My book, Surviving Ministry: How to Weather the Storms of Church Leadership, was recently publishe
d and is available in both paperback and Kindle. Get it directly from the publisher for 20% off the retail price, or from Amazon, CBD, etc.
To get a feel for the book, click on this link:
Surviving Ministry Excerpt
Used with Permission of Wipf and Stock Publishers
For a long time, I got my sense of identity from having a successful ministry. Sunday morning attendance figures, compliments (“Great sermon, pastor!”), a calendar filled with appointments, money streaming in, baptisms… these were the metrics by which I judged my effectiveness and the blessing of God.
Then I failed.
And along with bodies in the pews and bucks in the offering plate, my joy in ministry plummeted. I had built my sense of identity on the unsteady sand of success rather than the unchanging love of God.
Do you know who you are? The Apostle John’s answer is: “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” (1 John 3:1)
Maybe you need to hear these words from Henri Nouwen as much as I do, every day:
During our short lives the question that guides much of our behavior is: “Who are we?” Although we may seldom pose that question in a formal way, we live it very concretely in our day-to-day decisions. The three answers that we generally live–not necessarily give–are: “We are what we do, we are what others say about us, and we are what we have,” or in other words: “We are our success, we are our popularity, we are our power.” It is important to realize the fragility of life that depends on success, popularity, and power. Its fragility stems from the fact that all three of these are external factors over which we have only limited control… Jesus came to announce to us that an identity based on success, popularity, and power is a false identity–an illusion! Loudly and clearly he says: “You are not what the world makes you; but you are children of God.”…Our true identity is that we are God’s children, the beloved sons and daughters of our heavenly Father.[1]
[1] Nouwen, Henri. Here and Now: Living in the Spirit. New York: Crossroad, 1994, 188-189.
According to some researchers, about seventy percent of pastors say they have no close friends.[1] A 2009 Lilly Endowment study of three Christian denominations found that most pastors lack strong friendships with other pastors.
Are you surprised by this? I’m not. I’ve lost count of the number of ministers who have told me they are lonely. They have many acquaintances and colleagues—but friends? Not so much. Most of our social interactions are about what we call “ministry.” When we are with people we are in charge and on the clock. They are looking to us for leadership, direction, or support, not friendship. When we meet with someone it’s usually because we are helping solve a problem, telling someone what to do, collaborating on an event, or explaining Christian truth, not enjoying one another.
Besides, pastors are like all human beings: we fear intimacy. We will find excuses not to pursue community. And studying the Bible, coming up with a constant stream of creative sermons and talks, and maintaining a quality devotional life require many hours of isolation. While most adults can put a cap on the number of people in their social circle, pastors must be friendly all the time to everybody.
Furthermore, choosing people with whom to build a friendship is always a risky venture, but especially for pastors. Church members can be jealous when they perceive they are not in their pastor’s inner circle. This was an issue at a church I once served as associate pastor. Several congregants confided in me that they felt second-class because they weren’t in the senior pastor’s cadre of favorite people. Pastors occupy dual roles with those they call friends. They are both “over” them as their spiritual leader and “beside” them as their friend—a difficult tension to maintain. “No matter how hard a leader wishes to be a regular person, it is just not possible,” writes Dan Allender.[2]
I admit that pursuing friendship with people in the church is fraught with risk and uncertainty. But I will argue that it’s worth the gamble. We who lead the church need the church. Paul David Tripp writes, “[I]f Christ is the head of his body, then everything else is just body, including the pastor, and therefore the pastor needs what the body has been designed to deliver.”[3] And let me add that those of us who are married need a friend who is not our spouse. A key element in my recovery from ministry burnout was having a handful of male friends with whom to walk through the fire. They were members of my church. My wife and I were in a small group consisting of six other people. That small group was our lifeline.
In my current pastorate I have two friends in the church with whom I meet regularly for confession, affirmation, and encouragement. I get together at least monthly with a pastor in a nearby community; he and I have been friends since our seminary days when we lived in neighboring apartments. I also have a good friend who lives 100 miles away. We text or email each other almost every day for encouragement and accountability. My wife and I belong to a small group where I can take off the pastor mask and experience true community. I play racquetball with a couple of church friends several times a week.
