The impact of burnout and spiritual well-being on the job satisfaction of pastors within the Methodist Church in Singapore

The job satisfaction of pastors is an important subject. Pastoral job satisfaction is influenced by many factors. The purpose of this study was to find out the impact of burnout and spiritual well-being on the job satisfaction of pastors of the three annual conferences within the Methodist Church in Singapore (MCS).;This study purposed to find out the impact of both burnout and spiritual well-being on the job satisfaction of the pastors within the MCS to determine which of the burnout indicators of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishment, and spiritual well-being indicators of spiritual well-being, religious well-being and existential well-being, serve(s) as best predictors for job satisfaction. Spiritual well-being has positive impact while burnout carries negative impact on the job satisfaction of pastors. The results of the findings show that a pastor who has high level of spiritual well-being enjoys a high level of job satisfaction due to his or her high healthy spirituality, close intimacy with God, and strong life purpose and satisfaction. Higher pastoral spiritual well-being results in higher pastoral job satisfaction, and vice versa. Another finding of this study is that emotional exhaustion is negatively correlated with pastors' job satisfaction and the three spiritual well-being subscales. A pastor who experiences the burnout syndrome of emotional exhaustion does not enjoy high pastoral job satisfaction due to his or her inability to cope with stress.;Altogether eighty-seven pastors answered questionnaires concerning their levels of burnout and spiritual well-being, and I found out that about one-tenth (11.8 percent) of the MCS pastors experienced a high degree of burnout (emotional exhaustion), while half of them (51.4 percent) scored a high range of spiritual well-being. Overall, most of the MCS pastors had between a moderate to high level of job satisfaction. While many enjoyed a high level of spiritual well-being, some experienced emotional exhaustion.