This report presents an overview of leadership development and effectiveness, as well as the wellbeing and sustainability of church leaders in Protestant churches across Australia.
It includes key indicators across 9 themes.
These themes include: Ministry Positions & Context; Demographics of Local Church Leaders; Leadership Roles: Practices & Preferences; Leadership Development & Training; Church Vitality & Leadership; Leaders & Innovation; About the Impact of COVID-19; Leader Wellbeing: Effectiveness & Stress; and Leader Resilience: Personal Foundations.
The report is based on responses from a selected group of leaders - ministers, pastors or priests in senior roles within local churches.
In Australian Protestant churches, this report represents 2149 local church leaders who completed the NCLS Leader Survey in 2021/2022. All results in this report are estimated figures for Protestant local church leaders, based on the participating sample, and weighted to represent approximately 90% of all local Protestant church leaders in Australia. In this report ‘Protestant’ refers to all denominations apart from Catholic and Orthodox groups.
Citation: Powell, R., Sterland, S., Jacka, K., Gan, C., Pepper, M. & Hourihan, F. (2023). Leader Survey Summary Report for Protestant Australian Churches: local church leaders in senior roles. NCLS Research Profile 2302. Sydney: NCLS Research.