In April 2007 the CCCOWE English task force conducted a survey of English pastors of Chinese churches from a number of different countries . That survey asked questions about a range of things such as the level of stress they experienced due to challenges in ministry; the attrition rate of English pastors; and the perceived needs in Chinese churches.

They received 62 responses, and the findings of the survey can be found at the following website: http://www.cccowe.org/eng/content.php?id=69 and also has some graphs worth checking out.

One shocking statistic is the attrition rate of English senior pastors and assistant pastors in the Chinese church. In the 2001-2006 period, 163 pastors had left Chinese churches to do ministry elsewhere - that's about 27 pastors a year!

And considering the time and resources spent in someone going through Bible college, finding a church position, and then having to leave because it hasn't worked out, that's a massive loss to Chinese churches everywhere.

Questions 9-16 asked respondents to gauge their level of satisfaction and stress in a range of different areas. It would have been better if there was a control group of non-Chinese pastors that we could compare these results with. But having said that, the stress results showed the differences between the different geographic regions. And from that we can see that , on average, English pastors in Australia experience less stress in church and ministry than our counterparts in Canada and USA (3.5 compared to 3.74 and 3.69). And English pastors in Australia are less likely to be thinking of leaving their church for another ministry position compared to our counterparts in Canada and USA (2.3 compared to 2.58 and 2.31).

So it seems that, at the moment, that things in Australia are pretty good, compared to North America!

Question 17 asked about the top two training needs. And the top two of every geographic region (including Australia) was 'leadership' and 'mentoring' (the other choices were 'preaching', 'time management' and 'family management').

Question 18 is also interesting. When asked what party respondents were most likely to be in conflict with, the top responses from pastors in Canda, SE Asia and Australia was 'senior pastors' and 'board'. In the USA however, it was 'lay ministry members' and 'congregation members'.

Have a look at the data yourself - it's a revealing survey!

[ PS: I should also note that I didn't participate in the survey... ]