Motivated in part by a recognition of the numerous social functions served by clergy (Meek et al. 2003; Weaver et al. 1997), research of the last few decades has repeatedly demonstrated that ministry is a stressful career (e.g., Blanton 1992; Kieren and Munro 1988; Richmond et al. 1985). While pastors can cite the personal benefits of being in ministry (Barna 1993), the social pressures can be daunting. For example, pastors frequently cite the time demands of ministry as a problem (e.g., Lee and Balswick 1989; Mace and Mace 1980). In a recent study of pastors who had left the ministry, Hoge and Wenger (2005) found that 58% of the participants endorsed the statement “I felt drained by the demands on me” as an important reason for leaving. Pastors are expected to fulfill numerous roles (Kieren and Munro 1988), where expectations may be unclear or conflicting (Ngo et al. 2005). Such demands usually require hours of the pastors’ evenings and weekends, often competing with family time, a particular concern recently voiced by youth ministers (Strommen et al. 2001; Warden 1999).

Moreover, there are other more complex social expectations that clergy may experience as unrealistic and intrusive (e.g., Blackbird and Wright 1985; Kennedy et al. 1984), including the expectation of model behavior (Lee and Balswick 1989; Mace and Mace 1980). Personal criticism within a congregation is particularly detrimental to pastors (Krause et al. 1998). Such pressures spill over onto family members, making for inappropriate or unwelcome demands on pastors’ children (Lee 1992) or their spouses (Douglas 1965; Taylor 1977).

Together, these environmental demands may be symptomatic of what family stress theorists call boundary ambiguity. Pauline Boss (1977; Boss and Greenberg 1984) originated the term to describe a stressor inherent in situations of ambiguous loss (Boss 1999), such as that experienced by families of prisoners of war; the uncertain status of the missing family member makes it difficult to redraw the boundaries of family membership and bring psychological closure. Since then, the concept has been applied more generally, beyond actual situations of loss. Observing the sometimes intrusive behavior of congregations with regard to ministers and their families (e.g., Lee and Balswick 1989; Morris and Blanton 1998), particularly for those ministers who live in parsonages (Hill et al. 2003), some researchers (e.g., Frame and Shehan 1994; Lee 1995, 1999; Lee and Iverson-Gilbert 2003; Morris and Blanton 1994a) have applied the concept of boundary ambiguity to clergy families.

More broadly, the present article employs the ABC-X model of family stress first developed by Hill (1949, 1958). Hill’s basic paradigm examines the interaction between precipitating stressor events (the A-factor), available resources (the B-factor), and the family’s perceptions and meanings (the C-factor), in order to determine how these contribute to the family’s level of stress or possible crisis (X). The model has been developed in greater detail by subsequent theorists (e.g., Dollahite 1991; McCubbin and Patterson 1982, 1983; Patterson 1988, 1989). Basic research on clergy families, however, is still relatively sparse, and it is uncertain how fruitful more complicated theoretical schemes would be at this stage of development. For heuristic purposes, the original ABC-X model provides the most parsimonious paradigm.

The literature cited above on the stressors of the ministry environment contributes to our understanding of the A-factor. Demands on one’s family life can affect a pastor’s attitude toward the ministry (e.g., Lee and Iverson-Gilbert 2003). In a sample of 131 United Church of Christ clergy who had left the pastorate, over one-third of the respondents cited “wife or family unhappy” as being of medium or high importance in their decision to leave (Jud et al. 1970).

The situation is more complex than the mere impact of external stressors. Some research suggests that social support (B) and perception (C) variables are more important to the overall well-being of pastors than the level of stressors (Lee and Iverson-Gilbert 2003). Not only do stressors make demands on family resources, but from the pastor’s vantage point, marital and family relationships are themselves crucial sources of social support (Jud et al. 1970). Pastors also report the importance of extrafamilial friendships as an important personal resource (Meek et al. 2003).

The meaning dimension is also important. Boss (2002) has argued that while ambiguous loss may be considered a stressor (A-factor), boundary ambiguity itself is a meaning or perception variable (C-factor). Accordingly, the level of congregational demands may be less important than how the family interprets such demands. One study (Lee and Iverson-Gilbert 2003), for example, suggests that the frequency of congregational demands bears less of a relationship to well-being than how pastors rate the impact of such demands, and similarly, that the number of supportive relationships is less important than their satisfaction with the support received. There is also a theological dimension to the perception variable: pastors who can see their particular ministries as fitting into a larger divine plan are likely to be more resilient overall (Meek et al. 2003).

