Spirituality and work engagement among church leaders

Abstract

Much research attention has been given to the mental health problems of church leaders, but relatively few studies have investigated positive indicators of clergy mental health at work, such as work engagement. This paper examines spiritual resources and job resources as key antecedents of work engagement. In contrast, job demands were examined as a moderator of the relationship between resources and work engagement. Hypotheses were framed within the motivational process of the Job Demands-Resources model, and tested using data from 1230 church leaders who completed the 2011 National Church Life Survey in Australia. Results of structural equation modelling analyses supported hypothesised positive relationships between resources and work engagement but, contrary to expectations, job demands did not amplify the positive relationship between spiritual resources and work engagement. Findings are discussed in the light of recent empirical studies of church leaders and the conservation of resources theory.

Keywords:

• work engagement
• spiritual resources
• job resources
• job demands
• clergy

Notes

1. Goodness-of-fit for the models in this study was assessed using the chi-square goodness of fit statistic (χ²), the Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA), the Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI), and the Comparative Fit Index (CFI) as produced by the Mplus programme employing the maximum likelihood estimator (Muthén & Muthén, 1998–2010). Values of RMSEA less than .05 are generally taken to represent good fit (Hu & Bentler, 1999), and CFI and TLI values greater than .90 indicate an acceptable model fit (Marsh, Hau, & Grayson, 2005).