Research

Why I am doing this research

1. About the research 

What I am studying

The research maps the main stress factors in the ministry of pastors serving in the four denominations of the Slovak Association of Evangelical Churches — the Apostolic Church (Pentecostal), the Baptist Union, the Brethren Church, and the Evangelical Methodist Church. It also examines the care tools these churches currently offer their pastors, and what is missing.

The study is my doctoral research at the Department of Theology and Catechetics, Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica, approved by the university's ethics committee and supervised by prof. ThDr. Albín Masarik, PhD.

Who takes part

2. Focus groups — Phase 1 (completed)

In the first phase, I met with groups of pastors in each of the four denominations — 37 pastors in total — to name together what burdens them most in ministry. The sessions combined anonymous ranking with open sharing, using the same list of statements that the American research organization Barna Group uses in its long-term studies of U.S. pastors. This makes a direct comparison between the two contexts possible for the first time.

What we found, in brief:

• The most frequently named burden was the immense stress of the job — many parallel roles, the tyranny of the urgent, unrealistic expectations.
• Close behind came loneliness and isolation in ministry.
• Conflicts and divisions in congregations also stood out — driven less by politics than by theology, differing styles of spirituality, and conspiracy theories.
• The top two burdens match Barna Group's long-term U.S. findings remarkably closely — with several distinctly Slovak features, such as a much stronger sense of being unequipped for the demands of ministry.

3. Individual in-depth interviews — Phase 2 (underway)

4. What comes next

Once the interviews are completed, the results will be interpreted in cooperation with the leadership of the individual churches, with the aim of designing concrete care tools for pastors — supervision, mentoring, continuing education, and support systems — adapted to the Slovak evangelical context.