I say all that just to encourage you: It’s possible to be a pastor and have friends. But it requires intentionality, time, and money. The cost of not having friends is far greater.
I worry about pastors who choose not to pursue friendship. Allender says, “A leader with no close friends is a leader who is prone to swing between hiding and manipulating.”[4] Without a friend one must find unhealthy ways of coping with the pain of living. Sinful habits and toxic attitudes grow in the soil of isolation.
How about you. What’s been your experience of friendship in ministry?
[1]. Wilson, Michael T. and Brad Hoffman, Preventing Ministry Failure. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2007, p. 31, quoted in J. R. Briggs, Fail: Finding Hope and Grace in the Midst of Ministry Failure. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2014, p. 47.
[2]. Allender, Dan B. Leading with a Limp: Turning Your Struggles into Strengths. Colorado Springs, CO: Waterbrook, 2006, p. 109.
[3]. Tripp, Paul David. Dangerous Calling: Confronting the Unique Challenges of Pastoral Ministry. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012, p. 88.
[4]. Allender, 114.
The title of this post is taken from the book, The Contemplat
ive Pastor, by Eugene Peterson (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993). This is one book I find I must reread at least once a year. Peterson says things that my heart responds to with an eager, “Yes! Yes!”, but that my ego and my schedule stubbornly resist.
For example, Peterson says that the word busy, when applied to pastors,
is the symptom not of commitment but of betrayal. It is not devotion but defection. The adjective busy set as a modifier to pastor should sound to our ears like adulterous to characterize a wife or embezzling to describe a banker. It is an outrageous scandal, a blasphemous affront.
He goes on to say,
…if I vainly crowd my day with conspicuous activity or let others fill my day with imperious demands, I don’t have time to do my proper work, the work to which I have been called. How can I lead people into the quiet place beside the still waters if I am in perpetual motion? How can I persuade a person to live by faith and not by works if I have to juggle my schedule constantly to make everything fit into place?
But isn’t being busy what our culture rewards? Aren’t hard workers busy? And if I’m not busy, won’t my parishioners have proof that pastors work just one day a week and are paid too highly?
Eugene Peterson is trying to get us to redefine the work of a pastor. Our “proper work,” he says, is the cure of souls. That work, according to him, has been replaced by “running the church.”
I so agree. Over the years, my vision for pastoral ministry has moved from “trying to get my church to grow” to “helping people experience the gospel.” There’s a big difference between those two things. The former vision demands that I be super busy. I must pack my daily schedule with tasks and meetings and appointments: can’t waste a moment. I must always preach a better sermon this Sunday than I did last Sunday. I must master the art of motivational speaking and be highly relevant to every segment of my congregation. And tragically, my marriage and family must take a back seat to the higher goal of pastoral success.
A vision for helping people experience the gospel, on the other hand, demands very different things:
One last quote from Peterson:
I can’t be busy and pray at the same time. I can be active and pray; I can work and pray; but I cannot be busy and pray. I cannot be inwardly rushed, distracted, or dispersed. In order to pray I have to be paying more attention to God than to what people are saying to me; to God than to my clamoring ego. Usually, for that to happen there must be a deliberate withdrawal from the noise of the day, a disciplined detachment from the insatiable self.
As I said earlier, it’s so easy to say “Amen!” to all this and then get caught up in the whirlwind of pastoral duty. But maybe we can remind each other to slow down, to be more patient and more prayerful, to focus more on the cure of souls
than the “business” of running the church.
What do you think?
Pastor James (not his real name) had been at Christ Church for over twenty-four years. You’d think by then his church would be immune to controversy. But when James started introducing changes to boost the church’s outreach, an unseen fault line under Christ Church burst wide open. “We tried to change the culture of the church and it couldn’t be done,” James told me. “It created inherent tension in the body.” Overnight, it seemed, Christ Church took on the air of an intense presidential debate, and James was the political football. The rift unfortunately coincided with the resignations of all five of James’s elders. One elder was having marital problems. Another felt he was too old to continue serving. Another resigned to take care of her ailing husband. A fourth elder was diagnosed with bipolar disease and needed hospitalization. The fifth could not abide the changes James was making. So when things were at their most desperate, James had only one person on the governing board besides himself: his assistant pastor.
