Friday, February 13, 2009

Working Out

Yesterday I had an interesting phone call. Someone from the Duke Chronicle (which is our newspaper here at Duke University) called me because he had read an article about healthy ministers. Apparently the New York Times did an article recently about clergy in the United Methodist Church being unhealthy. At the end of the conversation he said that I seemed to be the one on track when it came to being healthy out of all the other Pastor's he had interviewed. I was wondering what you all think. Do you generally think that Pastor's are healthy or unhealthy?

1 comment:

tduncan said...

I'd say generally pastors are unhealthy, particularly emotionally unhealthy. Oftentimes, they carry the weight of the world and have no one with whom to share their personal struggles. Now I know that they can converse with God, but humans need human interaction. Think of it like this: Who do we call when someone has passed? someone is sick? someone needs counseling? someone is getting married? someone has a baby? Typically, the first on the list is the minister...regardless of the time of day. Plus, there are ALWAYS covered dish luncheons in the South!