The Baptist Ministers’ Fellowship, a voluntary association of British Baptist ministers founded in 1939, has recently published the results of a survey of its members on the theme of ‘life in ministry’.
The survey was organized by Revd Brian Jones, minister of Christ Church local ecumenical partnership, Woodloes Park, Warwickshire. It was completed online in 2009 by 218 Fellowship members (out of 1,600 in all).
An article by Mr Jones summarizing the survey appears in the latest issue of Baptist Ministers’ Journal. His conclusion is that there are ‘reasonably high levels of satisfaction in current Baptist ministry’. This article is reproduced, along with a series of statistical tables, on the Fellowship’s website at:
http://www.bmf-uk.org/archives/category/issues
There is also an overview of the survey by Paul Hobson on the front page of the Baptist Times for 5 February 2010.
Some of the headline results from the various Likert-style questions include:
- 60 per cent of ministers are happy with their stipend (with 17 per cent unhappy)
- 86 per cent consider that their present housing meets their needs
- 83 per cent say that their expenses are fully reimbursed
- 69 per cent feel they have adequate pension arrangements
- 53 per cent are happy with their retirement housing provision (but 18 per cent not)
- 65 per cent are happy with their workload
- 60 per cent are happy with the number of their working hours
- 52 per cent often have to work unsociable hours
- 52 per cent feel well supported by the Baptist Union (but 21 per cent not)
- 63 per cent are happy with the expectations placed on their family by their church
- 60 per cent get sufficient appreciation of their work from their church (but 19 per cent not)
- 81 per cent feel they have the skills to do their work effectively
- 92 per cent are happy with their vocation