Thus, out of the research on pastoral stress has arisen a parallel concern over the stability of clergy marriage and family relationships (e.g., Mace and Mace 1980). Non-empirical works offer numerous case examples of troubled clergy marriages (Merrill 1985) as well as insiders’ advice to couples on facing unrealistic expectations and ministry myths and the pressures of living in a “fishbowl” (Hunt 1990; London and Wiseman 1999).

A subdomain of literature for ministers’ wives has also developed. Advice books written for clergy wives recognize inconsistent expectations of the pastors’ wife, and urge women to set clear priorities (Patterson 2002; cf. Mickey and Ashmore 1991). Stereotypes seem to persist, even though today’s clergy spouses are more likely to be professionals in their own right (Kinnon 2001). Even where expectations are not clearly articulated, clergy wives may read what is expected of them in the social behavior of others, adapting themselves little by little into a “conventional performance” of her role (Finch 1980). This can lead to a disjunction between one’s internal state and the external persona seen by the congregation. As one minister’s wife has written: “While the wife is expected to be poised and wise, on the inside she may feel emotionally unresolved, relationally embattled, and spiritually lost” (Zoba 1997, p. 23).

Despite these concerns, there is a relative dearth of empirical studies on clergy spouses and couples. Since William Douglas’ major study of pastors’ wives in 1965, there has not been another of similar scope. Some studies address marital and family variables, but utilize only self-reports from pastors (e.g., Lee and Iverson-Gilbert 2003). Others include both pastors and spouses, but do not match spouses by couple, and generalize results without differentiating by gender (e.g., Benda and DiBlasio 1992). Studies utilizing matched couples data (e.g., Morris and Blanton 1998) are clearly the exception rather than the rule. This leaves open the question of whether or not the findings related to clergy family stress do in fact apply equally well to pastors as well as their spouses. Thus, the contribution of the present study is to examine patterns of stress in clergy families, using both pastors and their spouses as respondents, with effects differentiated both within couples and across genders.

Two related research questions will be explored. First, pastors and their spouses may minister together in the same congregation, but this does not necessarily mean that they will experience the social environment in the same way. Are there differences between them in terms of the levels of demand and support, and how do they evaluate these? Do they differ in well-being and attitude toward the ministry? Beyond these basic differences lies a second and higher-order research question. Pastors and their spouses may not only differ on each of the study variables, but in how the variables relate to one another. Specifically, do they differ in terms of how demand, support, and perception variables (A-, B-, and C-factors) relate to personal and ministry-related outcomes (X)? Correlations will be computed separately for pastors and their spouses, then examined for statistically significant differences between the pastors’ and the spouses’ coefficients (Bruning and Kintz 1987).

Materials and methods

Participants and procedure

Participants for this study were ordained clergy in the Pacific Union Conference of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. Approximately 800 pairs of questionnaires (one each for the pastor and spouse) were mailed by the denominational office to all clergy on the conference’s roster. Two follow-up reminder postcards were sent at 3 to 4 week intervals. At least one questionnaire was returned from 224 separate households, representing data for 220 pastors and 172 spouses. Using informal denominational estimates of the number of active clergy on the roster (exact figures are unavailable), this represents a response rate of roughly 28%. Although it was not assumed that the pastors would uniformly be men, only five of the participants completing pastor questionnaires were women, and four declined to state their gender. For the purposes of this article, all analyses will be confined to a smaller subset of matched couples of male pastors and their wives. Of 153 matched dyads, six cases were excluded for outlying values on global measures of demand and social support, yielding an available sample of 147 couples.

