Recently, I was reminded of an interesting research study conducted by a psychologist friend of mine and his colleague. They uncovered something unexpected: professional efficacy—our sense of competence and confidence in getting ministry tasks done effectively—might undermine spiritual growth in religious work contexts.
Researchers Dr Grant Bickerton and Dr Maureen Miner followed 491 Australian religious workers over 18 months, expecting to find the usual pattern: that spiritual resources would lead to greater professional competence, which would in turn strengthen faith and ministry effectiveness.1 What they discovered instead was far more complex and counterintuitive.
While spiritual resources like secure attachment to God and collaborative religious coping did indeed enhance professional efficacy, the reverse wasn't true. Professional efficacy didn't strengthen spiritual resources—it weakened them. The more professionally competent religious workers felt, the less they seemed to depend on God and the more they relied on self-directing coping strategies.
This finding made me reflect further on my lived experience in ministry.
The Ph.D. That Became PD
Before my Parkinson's diagnosis, I was climbing the ladder of professional religious achievement—leading a church, running a counselling network, pursuing a Ph.D. in Christian transformation. My identity was built around competence, capacity, and visible effectiveness.
My doctoral research focused on how Christians grow spiritually, exploring various models of transformation. Like most secular approaches, I unconsciously assumed spiritual growth followed a predictable trajectory: moving from weakness and inadequacy toward strength. The goal seemed obvious: help people become more spiritually mature, more capable, more effective in their faith.
But God had a different curriculum planned. Instead of earning my Ph.D., I received what I now call my "PD"—Parkinson's Disease. And through this unwelcome education, I discovered what Bickerton and Miner's research confirms: true spiritual transformation often involves remaining weak so that God's strength can be perfectly displayed.
The irony wasn't lost on me. While I was studying transformation theoretically, God was orchestrating it experientially through the very weakness I would have avoided at all costs.
The Professional Efficacy Trap
Why would professional competence undermine spiritual growth? The researchers suggest that in religious work contexts, developing strong professional efficacy can create an unintended consequence: it makes spiritual resources seem less necessary.
As Bickerton explains, "Religious workers who feel increasingly professionally efficacious may rely more on themselves to meet work demands, and as a consequence, erode spiritual resources." When we become confident in our abilities to handle ministry challenges through skill, experience, and competence, we naturally turn to those resources first rather than depending on God.
This creates what the researchers call "resource degradation", where our spiritual resources weaken over time as we lean more heavily on professional capabilities. It's not that professional competence is inherently bad, but in the context of religious work, it can become what one participant called a form of "spiritual muscle atrophy."
The study found that professional efficacy predicted both reduced intimacy with God and increased self-directing religious coping, essentially trying to solve problems without divine assistance. The very success we work so hard to achieve can slowly erode the spiritual dependence that should be at the heart of our calling.
The Upside-Down Kingdom at Work
This finding reflects the deeper truth about God's upside-down kingdom values. Jesus consistently chose the weak, the overlooked, and the seemingly inadequate to display His power. Paul reminded the Corinthians that God deliberately chose "what is weak in the world to shame the strong" and "what is low and despised in the world" to nullify the things that are (1 Corinthians 1:27-28).
The research suggests this isn't just theological rhetoric—it's a practical reality. When our professional confidence increases, our spiritual dependence often decreases. We unconsciously shift from "I need God's help with this" to "I've got this handled."
In my own experience, the years of apparent ministry success were also years of increasing spiritual self-sufficiency. I prayed less desperately, depended less consciously, and relied more heavily on my accumulated skills and experience. I was becoming professionally stronger but spiritually weaker, though I couldn't see it at the time.
Only when Parkinson's stripped away my professional confidence did I rediscover what authentic spiritual dependence felt like. Suddenly, every sermon required desperate reliance on God's strength. Every counselling session became an exercise in trusting His wisdom beyond my expertise. Every leadership decision drove me back to prayer in ways that years of success never had.
Practical Implications for Ministry
What does this mean practically? First, it suggests we need to reframe how we think about ministry effectiveness. Success might not be measured primarily by professional competence but by sustained spiritual vitality and dependence on God.
Second, it indicates that limitations—whether imposed by circumstances, health, or capacity—aren't necessarily obstacles to overcome but potential pathways to deeper spiritual authenticity. The very weaknesses we're tempted to hide or fix might be precisely what God wants to use to display His power.
Finally, it challenges religious organisations to create cultures that value vulnerability alongside competence, that celebrate dependence on God as much as professional achievement, and that recognise acknowledged limitation as a legitimate form of spiritual leadership.
The counterintuitive truth Bickerton and Miner discovered isn't just academic—it's profoundly personal and practical. In God's economy, sometimes the most spiritually mature thing we can do is admit we don't have it all together. Sometimes the most effective ministry flows not from our strengths but through our acknowledged weaknesses.
Perhaps the question isn't "How can I become more professionally effective?" but rather "How can I maintain spiritual dependence as I grow in competence?" The answer to that question might transform not only our ministries but our souls.
Bickerton, G. R., & Miner, M. (2023). Conservation of resources theory and spirituality at work: When a resource is not always a resource. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 15(2), 241–250. https://doi.org/10.1037/rel0000416