Title
Spiritual struggles and ministry-related quality of life among faith leaders in Colombia
Date Issued
01 May 2019
Access level
metadata only access
Resource Type
journal article
Author(s)
Currier J.M.
Rojas-Flores L.
McCormick W.H.
Cadavid L.
Pineda F.A.
Le Roux E.
Givens T.
Fuller Theological Seminary
Publisher(s)
American Psychological Association Inc.
Abstract
Faith leaders who are working to promote justice and healing in Colombia might confront stressful circumstances that challenge their spiritual meaning systems and limit ministry-related quality of life. However, whether focusing on domestic or international samples, research has not examined potential effects of spiritual struggles on ministry-related quality of life. In total, 166 faith leaders who were serving in Christian churches and organizations in Colombia completed a Spanish version of Exline, Pargament, Grubbs, and Yali's (2014) Religious and Spiritual Struggles Scale along with assessments of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and major depressive disorder (MDD) symptomatology. The relative frequencies of different types of spiritual struggles in the sample were as follows: divine = 5.4%, morality = 29.9%, ultimate meaning = 18%, interpersonal = 18%, and doubting = 16.2%. Bivariate results revealed that severity of each of these struggles was concurrently linked with more mental health symptomatology as well as less compassion satisfaction and greater secondary traumatic stress in relation to ministry-related experiences. In addition, when accounting for symptom severity of PTSD and MDD, structural equation modeling results revealed that participants who were experiencing greater moral struggles were particularly vulnerable for struggling in their ministry role at the time of this study. These findings support the need for more research on this topic as well as the possible development of strategies for addressing the emotional, spiritual, and educational needs of faith leaders in Colombia and other nations who are serving persons in contexts of trauma, loss, and displacement.
Start page
148
End page
156
Volume
11
Issue
2
Language
English
OCDE Knowledge area
Temas sociales Psicología
Scopus EID
2-s2.0-85051176944
Source
Psychology of Religion and Spirituality
ISSN of the container
19411022
Sponsor(s)
This research was supported by a grant to the Fundación Universitaria Seminario Bíblico de Colombia from the Templeton World Charity Foundation. Fuller Theological Seminary also provided support for the data collection. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Templeton World Charity Foundation, Inc.
Sources of information: Directorio de Producción Científica Scopus