Saving Grace: A Guide to Financial Well-Being
Saving Grace is a six-session, small group learning curriculum that speaks to key money management topics—such as saving, earning, giving, spending, and debt—from a Wesleyan perspective to help participants reach personal financial goals and achieve a sustainable financial life.
Clergy Well-Being Research
Wespath provides trusted research and information about health trends in the UMC and across the United States that are applicable to clergy health concerns. The resources below include Wespath-sponsored clergy health studies, denominational/clergy health studies from expert external sources and health and wellness-industry information related to clergy health.
Congregational Resources
Wespath’s focus on improving denominational health reflects the Wesleyan belief that good health is a congregational endeavor. Healthy churches and congregations foster healthy clergy and church leaders—and vice versa. Congregational resources can enable parishioners to successfully carry out vital mission and ministry, while creating a healthy environment for work and worship.
Coping with Appointment Changes and Relocation Stress
Moving and starting a new job are significant life-changing events. United Methodist clergy frequently face both having to pack their belongings and move with their family to a new city to start working with a new congregation. These significant upheavals create stress that needs to be addressed and managed.
Thirteen Factors Influencing Clergy Health and the Five Dimensions of Well-Being
The Church Systems Task Force identified 13 key factors that differentiate clergy who are healthy from those who are unhealthy. Improving any one of the clergy health factors could improve a person’s health and well-being across multiple dimensions of well-being.
Stress and Clergy Health
Congregants often turn to clergy for assistance in dealing with the pressures of everyday life. Clergy know there are things they can say and resources they can identify to help these congregants cope with the stress they are feeling. At the same time, many clergy have difficulty identifying and addressing the stressors in their own lives. They overlook the same resources they suggest for others while struggling to cope with the pressures they face at work and at home.
Health Ministry Resources
Essential to church vitality and healthy congregations, health ministry describes the variety of ways that churches can promote health for their clergy, congregants and communities.