Erin F Johnston, David E Eagle, Jennifer Headley, Anna Holleman
{"title":"动荡时期的牧灵事工:新冠疫情期间神职人员经历的定性研究。","authors":"Erin F Johnston, David E Eagle, Jennifer Headley, Anna Holleman","doi":"10.1007/s13644-021-00465-y","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>COVID-19 and its associated restrictions around in-person gatherings have created unprecedented challenges for religious congregations and those who lead them. While several surveys have attempted to describe how pastors and congregations responded to COVID-19, these provide a relatively thin picture of how COVID-19 is impacting religious life. There is scant qualitative data describing the lived reality of religious leaders and communities during the pandemic.</p><p><strong>Purpose and methods: </strong>This paper provides a more detailed look at how pastors and congregations experienced and responded to COVID-19 and its associated restrictions in the early period of the pandemic. To do so, we draw from 26 in-depth interviews with church-appointed United Methodist pastors conducted between June and August 2020. Pastors were asked to describe how their ministry changed as a result of COVID-19 and interviews were analyzed using applied thematic analysis approaches to identify the most common emergent themes.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Pastors reported that COVID-19 fundamentally unsettled routine ways of doing ministry. This disruption generated both challenges and opportunities for clergy and their congregations. In the findings, we describe how clergy responded in key areas of ministry-worship and pastoral care-and analyze how the pandemic is (re)shaping the way that clergy understood their role as pastors and envisioned the future of the Church. We argue for the value of examining the pandemic as an \"unsettled\" cultural period (Swidler 1986) in which religious leaders found creative ways to (re)do ministry in the context of social distancing. Rather than starting from scratch, we found that pastors drew from and modified existing symbolic and practical tools to fit pandemic-related constraints on religious life. Notably, however, we found that \"redoing\" ministry was easier and more effective in some areas (worship) than others (pastoral care).</p><p><strong>Conclusions and implications: </strong>The impact of COVID-19 on pastors and congregations is complex and not fully captured by survey research. This study provides a baseline for investigating similarities and differences in the responses of pastors within and across denominations and traditions. It also provides a baseline for assessing whether changes in ministry implemented during the early stages of the pandemic remain in place in the post-COVID world.</p>","PeriodicalId":47205,"journal":{"name":"Review of Religious Research","volume":"64 2","pages":"375-397"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5000,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1007/s13644-021-00465-y","citationCount":"19","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"Pastoral Ministry in Unsettled Times: A Qualitative Study of the Experiences of Clergy During the COVID-19 Pandemic.\",\"authors\":\"Erin F Johnston, David E Eagle, Jennifer Headley, Anna Holleman\",\"doi\":\"10.1007/s13644-021-00465-y\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"<p><strong>Background: </strong>COVID-19 and its associated restrictions around in-person gatherings have created unprecedented challenges for religious congregations and those who lead them. While several surveys have attempted to describe how pastors and congregations responded to COVID-19, these provide a relatively thin picture of how COVID-19 is impacting religious life. There is scant qualitative data describing the lived reality of religious leaders and communities during the pandemic.</p><p><strong>Purpose and methods: </strong>This paper provides a more detailed look at how pastors and congregations experienced and responded to COVID-19 and its associated restrictions in the early period of the pandemic. To do so, we draw from 26 in-depth interviews with church-appointed United Methodist pastors conducted between June and August 2020. Pastors were asked to describe how their ministry changed as a result of COVID-19 and interviews were analyzed using applied thematic analysis approaches to identify the most common emergent themes.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Pastors reported that COVID-19 fundamentally unsettled routine ways of doing ministry. This disruption generated both challenges and opportunities for clergy and their congregations. In the findings, we describe how clergy responded in key areas of ministry-worship and pastoral care-and analyze how the pandemic is (re)shaping the way that clergy understood their role as pastors and envisioned the future of the Church. We argue for the value of examining the pandemic as an \\\"unsettled\\\" cultural period (Swidler 1986) in which religious leaders found creative ways to (re)do ministry in the context of social distancing. Rather than starting from scratch, we found that pastors drew from and modified existing symbolic and practical tools to fit pandemic-related constraints on religious life. Notably, however, we found that \\\"redoing\\\" ministry was easier and more effective in some areas (worship) than others (pastoral care).</p><p><strong>Conclusions and implications: </strong>The impact of COVID-19 on pastors and congregations is complex and not fully captured by survey research. This study provides a baseline for investigating similarities and differences in the responses of pastors within and across denominations and traditions. It also provides a baseline for assessing whether changes in ministry implemented during the early stages of the pandemic remain in place in the post-COVID world.</p>\",\"PeriodicalId\":47205,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"Review of Religious Research\",\"volume\":\"64 2\",\"pages\":\"375-397\"},\"PeriodicalIF\":1.5000,\"publicationDate\":\"2022-01-01\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1007/s13644-021-00465-y\",\"citationCount\":\"19\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"Review of Religious Research\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"90\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://doi.org/10.1007/s13644-021-00465-y\",\"RegionNum\":1,\"RegionCategory\":\"哲学\",\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"2021/8/6 0:00:00\",\"PubModel\":\"Epub\",\"JCR\":\"0\",\"JCRName\":\"RELIGION\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Review of Religious Research","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s13644-021-00465-y","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2021/8/6 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"0","JCRName":"RELIGION","Score":null,"Total":0}
Pastoral Ministry in Unsettled Times: A Qualitative Study of the Experiences of Clergy During the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Background: COVID-19 and its associated restrictions around in-person gatherings have created unprecedented challenges for religious congregations and those who lead them. While several surveys have attempted to describe how pastors and congregations responded to COVID-19, these provide a relatively thin picture of how COVID-19 is impacting religious life. There is scant qualitative data describing the lived reality of religious leaders and communities during the pandemic.
