Factors influencing clergy leadership effectiveness

his study explored relationships between factors that influence clergy leadership and measures of church vitality and leadership effectiveness in the United Methodist Church (UMC). Decline in membership and attendance in the UMC and other Mainline Protestant denominations is causing serious concern. Efforts are being made to identify the reasons for this situation and solutions that will reverse this trend. The UMC has hypothesized that clergy leadership is playing a role in attendance and membership decline. This research examined situational and systemic factors that influence clergy leadership and looked for correlations between these factors and measures of church vitality and clergy leadership effectiveness as reported by the churches served by 109 respondents who were ordained, seminary-trained elders in the Susquehanna Conference of the UMC, which is located in central and northeastern Pennsylvania. This research was conducted via questionnaire and the data were statistically analyzed using descriptive statistics, bivariate correlation, and regression. Moderate to strong relationships were found between respondents earning salaries of...