An influential family in the church agreed with James that the church needed to turn its focus outward. For too long, they said, Christ Church had ignored the needs of the community. But when they saw a church fight looming, they wanted no part of it; they’d been through that before in another church. So they told James they were leaving. Problem was, that family contributed nearly a third of Christ Church’s offerings. So now, James had not only a congregation in turmoil, but little money. The budget had to be slashed; the assistant pastor had to go.
The tension took its toll on James, emotionally and physically. He caught a cold that he could not shake. His teenage daughter said, “Dad, you’re under stress!” James knew it but didn’t know what to do about it. He managed to recruit three new elders from the congregation. They agreed with James theologically but not philosophically. Every board meeting pitted James on one side against the three elders on the other.
“You’re taking Christ Church in the wrong direction,” they told him.
“You’re not listening to the gospel,” he replied. It was a stalemate.
Finally James told his elders what he’d been thinking for months. “We’re not a team. It’s not good for any of us, and it’s not good for the church. Either you need to step down or I need to. If we stay together things are only going to get worse.” The elders took offense, as though James was accusing them of fomenting division.
“We’re not going anywhere,” they told him. So the following Sunday, James announced his resignation.
Three months later, despite their promise to stay, the three elders also left. Absent leadership and with declining membership, Christ Church fell apart and was dissolved by its denomination.
The most valuable words ever spoken to me by a mentor: You minister out of who you are.
That’s what an older pastor said to me over 30 years ago and I’ve never forgotten it. I have tried to live out his words by reminding myself often that I don’t have to covet other people’s gifts or calling. I am who I am by God’s design and for this time and place. I have a unique past, a unique voice, unique abilities and limitations–all of which equip me for influence with people whom God has sovereignly placed in my sphere.
The Teacher once said, “The words of the wise are like goads” (Ecclesiastes 12:11). What wise words have meant the most to you as a pastor?
A book that has helped me survive in ministry is Well-Intentioned Dragons: Ministering to Problem People in the Church, by Marshall Shelley. It was written over 20 years ago, but it’s a timeless read–especially if you’re in the early stages of your ministry.
Well-intentioned dragons are often “pillars of the community—talented, strong personalities, deservingly respected—but for some reason, they undermine the ministry of the church.”1 All the dragons have one thing in common: power—power to destroy enthusiasm, shift responsibility away from themselves, and make you (the pastor) crazy. Some wield their power subtly, through flattery, gifts, promises, and sob stories. Other dragons are more openly hostile, critical, and divisive. Regardless, you must confront them. This is part of your job “to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood” (Acts 20:28). You cannot ignore the situation and just hope things will get better. You must let God use you to help these people change. Not to do so may spare you a painful conversation but will hurt your congregation and make life more difficult for you in the long run.
Here are seven steps I recommend you take before you confront someone who is causing problems:
1. Pray both for yourself and the person who needs confronting. Ask God to give you a love for that individual and a genuine desire for his or her welfare.
2. Repent of your own sin. Take the log out of your own eye before you try to remove the speck of sawdust out of the other person’s eye. Identify ways you are like that person. Confess your uncharitable thoughts of him or her.
3. Ask yourself, “What can I learn from this person?” Even your worst critic is telling you something that is true. How might he or she, with a little help, actually benefit you and the church?
4. Write out what you should say. Begin by asking for permission to speak honestly and openly. Consider opening with “May I speak from the heart about something that’s been bothering me?” or “Do you agree that one of my roles as a pastor is to bring things to people’s attention—sometimes hard things?” Also think of how you can begin on a positive note instead of immediately telling the person where he or she is wrong.
5. Identify and write out the specific changes you expect the person to make. What will repentance look like?
6. Plan out next steps. What will happen if the person refuses to repent? What consequences should he or she expect? What will you do next to assist the person in his or her growth?
7. Call the person and set up a meeting. The sooner the better. Do not put it off or make excuses. The Holy Spirit is prompting you; he will help you. Don’t keep him waiting.
What other tips for confronting dragons have you picked up over the years?
1 Marshall Shelley, “Identifying a Dragon,” in Leading Your Church through Conflict and Reconciliation. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1997, p. 60.