Forty-six percent of the respondents were ministering in urban congregations, followed by 36% suburban and 18% rural. Seventy-one percent of the clergy respondents were senior or solo pastors. The pastors ranged from 24 to 84 years of age, with a mean of 53.20 (SD = 11.79). Their wives ranged in age from 25 to 82, with a mean of 50.77 years (SD = 11.45). Pastors had been in the ministry from less than one to nearly 60 years, averaging 23.55 years (SD = 13.09). Roughly one-third of the sample had household incomes below $50,000, another third from $50–70,000, and one-third above $70,000. As might be expected, the sample was highly educated: 77% of the pastors had completed a masters degree or higher (including 20% holding doctorates). Their wives were also well-educated overall: 42% had completed at least a bachelor’s degree, and another 25% had completed graduate degrees. The sample was predominantly Anglo-American/White, with 63% of the pastors and 65% of the spouses endorsing this description. Fourteen percent of the pastors and 12% of the wives were Latino/Latina. Asian/Asian American respondents comprised 11% of the pastors and 15% of the wives; the figures for African-American/Black pastors and their wives were 7 and 5%, respectively.

Measures

Ministry demands

The Ministry Demands Inventory (MDI; Lee 1999) presents respondents with 17 social situations representing the demands made by church members upon ministers and their families. Sample items include, “You were criticized face to face by a member,” and “Ministry responsibilities were added without enough regard to your present workload.” Participants were asked to indicate both the frequency and the severity of the impact of each item. Frequency was reported on a 7-point scale, ranging from 0 to 6 or more occurrences over the past 6 months. Severity of impact was rated using a 4-point Likert scale format, with responses ranging from none (0) to high (3).

The MDI is comprised of four factor-derived subscales: personal criticism, boundary ambiguity, presumptive expectations, and family criticism. Lee (1999) reported alpha coefficients ranging from 0.49 (for the impact of family criticism) to 0.80 (for the frequency of personal criticism) across the eight frequency and impact subscales. Global measures of demand frequency and impact, aggregating the four types of demand, were more internally consistent, at alphas of 0.82 for both scales.

In the present sample, internal consistency was examined across the four subscales and frequency versus impact responses for both husbands and wives. The eight alpha coefficients for presumptive expectations and boundary ambiguity, across spouses and across frequency and impact, were adequate at 0.73–0.79. The criticism subscales, however, showed marginal to unacceptable levels of reliability, ranging from 0.05 to 0.64, and were dropped from the analysis. Composite measures of demand frequency and impact, aggregating the four subscales, showed good internal consistency, as found in the previous study by Lee (1999) above. Alphas for the present sample ranged from 0.84 to 0.86 for both pastors and their wives. As in an earlier study using the MDI (Lee and Iverson-Gilbert 2003), frequency ratings are used to operationalize stressors/demands (A-factor), whereas the impact ratings reflect the perception/meaning dimension (C-factor) of the ABC-X model of family stress.

Social/emotional support

The B-factor of resources is operationalized by a measure of social support across four domains of the minister’s social network, namely “family,” “congregation,” “friends outside the congregation,” and “denomination.” Participants were asked how many people in each domain they could talk to if they were having (a) “personal problems” and (b) “problems in the church or ministry.” Response options for each of the eight items varied from “none” to “9 or more.” Alpha reliabilities for the four two-item scales (i.e., two types of problems by four social domains) varied from 0.78 to 0.95 for pastors, and from 0.84 to 0.92 for wives. Global measures of support were also created by summing the items. These aggregate measures were internally consistent, with alphas of 0.87 for pastors and 0.84 for wives.

Satisfaction with social support was measured by seven items in a 4-point Likert format varying from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (4). The items were: “I wish I had more friends outside the congregation,” “I wish I had more friends inside the congregation,” “Overall I am satisfied with the amount of emotional support I receive from my family/our congregation/friends outside the congregation/other pastors (or pastors’ spouses)/our denomination.” The first two items were reverse scored. Alpha coefficients were 0.72 for both pastors and their wives. In this study, satisfaction with support was considered a perception/meaning (i.e., C-factor) variable.

Personal well-being

Three instruments are used in this study to assess the personal well-being of pastors and their spouses. The Family Member Wellbeing Index (FMWI) was developed by the Family Stress, Coping, and Health Project of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Participants respond to eight items using an 11-point scale anchored by opposing descriptors. For example, one item asks, “How relaxed or tense have you been (during the past month)?” with responses varying from very relaxed (coded as 0) to very tense (coded as 10). The other seven items assess energy level, cheerfulness, fear, anger, sadness, and concern over one’s own health or the health of another member of the family. McCubbin and Thompson (1991) reported the alpha reliability for the FMWI to be 0.86. In the present sample, the alpha coefficients were 0.79 for pastors and 0.80 for wives.

The Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS; Diener et al. 1985) is a five-item measure of global satisfaction with one’s life as compared to one’s personal ideals. A sample item is, “In most ways my life is close to my ideal.” All responses are coded on 7-point Likert scales, ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (7). Diener et al. reported an alpha coefficient of 0.87 for the SWLS, and a 2-month test-retest reliability coefficient of 0.82; Pavot et al. (1991) reported similar figures. In the present sample, the alpha coefficient for pastors was 0.75, and 0.89 for wives.

Global marital adjustment is operationalized by the seven-item version of the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS-7). The original instrument, created by Graham Spanier (1976) and widely used in marital research, was comprised of 32 items organized into four factor-derived subscales (dyadic cohesion/satisfaction/consensus, and affectional expression). Critics, however, have contested the four-factor structure, arguing that there is only one underlying dimension of global adjustment which can be adequately assessed by a shorter set of items. The seven-item version (DAS-7) is derived from the work of Sharpley and Cross (1982; Sharpley and Rogers 1984), and has demonstrated adequate alpha reliability of 0.75 and higher across a variety of samples (e.g., Hunsley et al. 2001). Among the pastors in the present study, the alpha coefficient for the DAS-7 was 0.82, and 0.83 for the spouses.

Attitudes toward the ministry

In a validation study of the Ministry Demands Inventory, Lee (1999) created two scales to operationalize how congregational demands might affect a pastor’s attitude toward the ministry. On the one hand, ministry optimism assesses how hopeful a pastor is about remaining in the ministry. It is measured by four items, including: “I am confident that God wants me to remain in ministry.” Ministry burnout, on the other hand, reflects the doubt and emotional exhaustion experienced by many clergy (e.g., Evers and Tomic 2003; Willimon 1989). It is measured by six items, for example, “I have thought seriously of leaving the ministry.” For both measures, participants used responses ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (4). Alpha reliability coefficients for the present sample ranged from 0.72 to 0.77 across the two measures for pastors and spouses.

Results

The first research question addressed the extent to which pastors and their wives differ on each of the major study variables. Table 1 summarizes the results of paired-sample t tests between spouses, thus comparing the experiences of husbands and wives within the same congregational environment.

Table 1 Mean differences and correlations between male pastors and their wives on major study variables (N = 147)
Full size table

Pastors experience higher levels of demand than their spouses, but generally have higher levels of support as well. The single exception is that wives report a significantly higher number of supportive family relationships. On the perception variables, pastors rate themselves as having been more impacted by demands globally, and by presumptive expectations in particular; the two spouses are not differentially impacted by ambiguous boundaries. There is also no difference between the spouses in their satisfaction with perceived emotional support. Pastors report higher levels of well-being and life satisfaction, as well as greater optimism about the ministry. There are no differences between spouses on reports of marital quality and burnout.

Alongside these differences, however, are important similarities between the spouses’ scores. Every within-couple correlation between paired variables was statistically significant. Thus, while there may be consistent gender- or role-related differences between spouses across households and ministry environments, spouses within the same environment seem to share similar perceptions of demand and support, and have similar levels of personal well-being and attitudes toward the ministry.

The second research question asks to what extent pastors and their spouses might differ, not merely in their perceived levels of demand and support, but in how demand and support are related to the other variables of interest. For the sake of parsimony, the three measures of personal well-being were aggregated into a single score, as were the two measures of ministry attitude (with burnout being reverse-scored for the aggregate).

Table 2 shows the zero-order correlation coefficients. Perhaps the most striking similarity is that for both pastors and their spouses, satisfaction with perceived support was the variable most strongly associated with both well-being and ministry attitude. Pastors and spouses also seem to be quite similar in the relationship of the number of supportive relationships to well-being; the higher the number of supportive family and denominational relationships, as well as the total number of such relationships overall, the greater the reported well-being.

