HOW JUDICATORIES CAN NURTURE HEALTHY CLERGY

Judicatory care of clergy

1. Offer occasional mental health retreats
2. Offer pre-retirement seminar at 55 and extra counseling at 60 to prevent pre-mature early retirement.
3. Encourage churches to strategize about how they care for their pastors.
4. Encourage a sabbatical mindset to congregation and pastor and help them strategize about how to help it come about.
5. Church informs Presbytery of clergy/family health problems and then someone at Presbytery follows through with support.
6. Once a year events for clergy and family.
7. If spouse works on clergy day off, help them strategize about how to cope with extra stress.

Judicatory care of clergy spouse/family

1. Encourage them to develop a hobby apart from their work
2. Explore if spouse would like to be involved in larger church work
3. Offer regional social events to help facilitate clergy family acquaintance
4. Do an anonymous survey of clergy and spouses on pressures and give feed back to congregations.
5. Have a definite set of recommendations for church when clergy is going through divorce, widowhood, etc.
6. Provide a Marriage Enrichment seminar specifically geared to clergy families.
7. Provide a finance seminar specifically geared to clergy families.