The cost of “not being heard” and clergy retention

Abstract

Poor workplace or employee engagement results in decreased productivity and creativity as well as increased absenteeism and turnover. Being heard is a positive contributor to workplace or employee engagement and in establishing a healthy relational ecology. Conversely, not being heard adversely influences clergy’s decision to remain in full-time pastoral ministry. A shortage of clergy poses a risk to the continued existence of the church as an organisation. The aim of this study was to ascertain which factors played a role in responding to the call to full-time pastoral ministry. The dichotomous category being heard/not being heard was identified as contributing to the basic social psychological process of responding to the call. Osmer’s four tasks were used to view the category not being heard from a practical theological perspective. The results of the study indicate that not being heard contributes to clergy leaving full-time pastoral ministry. 1 This article was presented in draft form as a conference paper at the annual meeting of the Society for Practical Theology in South Africa held from 17-19 January 2018 in Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa. Both the conference paper and subsequent article focus on one of the core categories of the author’s PhD dissertation, namely (not) being heard.