Our church recently started a coed cycling club. Every Saturday morning a dozen or so of us meet in the church parking lot, hop on our road bikes, and go for a ride of twenty-five or thirty miles. It’s turning out to be a good o
utreach, as several non-churchgoers have joined our little band. I’m learning how important it is to stay in a line and cycle as close as possible to the bike in front of me. This is called drafting. Each cyclist creates a vortex, or a low pressure area, that pulls the cyclist behind him or her forward. It is far easier to be behind someone and get in his or her draft, than to be alone or out in front. “Cyclists who are part of the group can save up to forty percent in energy expenditures over a cyclist who is not drafting with the group,” says scientist Paul Doherty.
In like fashion, your ministry will be easier, and a lot more fun, when you ask for and receive the help of other people.
In many ministers of the gospel (and in my own heart) there is a prideful resistance to receiving help from others. We want to be superheroes who rescue our poor parishioners in distress—and, incidentally, receive their adulation. It’s our way of building a record and earning righteousness apart from Christ. Depending on other people indicates weakness. And weakness, say1 Michigan psychologists Dane Ver Merris and Bert van Hoek, is what many pastors are loath to reveal:
Ministers are understandably reluctant to admit shortcomings on the psychological tests we use. Instead, pastors view themselves as highly principled, moral, and virtuous. Test instruments are quite good at detecting this defensiveness, and the pastors we have counseled often have been reluctant to admit even minor flaws or emotional discomfort—even to the point of threatening the validity of the test results. Rather than be surprised (or unduly troubled) by pastors’ strong tendency to be defensive, those who are in a position to help must simply acknowledge the strong pressure pastors feel to make a polished presentation of themselves in spite of their obvious and genuine struggles.
Ver Merris and van Hoek’s observations come from years of working with burned out pastors. They go on to say that emotionally healthy pastors “accept criticism with grace, have a realistic notion of their own worth, [and] value positive interpersonal relationships….” In other words, resisting the Lone Ranger mentality is key to effective pastoral ministry.
1 https://paulvanderklay.wordpress.com/2010/11/19/how-pastors-struggle/
The struggles of missionaries on the foreign field are less recognized and understood than those of church pastors, but they are just as real. Most of us put missionaries on a pedestal and view them as super-Christians. But they are not spared the difficulties that plague pastors in the States. Here is the story of one missionary couple I’ll call Ben and Marlene (not their real names).
Ben Sloan, his wife Marlene, and their three children were finally in Mali, West Africa. Approved as missionaries by their denomination’s mission board, their path here had not been an easy one. Months of training in the States had been interrupted when their daughter was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder known as selective mutism. She had to have several months of 
counseling in another city. Then, just when they thought everything was taken care of, their supervisors in Mali were sent back to the US to recover from burnout. Ben and Marlene had to live in Senegal for two months, where they didn’t speak the language and felt all alone.
Now in Mali, Ben and Marlene immersed themselves in French and Bambara language training. Their kids went to a school for missionary children. For a while, the Sloans loved being in Mali. Not only could they share Christ with the Malians; they met friendly missionaries whose homes were always open to each other. “We would throw mattresses on the floor and have sleepovers for each other’s kids,” Ben says. “You didn’t even think about it.”
But as time went on, Ben realized that relationships with other missionaries went only so deep. There was a kind of competitiveness among the missionaries. Instead of someone asking, “How are you doing?” the questions were always, “How many villages have you visited? How many people have you shared Christ with?” Mission work seemed to be all about results. Ben and Marlene missed their church back home, where pastors and friends formed a support system. Here in Mali that support system was missing. There was support for the physical difficulties of living in Mali, where (for example) the power would often go off for an entire day. But Ben and Marlene felt alone spiritually. They had no one to help address the spiritual impact of living in a third-world country without church community. Sundays offered no respite; that was the day all the missionaries scattered to the villages for Bible storytelling. Ben says he and Marlene learned to suffer in silence. He coped with the lack of community by simply persevering. “That’s what I felt I had to do: give, give, give, and never receive. I wasn’t happy, but I had to keep going for Jesus.” In time Ben concluded that the more miserable and lonely he was, the more he must be doing the work of the Lord.
