The purpose of this study was to examine the predictability of selected demographic and church-related variables on the burnout rates among ministers and church leaders. Specifically, this study was concerned with the predictability of selected demographic and church-related factors: marital status, age, educational level, number of children, years in ministry, prior ministry training, church congregation size, formal education or training in counseling, employment status within the church and minister (mentorship) support. A correlational research design was employed for this empirical investigation. The convenience sampling method was used in this study. The sample population for the present study consisted of 150 ministers and church leaders from the Southern Region of the United States. The data collection instrument used in this study was the Francis Burnout Inventory. Three hypotheses were formulated and tested at the .05 level of significance or better. Multiple Logistic Regression was utilized to examine the predictive validity of the demographic variables and church related variables. Overall, the findings revealed that the demographic variables for hypotheses one was found to have a linear relationship with emotional burnout. Additionally, hypothesis two revealed that there was a linear relationship found between emotional burnout and church related factors. The findings also identified the independent predictors for both demographic and church related variables. Finally, a statistically significant linear relationship was also found to exist between the ten independent variables and the emotional burnout rate of ministers and church leaders. The results of this study support the critical need for identifying factors that promote burnout.

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