Valerie Ling

23/09/2025

This is a significant move in the right direction. This will enable researchers, practitioners and policy makers to truly understand the prevalence, pathways, and mitigating factors for moral injury, as well as improve our ability to treat and care. Bravo!

Moral injury—psychological harm incurred from committing, witnessing, or being subject to actions that violate one’s moral code—has officially been added to the DSM, thanks to research led by Harvard Chan School.

22/09/2025

Our team at the Centre for Effective Serving are pleased to provide Mental Health First Aid accreditation training in November. This is widely considered a gold star evidence based training that equips everyday people to respond to a mental health concern. Registration and information here:

12 Hours Face to Face Training (Over two Saturdays. 6 Hours each Sat (9am - 3pm). Lunch is not provided. The Mental Health First Aid course is...

18/09/2025

Flourish with people

18/09/2025

Let's slow down and take care of those precious ministry minds. Here's a way to start your morning - it will take you 10 minutes:

1. Grab a pen and a notebook
2. Select a passage that is meaningful to you
3. Aim to slowly copy that into your notebook.
4. Slow down your breathing
5. Stick to a verse at a time.

Then sit back, and focus on the uplift of thoughts and feelings, particularly the ones that bring you closer to True North.

This activity has multiple benefits. Particularly if you do it in the morning. Your mind gets trained to slow down. You use different parts of your brain when you handwrite. You are mindfully focussing on something that has meaning to you. Your brain is fed some powerful nutrients. Your emotions and your spirit gets the message.

Try it - and let me know what you discover?

18/09/2025

One of the key population groups we support are the Theologial students who are training for the ministry. For almost a decade we have had a relationship with the two Sydney based colleges. This year, we were so pleased to bring something that was a dream into fruition. We have worked now with another state to make a streamlined pastoral care process that I think will be game changing. Happily, both the Sydney and sister state colleges were then connected, to further strengthen their processes. Here is what it looks like:

A wellbeing kick-off conversation with all students. Leading to a personalised wellbeing plan.

Students are encouraged to take our Tune In Ministry Emotional Health Quiz as part of their wellbeing reflections and needs assessment.

The plan is then linked to our Stress Management and Resiliency Course that was especially created for college students. One of the colleges, in partnership with us, generously took on the cost of the course for their students, as an embed into their curriculum.

This is a significant message to our early career ministry trainees. We care for you. We know ministry is a challenge. We are here to support your training and your formation for early equipping, and preventative care.

What a win. What a win.

If you are in early career ministry and you want to be a part of this process, I will place the exact process and links so you can access this too.

Check out the comments for those links

Send a message to learn more

17/09/2025

The not so great trinity for ministry workers

12/09/2025

12/09/2025

New blog out: https://www.valerieling.com/grace-is-remarkably-contagious/

11/09/2025

Man in the mirror and my thoughts on reflection

11/09/2025

Reading through my friend Grant Bickerton's PhD again. I asked ChatGPT to convert his findings into a Popeye story -

💪🌿 **Popeye & Clergy Wellbeing** 🌿💪

Think about clergy like Popeye.

* Popeye = the minister
* Spinach = spiritual resources (relationship with God, religious coping, sense of calling)
* Bluto = job demands (workload, role conflict)
* The fight = work engagement
* Extra tools = job resources (support from supervisors, autonomy, development opportunities)

Spinach makes Popeye stronger and more willing to fight. Same with clergy: spiritual resources fuel their energy for ministry.

But here’s the kicker 👉 spinach doesn’t actually make Bluto weaker. The villains (job demands) still swing hard. And if Popeye just keeps eating spinach and fighting nonstop, his supply eventually runs dry. When Popeye fights harder, he uses more tools (job resources). The more he uses those tools, the less he goes back for spinach.Over time, even though he looks stronger in the fight, his spinach supply starts to dwindle.

11/09/2025

The main focus of clergy wellbeing studies has focused on the individual drivers. This, however, in other sector research reviews, is only one part of the pie, and a small one at that. Every organisation comes with various levels, and various factors that contribute to the wellbeing of a leader. Organisational design, team design, leadership theory and design, systems and operations design...Many of the design into operation elements of church as a workplace lack research rigour. Today, I share with you the main findings of Job Design and the implications on clergy wellbeing.

Core Job Drivers of Burnout that we know of (not at all complete - we need more organisational level research):

High workload and constant demands—pastors often juggle multiple roles, face unpredictable schedules, and work in an environment of ongoing pressure.

**This links into psychosocial hazards such as Workload, Work Pace, Cognitive demands)

Emotional labor: high expectations, stress of change, and the need to support others emotionally take a real toll.

** This links into psychosocial hazards such as Emotional labour, Trauma-related hazards)

Role ambiguity and role overload: unclear boundaries and conflicting expectations from congregations and denominational structures create chronic stress.

** This is a common psychosocial hazard

Work-family conflict: living in the pastorate brings unique challenges, blurring the lines between ministry and personal life.

** This is a common psychosocial hazard, however, implications for clergy are similar to military personnel who live on base - you cannot escape the interference

Financial stress, low wages, and business aspects—managing volunteers and the 'consumer mindset' of congregants adds pressure.

** This is a specific hazard that sits outside of FairWorks legislation, given clergy "income" is not regulated, but administered variably based on denominations. Some of these are set at standards that are below prevailing market rates

Chronic stress, intrusive after-hours demands, and vicarious trauma: clergy often receive requests for support in crises more than official mental health providers, which amplifies emotional exhaustion.

** Standard psychosocial hazard material for the helping professionals

Workplace bullying and forced termination: unpredictable and detrimental events mark the careers of many ministers.

** Established psychosocial hazard - complicated by poor organisational justice procedures in churches

Isolation: lack of interdisciplinary collaboration and support heightens burnout risk.

** Psychosocial hazard of support, both horizontal and from supervisors

There is a strong need to establish baselines for the psychosocial hazards of clergy, and to investigate job design as part of the risk mitigation and control strategy