Ministering to Ministers
Clergy Health Initiative helps pastors find strength amid stress.
It was 3 a.m., in the early months of COVID.
The Rev. Shannon Marie Berry sat on her stoop. Fremont, North Carolina, with a population of about 1,200, was quiet. Berry was alone and fixated on the bell tower of Fremont United Methodist Church across the street. She’d been hardly sleeping. Her Apple Watch was collecting alarming heart rate data. And she was staring at the church she was responsible for leading, worn out and defeated.
“When it crosses my mind to jump off the bell tower, I can’t help anybody else be grounded,” Berry admitted, acknowledging the despair she felt. “I’d just as soon they come jump with me.”
Two and a half years later, a changed Berry sits in her church office much stronger. She feels deeply – she cries, she laughs, she shares videos of her college-aged son’s recent guitar recital. Chill, ambient music seeps from speakers, and every now and again she silently grounds herself: I feel my feet firm on the floor. I feel how the breath that leaves my body is warmer than it was when it came in.
Today this Methodist pastor has strong, practical solutions to the overwhelming stresses of her calling. She has the Duke Clergy Health Initiative to thank for that newfound peace. The Initiative, an interdisciplinary collaboration between Duke Divinity School and the Duke Global Health Institute, studies the myriad health problems pastors face, and it develops and shares practices to help them navigate issues with their own mental health and stress.
