Latest wave of Living Ministry research published

30/01/2025

The report completes the fourth and penultimate wave of research in the Living Ministry programme.
Female clergy holding bible at ordination service Keith Blundy

Research into how Church of England clergy can flourish in ministry is published today as part of a long-term study.

‘Trust that God will Work His Purposes Out’: Wellbeing and Change Management in Ordained Ministry details the stories of 55 people who were either interviewed one-to-one or took part in focus groups to talk about their experiences of ordained ministry over the previous two years.

This qualitative report builds on a quantitative survey published last year, Holding Things Together: Church of England Clergy in Changing Times, exploring how clergy lead and manage change. The research is part of the decade-long Living Ministry research programme into how Church of England clergy flourish in ministry.

As in previous Living Ministry reports, the research explored different aspects of wellbeing, including financial and material wellbeing, spiritual and vocational wellbeing, relationships, physical and mental wellbeing, and participation.

The report completes the fourth and penultimate wave of research in the Living Ministry programme.

Dr Liz Graveling from the Church of England’s national Ministry Development Team, who heads the Living Ministry research programme, said: "In this wave of Living Ministry it has been a privilege to see into the post-pandemic lives of our clergy cohorts and explore how they are managing times of change and turbulence amid the hard work of daily ministry.”

The report is available to download now.

More information

  • Living Ministry is a mixed-methods, longitudinal research project following four cohorts of clergy through ten years of their ministry to explore what helps ordained ministers to flourish.
  • Clergy ordained in 2006, 2011 and 2015, and those who entered training in 2016 are invited to take part in an online survey and qualitative interviews every two years.
  • The first (Wave 1) interviews took place in late 2017 and the most recent (Wave 4), which form the basis of the analysis in this report, between October 2023 and January 2024.  Wave 2 was conducted in 2019 and Wave 3 in 2021.