The Dark Side of Ministry

November 11, 2009

Milfred Minitrea of the Missional Church Center, wrote a powerful post on his blog that I think deals with the dark side of ministry and how Pastors are constantly dealing with the issue of congregational change management and ministry effectiveness.

In His post called, “Depression: Pastors In Pain”, he writes:

David Treadway, pastor of Sandy Ridge Baptist Church in Hickory, North Carolina committed suicide in September. His tragic death is the fourth pastor suicide in the Carolinas during the past four years. Pastor Treadway was undergoing treatment for depression. In a USA Today article published October 29, 2009, Greg Warner addressed depression among pastors. He wrote, “Most depression does not lead to suicide, but almost all suicides begin with depression.”

The article identified impossible role expectations often placed upon pastors, together with their innate resistance to seek help when they become depressed. They fear, too often appropriately, that congregational leaders would understand their depression to be a failure of faith rather than an illness to be treated. So, pastors suffer alone while trying to care for others.

Matthew Stanford, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Baylor University in Waco, Texas said “The likelihood is that one out of every four pastors is depressed.” Further, “Anxiety and depression in the pulpit are “markedly higher” in the last five years…The current economic crisis has caused many of our pastors to go into depression.”

The author clearly cited the economic environment as a primary cause. Then he added, “Besides the recession’s strain on church budgets, depressed pastors increasingly report frustration over their congregations’ resistance to cultural change.” When I read those words, a passing comment on a secondary cause of depression in the article, my heart leaped. For that is precisely what I repeatedly hear from pastors across North America.

“My congregation wants to return to the way things used to be. They are unwilling to accept the reality of cultural changes in our world. Further, they perceive culture, “the way we do things” as sacred. Even when those things are no longer working, they say we should just try to do them better. And when those old methods are not successful, the failure is perceived as being the fault of the pastoral staff. They are unwilling to allow our congregational culture to change so that we can be more relevant among a changing population.” This resistance to change is sometimes public. At other times it skims just beneath the surface like a private torpedo locked on target, ready to do massive destruction.

As pastors understand the marginalization of Christianity in contemporary culture, consequently perceiving the requisite adaptation of the church toward an incarnational missionary posture, their passion to lead toward such culture shifts is often met with resistance. Leading a conventional congregation to perceive the need for change is a massive undertaking, a challenge that will often result in things getting worse before they get better. Those who cannot accept the need for internal congregational change will voice opposition. Those who support internal change will then find themselves defending the need for change. Repeatedly I have seen the dialogue move from the issue of “changing the way we do things” to challenges of personal loyalty within the congregation. Instead of conflict about process, the conflict becomes personal.

In those moments, pastors are caught in the untenable position of loving, serving, and leading a flock that has become divided. I can recall the deep pain of having a man whom I loved dearly, but who did not agree with new directions in ministry, unleash a barrage of vindictive verbal assaults. He was mad. Plain and simple. And his words were not filled with grace in that instance. His words were fiery darts. I felt the darts tear through my heart, a heart that had given eight years of pastoral care to our flock. In my own immaturity I tried to reason with him while he was still angry. I so wanted to please. To make it all right. And when I could not, I walked away wounded. When I was alone, I wept bitterly. Over the next weeks, I was too bruised and weak to continue to lead toward the kind of changes that needed to be made in order for effective ministry to continue. And I walked into a dark night that lasted for months.

Ultimately I found solace through the counsel of Ken Sharp, the tallest Christian counselor I have ever known, who became a dear friend in ministry. Further, I warmed to my own condition as I read Don Baker and Emery Nester’s, Depression: Finding Hope and Meaning in Life’s Darkest Shadow, a wonderful treatment published by Multnomah Press. Not nearly every pastor is blessed with an understanding friend and counselor. Many do not find voices to accompany them through their pain.

As North American churches struggle in a changed and changing culture, the role of pastoral leadership is challenging. We constantly encounter brothers and sisters in ministry who are walking a tightrope as they lead. It is highly improbable that they will be able to walk the tightrope, lead toward a new way of being church in a changing culture, and keep everybody happy in the process. I pray that we can be fellow pilgrims on their journey offering support and encouragement where we can. And sometimes, our greatest help may be simply to walk with them through the darkness.

One thing I know. We must not let those who are suffering walk the path alone.

Having been diagnosed myself with clinical depression myself, and continuing to struggle through its seasonal ups and downs, I know some of what Milfred speaks. I particularly appreciate his perspective on how Pastors are impacted by leading a congregation toward effective ministry in cultural seas change.

Change is an interesting animal, and when a Pastor sees it occurring and senses God-given vision to lead the church to be more effective in it, the opposition that sometimes comes from the most well-meaning people can be overwhelming. Thus, our need to be in continual fellowship and receiving encouragement from fellow Pastors walking through change as well.

Thoughts? Whether about depression, leading through change, or both?

