It comes as no surprise that Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) ministers, like many people, face financial challenges. Most ministers report being financially stable, owning a home, paying their bills, and planning for (or living in) retirement, according to research conducted by PC(USA) Research Services. Available in English, Spanish, and Korean, the Minister Finance Report, which does not include educational debt, shows that about half of all pastors report that their household incomes are sufficient to meet their needs and manage debt. In fact, 25% of non-retired ministers report no consumer debt. However, about 1 in 4 pastors report they cannot afford vacations and big-ticket items.
On the 10th anniversary of the adoption of “Comfort My People: A Policy Paper on Serious Mental Health,” the 223rd General Assembly (2018) funded a two-year mental health initiative based in the Presbyterian Mission Agency (PMA). The mental health questions in the Research Services minister survey were designed in collaboration with PMA staff and are part of a larger study of mental health across the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). The questions focus on four areas: awareness, training, ministry and self-care.
What do we know about the ministers who serve the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)? Where do they serve? Do they have families at home? Where do they stand politically, socially, or theologically? What age are they? Research Services set out to answer those and related questions.
What are Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) ministers of the Word and Sacrament thinking, feeling, and experiencing in terms of physical, mental, and financial health, satisfaction of call, and more? To answer that question, Research Services conducted the first-ever comprehensive study of ministers.
Visiting https://www.pcusa.org, the main website of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), is for many users akin to shopping at a grocery store where food and other products are displayed by who made them, not by type.
Over the next eight months or so, the Presbyterian Mission Agency — with input from its many partners — will embark on a three-phase Vision Implementation Plan to, as the PMA’s president and executive director put it during a staff town hall meeting Thursday, discern “what the Holy Spirit is already doing and join God in doing it.”
Although leaders of new worshiping communities (NWCs) describe both discipleship and spiritual formation as types of personal growth, there are key distinctions in their descriptions of the two.
Thursday’s open portion of the online meeting of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), A Corporation Board of Directors was chiefly spent exploring financial reports and the results of a board survey.
An April survey by Research Services of nearly 1,100 Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) congregations and mid councils revealed some surprising responses on how they’re dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.
While congregations and new worshiping communities are facing unprecedented challenges as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, they are also innovating by learning new technologies, starting new missions and finding new ways to be the Church while social distancing. A new report from PC(USA) Research Services describes some of the challenges that worshiping communities are facing and provides a peek at the new things that are springing forth.
