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Journal of Religion and Health
Published in: Journal of Religion and Health 3/2014

01-06-2014 | Original Paper

Closeness to God Among Those Doing God’s Work: A Spiritual Well-Being Measure for Clergy

Authors: Rae Jean Proeschold-Bell, Chongming Yang, Matthew Toth, Monica Corbitt Rivers, Kenneth Carder

Published in: Journal of Religion and Health | Issue 3/2014

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Abstract

Measuring spiritual well-being among clergy is particularly important given the high relevance of God to their lives, and yet its measurement is prone to problems such as ceiling effects and conflating religious behaviors with spiritual well-being. To create a measure of closeness to God for Christian clergy, we tested survey items at two time points with 1,513 United Methodist Church clergy. The confirmatory factor analysis indicated support for two, six-item factors: Presence and Power of God in Daily Life, and Presence and Power of God in Ministry. The data supported the predictive and concurrent validity of the two factors and evidenced high reliabilities without ceiling effects. This Clergy Spiritual Well-being Scale may be useful to elucidate the relationship among dimensions of health and well-being in clergy populations.
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Metadata
Title
Closeness to God Among Those Doing God’s Work: A Spiritual Well-Being Measure for Clergy
Authors
Rae Jean Proeschold-Bell
Chongming Yang
Matthew Toth
Monica Corbitt Rivers
Kenneth Carder
Publication date
01-06-2014
Publisher
Springer US
Published in
Journal of Religion and Health / Issue 3/2014
Print ISSN: 0022-4197
Electronic ISSN: 1573-6571
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-013-9682-5

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