Posted by Paul | Filed Under Anxiety, Brokenness, Change, Church life, Church people, Depression, Emotional health, Expectations, Failure, Leadership, Pastor, Spiritual health, Things that drain life, Tragedy, death, grief 

Comments

8 Responses to “The Dark Side of Ministry”

  1. Tom Pierce on November 12th, 2009 5:46 am

    I’ve often suspected that many or most of the prophets (particularly Jeremiah) may have endured life-long struggles with depression. There is something about caring deeply that exposes our emotional vulnerability. While resistance to change is nothing new, the strong currents of cultural change — crashing against the passion to preserve ancient truths and traditions — make contemporary waters quite choppy indeed. Pastors often live at the pinpoint of this tension, which proves a constant source of stress, anxiety, and anger. Suppressing the impulse to unleash that anger on congregants and community, pastors frequently focus that anger inward, which yields self-destructive depression. The support and encouragement of fellow ministers helps calm the waters, dispel the anger, and restore the spirit. Your voice, Paul, is one that brings grace and peace, and helps quiet the storms within my soul.

  2. Paul on November 12th, 2009 12:38 pm

    Thanks for both the input and the encouragement Tom!

  3. MIlfred Minatrea on November 12th, 2009 2:37 pm

    Paul, thanks for reposting the article. No week passes except that I encounter at least one fellow minister who is walking through deep pain. May God grant us all compassion enough to care and the will to accompany brothers and sisters through “the dark side of ministry.”

  4. Paul on November 12th, 2009 4:53 pm

    I really appreciate your perspective on this Milfred! My experience, personally and in conversation with other Pastors, tells me this angle of the pressure of leading change against the wishes of people we dearly love and want to lead is one that is so often overlooked. When you are a long-tenured Pastor in the heart (which I am … 24 years in the same place), you find that you tend to lose dearly loved people and that is trauma to the soul.

    Thanks for fighting for us all!

  5. Rev Dan on November 20th, 2009 6:38 pm

    I not only greatly respect Milfred on his perspective but his candidness. Ministry can be like a sea, a sea full of sharks. Sadly some of those sharks can be other leaders who do not understand the complexities of depression. Some of us, me included, are more prone to depression because of family genetics; furthermore, when depression strikes a pastor who has a genetic predisposition, his leadership effectiveness may be crippled. Thus his peers may see this as “poor leadership ability.” Of course the assessment is totally wrong but can lead the depressed pastor to further frustration and hopelessness.

    It is not that a pastor needs to pray more, as I did, he needs to get medical attention. We live in a day where there are a host of great medications to assist the pastor’s brain in becoming more balanced and productive. When I fell into my clinical depression and attempted suicide I did not want to die. As a pastor I loved my church members, I enjoyed much of ministry, but the economic climate had stripped me of much support and salary. I just could not get anything done and many in my congregation were suffering also. I felt completely powerless and ineffective and I just wanted to put the brakes on my ministry vehicle heading for a crash! I was the one who crashed.

    Fortunately, I lived and the following train wreck resulted in further pain. My half-hearted suicide attempt failed and I was hospitalized having intensive therapy five days per week for twelve weeks. This included a round of medications to help the chemical imbalance in my brain become normal again. I had great support and great friends helping me. Sadly only one of those came from my denomination. In fact, now I may loose my church and my role as pastor because of the deep ignorance of those in my local denominational leadership.

    I now pray that there will be compassion and support from the peers of any pastor suffering from severe depression in the future. God help us understand and provide empathy. – PD

  6. Paul on November 21st, 2009 12:05 am

    Dan,

    Thank you so much for your vulnerability, and for sharing your story here! I am honored that you would be so open here, and truly hope that other Pastors and church members and attenders can hear your story and take it to heart. Lots of us as Pastors need to hear this!

    Blessings!

    Paul

  7. Gerald Garvan on December 10th, 2009 11:12 am

    In one the one hand I have the greatest sympathy for clerics. The demands that are made on them are beyond the biblical mandate. They are ask to be responsible for so many areas the congregation should shoulder themselves, but are to lazy and uncommitted, to do for themselves. It become a tremendous burden on the cleric.

    But, on the other hand, I have little sympathy for the vast majority of the clerics that I have encountered over the past seventy years. I have found them to be the most resistant to cultural change of anyone. Across all sects of the christian fabric they have been the quickest to cast the heretic label on anyone that deviates from what they learned in their respective schools.

    Change to meet culture is not always the congregations fault.

  8. Lon on December 16th, 2009 1:41 pm

    As a pastor I have high theological ideals but most of my people are just trying to get on with life. They live in a world that is changing too fast for them to adapt and so they fight for the “old ways”. As I read books on ministry the standard advice is too not try and change the church culture but instead work within the culture, not unlike a missionary. While I appreciate much of this wisdom, the pastoral role must keep keeps its eye on the prophetic task of change.

    Perhaps part of the problem with pastoral depression has to do with having a workable strategy that addresses this tension. Perhaps we wouldn’t feel so hopeless, and have so many conflicts, if we knew better how to move people into the future. This seems to me an issue of leadership. Whenever I find myself resenting my people, it is normally connected with an approach that was insensitive and poorly timed. Sometimes conflict cannot be avoided and should not be avoided, but often we are our own worse enemy.

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