From The New York Times:

Until recently, Mr. Hickle had thought of his colleague’s death as an object lesson in the capricious impermanence of life. Several months ago, though, as he attended a discussion on the subject of health in the clergy convened by the Divinity School at Duke University here, he began to wonder if there was more involved in a middle-age man’s fatal heart attack than the mystery of the divine plan.

That discussion was one of the first stages of an ambitious effort by Duke to assess and improve the health of ministers, specifically the 1,800 United Methodist pastors in North Carolina because the Divinity School serves as a seminary for the denomination. What underlies the study — and what Mr. Hickle, among others, has experienced firsthand — is a concern that in serving the Lord, ministers neglect themselves.