Purpose and methods: This paper provides a more detailed look at how pastors and congregations experienced and responded to COVID-19 and its associated restrictions in the early period of the pandemic. To do so, we draw from 26 in-depth interviews with church-appointed United Methodist pastors conducted between June and August 2020. Pastors were asked to describe how their ministry changed as a result of COVID-19 and interviews were analyzed using applied thematic analysis approaches to identify the most common emergent themes.
Results: Pastors reported that COVID-19 fundamentally unsettled routine ways of doing ministry. This disruption generated both challenges and opportunities for clergy and their congregations. In the findings, we describe how clergy responded in key areas of ministry-worship and pastoral care-and analyze how the pandemic is (re)shaping the way that clergy understood their role as pastors and envisioned the future of the Church. We argue for the value of examining the pandemic as an "unsettled" cultural period (Swidler 1986) in which religious leaders found creative ways to (re)do ministry in the context of social distancing. Rather than starting from scratch, we found that pastors drew from and modified existing symbolic and practical tools to fit pandemic-related constraints on religious life. Notably, however, we found that "redoing" ministry was easier and more effective in some areas (worship) than others (pastoral care).
Conclusions and implications: The impact of COVID-19 on pastors and congregations is complex and not fully captured by survey research. This study provides a baseline for investigating similarities and differences in the responses of pastors within and across denominations and traditions. It also provides a baseline for assessing whether changes in ministry implemented during the early stages of the pandemic remain in place in the post-COVID world.
期刊介绍:
The Review of Religious Research (RRR) publishes empirical social science research on religion, primarily in sociology and social psychology and related fields of psychology, and scholarly literature reviews of research in these fields. RRR provides a forum for research across multiple disciplines and approaches, including research on the following topical areas: Clergy; Church programs; Comparative analyses of religious denominations and institutions; Denominational and congregational growth, decline, and vitality; Denominational and congregational conflict, competition, and cooperation; Ethnicity/race and religion; Generational and personal religious change; New religious movements; Personal spiritual and religious beliefs and practices; Religion and attitudes; Religion and family; Religion and gender, Religion and social behavior; Religion and well-being; and Research methodology. Among the characteristics that distinguish RRR from other academic journals on the study of religion are its applied focus and the opportunities it offers for academics and denomination-based researchers to share their findings with each other. RRR aims to facilitate the sharing and comparing of applied studies between denominational and academic researchers. RRR is the official quarterly journal of the Religious Research Association, Inc. RRR regularly publishes Original Articles, Research Notes, Review Articles, Applied Research Abstracts, and Book Reviews, and occasionally publishes articles on the Context of Religious Research. Applied Research Abstracts: This type of publication (previously called Denominational Research Reports) consists of a 350-550 word summary (without any references) of an applied research study in the form of a structured abstract, with the following section headings: Background, Purpose, Methods, Results, and Conclusions and Implications, followed by 3-4 keywords. The author may included a footnote that states: (a) whether a complete report exists and how it can be obtained; (b) whether the raw data are available in electronic form and how they can be obtained if the authors wish to make them available to other researchers; and (c) whether the authors would like to collaborate with other researchers to further analyze the data and write a full report for possible journal publication as a peer-reviewed manuscript. Such abstracts should be submitted to the journal editor for consideration for publication. Book Reviews: Unsolicited book reviews are not accepted for publication in RRR. If you would like to review a book for the journal, contact the Book Review Editor, David Eagle, Ph.D. – david.eagle@duke.edu Context of Religious Research: This journal heading covers items about awards and announcements, memoriams, and articles about the research process (e.g., articles on research methods and statistics, and profiles of denominational research organizations), as well as invited addresses to the Religious Research Association. Unsolicited articles should be submitted to the journal editor for consideration for publication. Original Articles: These are scholarly and methodologically sophisticated research studies: see Information for Authors on this website and the Submission Guidelines on the Springer RRR website for details (https://www.springer.com/13644) Reseach Notes: These are scholarly and methodologically sophisticated research studies: see Information for Authors on this website and the Submission Guidelines on the Springer RRR website for details (https://www.springer.com/13644) Review Articles: Authors should send an email to the journal’s editor describing the nature and scope of a proposed literature review to see if it is suitable for publication in RRR. See Information for Authors on this website and the Submission Guidelines on the Springer RRR website for details (https://www.springer.com/13644) The journal’s editor is Kevin J. Flannelly, Ph.D. – kjflannelly@gmail.com