At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Frederick J. Streets was senior pastor at the Dixwell Avenue Congregational United Church of Christ in New Haven, leading the congregation through a time of unrelenting distress.
As he attended to his congregation’s needs, he wondered how other clergy were coping with that prolonged period of grief and fear. Were they taking care of themselves as they looked after others?
To find out, Streets conducted two surveys of clergy in the United Church of Christ in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. He subsequently conducted 11 focus groups with a subset of the respondents.
The results of that work, published in the Journal of Pastoral Theology, showed that clergy who consistently engaged in self-care practices, such a meditation and exercise, experienced higher well-being and were less prone to burnout. Streets also found that older and more experienced clergy reported greater well-being and dedication to self-care than did younger and less experienced clergy.
Streets, who served as Yale University chaplain from 1992 to 2007, adapted the study in a book, “How Are You ‘Being?’: Clergy Wellness in a Time of Uncertainty” (Pickwick Publications), that calls on clergy and congregations to work together to create an ethic of self-care that enhances the well-being of both pastors and their flocks. The advice he offers can apply to anyone, not just those with a religious calling.
Streets, who is now professor of divinity and social work at Yale Divinity School, recently spoke to Yale News about why pastors are reluctant to appear vulnerable and how congregations can promote clergy self-care. The interview has been edited and condensed.
What inspired the title, “How Are You Being?”
Frederick J. Streets: I first saw that term in a memoir titled “Bipolar Faith” by Monica Coleman, who’s an Episcopal priest in California. Monica was an undergraduate student at Harvard and doing exceptionally well, but she was going through what we understand now is bipolar disorder, and she didn’t know it. Her book is a reflection on being an undergraduate and dealing with undiagnosed mental illness. And the turning point for her came when someone asked her how she was being, not how was she doing. That phrasing stuck with me.
I think it stuck because my professional career as a pastor, theologian, and clinical social worker has been devoted to reflecting on the interior life, our sense of self and identity. When I went through the pandemic with my congregation, I started thinking about how other clergy were handling this very challenging situation. How were they being?
What can pastors and congregations do to promote clergy self-care?
Streets: First, they should understand that self-care is not selfishness. It’s a daily process of being aware of and attentive to your physiological and emotional needs. Clergy need to take the initiative and be very intentional about taking care of themselves and their families. And congregations need to support clergy in these efforts. For example, they should move beyond having contracts with pastors that simply provide for 10 days of study annually and two weeks of vacation. Those things are important, but I’m advocating for a broader conversation in every congregation around clergy wellbeing. Churches should ask what self-care means for the pastor and have a dialogue about it.
There are any number of ways to promote self-care. Maybe pastors have regular days off to serve as mental-health days. Maybe they set aside a week each year to attend a meditation retreat. I know clergy who do Zen meditation and yoga. Peer support is also important. Are clergy in touch with other pastors who can help them talk through issues? The idea is to take each of these measures and quantify them with a plan, which I view as a covenant rather than a contract. The book includes a self-care protocol for clergy that I’ve found very useful, and that congregations and pastors can use as a guide.
Clergy also should think about how mindfulness and self-care is being promoted in the congregation. They should be intentional about encouraging prayer and meditation practices with their congregations. I should note that these self-care practices can be beneficial to everyone, not just clergy.
Your experiences leading a congregation through the pandemic inspired you to write the book. How did you cope during that challenging period?
Streets: I struggled. On one level, I felt the same fear of the virus as everybody else. People were dying. It was very frightening. But there were practical concerns I needed to address. Due to necessary public health protocols, our church had to shift to online worship services. I recorded them from my home, which meant I needed to quickly learn how to use the technology, including sound, lighting, and green-screen equipment.
I had a number of sick congregants I visited with on Zoom because hospitals understandably were not allowing in-person visits. I led funerals at the graveyard instead of inside the church. A couple of people were so sick that they needed to be intubated and I couldn’t talk to them because they weren’t able to communicate through Zoom. I couldn’t sit with people who had lost their loved ones as I normally would to help them with their grief. At the same time, I was trying to take care of myself. It was all very stressful.
Is it difficult for clergy to be open about the stress difficulties they experience?
Streets: Pastors tend to suffer in silence. They often work in siloed environments with little access to peers. For a lot of clergy members, there is a genuine fear of appearing vulnerable. Nobody likes to feel vulnerable, but in the dynamics of congregations, vulnerability sometimes becomes a political tool. If a pastor appears vulnerable, some might think that means they’re not effective and then take advantage of that to undermine them. Even if they have a wonderful, healthy congregation, in their own heads, they still struggle with the risk that they will appear vulnerable.
It’d be seen as a boundary violation for a minister to give the impression that they wanted the congregation to take care of them. You’ve got to take care of yourself. But at the same time, if a pastor feels a need to do something outside of their covenant in terms of self-care, some will feel too afraid of seeming vulnerable to ask for it. Maybe they’d like to add another week off throughout the year to do a mental-health retreat. Generally, only their families or close friends will know if they are struggling with something. The congregation usually doesn’t find out until there’s a stress point, and something breaks. I’m advocating for not letting things get that far.
In the book’s last section, you discuss the importance of having “a trauma-informed” ministry. What does that approach involve?
Streets: It’s about understanding the effects of trauma on people. Ministers should be aware of how stress is manifesting in people’s lives. There will be people sitting in church who are living through some form of suffering, either from a medical issue, the stress of current events, or family problems — all kinds of things cause it. It’s important that pastors know how to identify and address suffering in all its permutations. How do they do that? And how do you create an atmosphere in the church where issues concerning suffering and trauma can be discussed?
Equally important is thinking about how you address these issues in sermons, Bible study, and prayer. The crucifixion is an obvious trauma story, right? There’ll be a lot of people in church on Easter Sunday, but their minds are still on the suffering of Good Friday. I’m not suggesting that every sermon be trauma informed. But at certain moments in the life of the congregational community and in the liturgical year, it’s important to be able to sensitively address suffering.
How can divinity schools encourage students to be mindful of their own well-being and that of their future congregants?
Streets: I think we need to be teaching future pastors about the importance of self-care. We need to help them cultivate their self-awareness. This isn’t just a matter of meditation and prayer. They could do journal writing. There are a variety of ways to approach it. Students also need to develop the ability to raise questions in a non-confrontational way when they see something happening within the congregation that doesn’t seem healthy. They need to be able ask the congregation to examine itself collectively.
Students at Yale will learn to think critically, interpret the Bible insightfully, and prepare inspiring and interesting sermons. But they also need to develop an understanding of organizational and social behavior that is often taught in business schools. For example, they should learn to pay attention to body language. A pastor is meeting with deacons and trustees and sees somebody slumping in the corner. What’s that about? There is a way to inquire about it. You can’t just ignore it. Pastors need to be as discerning about other people’s strengths and weaknesses as they are about their own strengths and weaknesses.
