Clergy Health Collaborative
The Duke Clergy Health Collaborative
Hi. We’re the Duke Clergy Health Collaborative (formerly the Clergy Health Initiative and the Religion and Social Change Lab), and we translate original research into shared resources that help United Methodist clergy in North Carolina—and beyond—serve well and be well at the same time.
Resources to help you serve well and be well.
Guided by research.
NC-UM clergy face declining church resources, rising social pressures, and systemic barriers to health, leaving many unable to sustain long-term flourishing in ministry. We believe these clergy want to be made well—and, in many ways, our research shows they already are. However, we also know they are up against barriers too big to go it alone: barriers of shrinking churches and budgets, barriers of growing climate and political disasters, barriers of their own limited attention and capacities. What’s more, their own congregants often don’t fully understand the demands of their ministry. More than ever, pastors need evidence-based resources they can trust.
grounded in relationship.
Since 2007, we’ve come alongside NC-UM—and, more recently, seminarians at Duke Divinity School—to research their physical, mental, spiritual, and vocational well-being. Now, we’re shifting our focus to become not just world leaders in research—our Statewide Clergy Health Survey and Seminary to Early Ministry Study are singular in their long-term insights on a shifting faith landscape—but trusted partners in ministry. Those who have come to depend on our work for the last two decades will find familiar resources offered by familiar people but with an added emphasis on working collaboratively toward systemic improvements.
Our Signature Studies
Seminary to Early Ministry Study
The Seminary to Early Ministry Study is the most comprehensive longitudinal dataset on theological education to date, enabling us to better understand who attends seminaries, how seminaries form students, and how the training of future religious leaders can be improved.
Reflections in Ministry Study
COVID-19 created unprecedented challenges for religious congregations and those who led them. The Reflections in Ministry Study followed the career trajectory of 50 pastors during this unsettled time and captured the adaptations, innovations, and social supports they employed to thrive.