Table 2 Correlations of demand and support with personal and ministry variables (N = 147)
Full size table

There also appear to be patterns of difference between the spouses. We have already seen that pastors experience more demands than their spouses. For pastors, the greater the frequency of presumptive expectations, the lower their reported well-being; this relationship did not hold for the spouses, where the correlation was near zero. A similar pattern holds for the rated impact of both presumptive expectations and boundary ambiguity, although the global rating of the impact of these demands is negatively correlated with well-being for the spouses as well. The number of supportive relationships is uncorrelated with ministry attitude for pastors, but this is not true for the spouses; the greater the number of supportive family, congregational, and denominational relationships, as well as the greater the number of supportive relationships overall, the more positive her attitude toward the ministry. Tests of significance, however, reveal that only the first difference reported, regarding the correlation of presumptive expectation to well-being, is statistically significant, z = 1.98, p < 0.05.

Discussion

From an ecological point of view (cf. Lee and Balswick 1989) the question of whether pastors and their spouses differ is one of specifying the relative contribution of person versus environment variables. The fact that the intra-couple correlations on all the major study variables were positive and significant suggests both that the wives are involved in the ministry, and that there is some congruence in how they perceive and respond to the social environment the spouses share. Against this background, significant mean differences may indicate the contributions of gender and role expectations. Pastors experience higher levels of demand because they are more involved, or because congregations expect them to be more involved, or both. Pastors also appear to have broader networks of social support than their wives, with the exception of family support. This may mean that wives perceive the members of their nuclear families as being more supportive than the pastors do. Given that the mean number of children in the home for this sample was 1.04, the more likely explanation is that they maintain a slightly higher number of supportive relationships with extended family members. It is important, however, to remember that the number of supportive relationships is far less salient than participants’ satisfaction with the relationships they have. Satisfaction with social support is the variable most highly correlated with both well-being and ministry attitude, and here there is no difference between spouses.

Pastors experience more presumptive expectations than their wives do, and they rate the impact of such expectations as more severe. Consequently, the more often pastors experience such demands, the lower their reported level of well-being. This was not true, however, for the wives. Most likely, such expectations have a more direct impact on the pastor’s workload, resulting in greater stress. The frequency of intrusive congregational behavior, however, may be less important than how such behaviors are interpreted; global ratings of the impact of demands are significantly and negatively correlated with well-being for both pastors and their spouses.

The present study is limited in scope, addressing only a subset of married pastors in one regional conference of one denomination. The relatively low response rate means that generalizations must be very tentative, though it helps that the present results corroborate extant findings. More data need to be collected on couples, across denominations and regions, and some additional stimulus is needed to increase response rates. Nevertheless, there is some evidence that Protestant congregations do in fact want their pastors (particularly male pastors) to be married, and reward them accordingly (Chang and Perl 1999; Nesbitt 1995). The question is whether congregations are also able to support these marriages in tangible ways. The similarity of the results for pastors and their wives suggests that general interventions that target the skill of clergy couples to develop and maintain satisfying sources of support may be helpful for both. Yet further research should also address a suggestive but non-significant pattern of difference between pastors and their spouses: why was the number of supportive relationships more consistently related to ministry attitude for spouses, but not for pastors? McMinn et al. (2005) have suggested that male pastors tend to adopt private, intrapersonal or at best intrafamilial coping strategies for dealing with stress, while their wives may rely upon a somewhat broader network of friends. If this is a valid generalization, is it a gendered difference, or a matter of role expectations? Such research would aid in determining what would constitute the most helpful interventions for the development of social support for clergy couples.

Toward that end, further research with ministry couples should also account more directly for the level of the spouse’s involvement in the ministry as opposed to work outside the congregational context, differentiating between spouses of male and female clergy. Qualitative studies could address in greater depth the variety of support relationships actually available to clergy families, as well as the patterns of utilization. Denominations are becoming more aware of clergy family stressors and want to help (Morris and Blanton 1994b) but there is evidence that some clergy are wary of going to their denomination for help (Norris 2004). Indeed, conflict with or lack of support from denominational officials seems to be a common reason for pastors leaving the ministry (Hoge and Wenger 2005), which suggests that further study is needed to understand this relationship (as opposed to the congregational emphasis assumed here) in greater detail. All of these suggestions are given in the hope that such research may itself constitute an indirect but ongoing source of social support for those in ministry.