Learn and Grow
Join us for one of our live online workshops, Understanding the Faith and Health Link – Connecting the Dots Between the Christian Faith and Your Health. You’ll be inspired to better care for your health and also gain a deeper appreciation for the connection between your spiritual, emotional, mental and physical health.
Congregational Health Initiatives
Our Faith and Health Ambassador Course training, taught live over the internet in a webinar format, can equip someone in your church with insight about the link between the Christian faith and health. Faith and Health Ambassadors will in turn receive a 10-session PathWay 2 Wholeness program package about whole-person health that they can lead at your church.
Other Congregational health resources.
Emails of Encouragement
Dale Fletcher feels led to minister to pastors as part of his calling. In that light, if you’d like to receive a monthly email of encouragement on matters of personal wellness geared towards pastors, chaplains and ministry leaders please sign up here.
“Your encouraging words were so timely after an exhaustive and heart-wrenching week… as you reminded me from the Word of God, my strength comes from the Lord.” Senior Pastor
Pastor and Clergy Health
Clergy health could be one of the most vital issues we have in the world. The greater the level of individual clergy health, the more effective pastors and clergy will be able to serve their congregations and communities with the message of hope, grace and love.
Here you’ll find resources to help you sustain yourself… in spirit, mind and body. The more effective you manage your stress and the healthier you are the better you’ll be able to serve the people in your congregations. This page will be a work in progress for a while as I develop and make available resources to help you stay healthy.
Disciplines of a Healthy Pastor
The following might be important practices or disciplines that a pastor should attend to to be healthy and effective:
- Take Frequent Short Sabbaticals
- Sustain Your Personal Relationship with God
- Pray
- Worship
- Read and Study the Bible for Personal Insight
- Maintain and Nourish Close Friendships
- Develop and Sustain Peer Support
- Maintain an Active Relationship with an Accountability Partner
- Monitor Your Balance Between Work and Your Personal Life
- Be Plugged in to a Group of Peers
- Establish & Adjust Priorities Based on Periodic Review of Your Values
- Set Clear Boundaries – Say “No” More Often
- Care for Your Body
- Eat Nutritiously
- Be Physically Active
- Get Adequate Rest and Sleep
- Receive Regular Physical Exams
This list is not complete and I encourage you to help me make this list more thorough. If you can suggest a discipline or practice that is vital to clergy health that’s not listed here, simply visit the Contact page and suggest it be added to the list here.
Church Retreats
If you’d like Dale to minister to your staff, congregation or community with a workshop or retreat, please see information at the Retreats and Workshops page.
Clergy Wellness Coaching
Wellness coaching is available to assist clergy with changing unhealthy behaviors.
Health Resources for Pastors and Clergy
- Spiritual Exercises for a Healthier Life Talk Outline & Notes – A talk to help your congregation better understand how their faith might help their health
- Fit to Be a Pastor – A book by G. Lloyd Rediger – A Call to Physical, Mental and Spiritual Fitness
- Article on Clergy Health – From Pulpit and Pew by Bob Wells – Which Way to Clergy Health?
- Clergy Health Research and Reports – This site by Rev. John Marshall Crowe presents a practical ecclesiology for the ongoing journey toward healthy churches & clergy for a hurting world.
- Self Care is not Selfish – Excellent article about importance of self care, from a Duke Divinity School publication.
- A Self Care Guide for Clergy/Pastors – By Greg Sumii, Pastoral Care Specialist, California Southern Baptist Convention.
- Stress and Clergy Health – A review of stress-related issues that affect clergy. The Center for Health, United Methodist Denomination.
- The Biblical Basis for the Connection Between Faith or Spirituality and Health – My explanation of why this connection exist.
- Clergy Health Initiative at Duke University
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“He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” Isaiah 40:29-31
