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\Sometimes I felt like I was alone in ministry\: The Role of Christian Social Workers in Supporting Pastoral Ministry
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\Sometimes I felt like I was alone in ministry\: The Role of Christian Social Workers in Supporting Pastoral Ministry
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Journal Article
\Sometimes I felt like I was alone in ministry\: The Role of Christian Social Workers in Supporting Pastoral Ministry
2025
Overview
Social workers and pastors often labor together in church ministry. With many pastors leaving, this qualitative research study asked 35 former pastors of the Seventh-day Adventist church what precipitated their exodus and what might have helped. Interviews, transcribed verbatim, were analyzed using grounded theory and the constant comparative method. Three major themes emerged: challenges with church members, difficulties with administration, and deficits in job-relevant training. Church members could be antagonistic or unengaged and unsupportive. Church administration was sometimes experienced as excessively controlling, arbitrary, and punitive, with rigid expectations that stifled intellectual, theological, and methodological diversity. Participants recommended training in mental health (both for personal coping and for aiding parishioners) and in practical skills needed to manage the job. Christian social workers can play a key role in supporting pastors and in training congregants how to better relate to their spiritual leaders.