When war broke out in Mali in 2012, the Sloan family had to relocate to Berkina Faso. Ben became an emotional mess. He would cry easily, get angry and depressed, and fight with Marlene. They two argued a lot. Marlene didn’t understand what was happening to Ben; he didn’t understand it himself. All he knew is that he felt very alone.
A death in Marlene’s family sent the Sloans back to the US. They ended up staying for almost a year. They thought things would improve between them, but they didn’t. They could have reached out and asked for help; they could have gone to counseling. But they were too embarrassed.
Continuing turmoil in Mali led the mission board to send the Sloans to Botswana instead. “As soon as we stepped off the plane, we knew we didn’t belong there,” Ben says. “We hated it from day one.” Fights between Ben and Marlene escalated. Ben continued to feel depressed, lonely, and angry. They stuck it out for two years in Botswana. But at last they notified their mission board that things were bad. “We need help,” Ben said. They went to South Africa for an intensive month of counseling and then returned to the States for good.
While still fragile, things are now going well for the Sloan family. Ben and Marlene are in counseling. Ben is discovering how much identity issues were behind his anger and depression. Marlene has found a full-time job and Ben is considering a youth pastor position. Ben looks back on their years in Africa with gratitude: “I never would have learned these lessons any other way. It was painful but I’m glad I went through it. I’m learning a new way to live, a new way to view myself. I am someone God is redeeming, not just using. I’m a work in progress.”
He’s also learned the value of genuine community. “The church needs to be a place where you don’t have to put on a happy face and act like everything’s fine when it’s not. Things are going to happen in ministry. You need a place to go where you can suffer out loud.”
It seemed like such a great idea.
Brent and Mario (not their real names), both in their late twenties, had been friends for the past fifteen years. They both loved the Lord and desired to see the gospel spread in their part of the city. They had talked and prayed about the idea with their wives for a long time. So what if they didn’t have the funding or oversight of a denomination. So what if they had no church planting experience! They were best of friends. They had teaching and preaching gifts. They could plant a church together, no sweat.
So the two found space for rent in a well-traveled part of the city. They contacted other friends who promised to help get the church off the ground. They spread the word and started up a worship service. People came. It looked like this thing would take off. Mario and Brent split up the preaching. Mario, ever the entrepreneur, set his sights on strong, steady growth. Brent, the artistic one, valued strong relationships in the church. It seemed like a complementary team.
But soon, in Brent’s words, “things got strange” between him and Mario. Brent sensed a rift growing between him and his friend. Then one day about six months in, Mario announced, “This is how it’s going to be, Brent. I’m going to be the lead pastor. I’ve been to seminary and you haven’t. I know how to raise funds. You really need more training. So I’m going to get paid by the church and you’re not. I need your help as a volunteer but you’ll need to keep your day job.”
Brent was astonished. Mario had figured all this out without ever talking to Brent. He’d even put together an advisory team that agreed with Mario’s plan. Brent didn’t like it, but he didn’t want to fight his friend. Maybe Mario was right. Maybe Brent did need more training. So he took Mario’s advice and enrolled in a nearby seminary. He continued serving the church in a variety of ways.
Months went by, and Mario hired an associate pastor. Again, Brent had no idea this was happening. The two friends stopped talking altogether. Brent says, “It was painful. Something was way off.”
One day “Terry,” the associate pastor, gave Brent a call. “We need to talk,” he said. “Mario has been plagiarizing other people’s sermons. And it’s been going on for a long time.”
“No way!” Brent said. But Terry got together with Brent and showed him example after example of Mario’s plagiarism. Brent and Terry knew they needed to confront Mario. “It was the worst meeting I’ve ever experienced,” Brent says. Mario was hostile, angry, unwilling to admit his sin. Instead of repenting, he said he would just resign his post and leave the church. Brent and Terry met with the elders and told them what Mario had been doing and how he’d reacted. Hoping for damage control, the elders explained to the congregation that Mario was going to resign for “philosophical differences.” But people knew better. Something more serious had come between two good friends.
The little church was now two years old and without a lead pastor. Because Brent had been there from the beginning, he was asked to step up and lead the church. But one after another, disillusioned people left the church. Even the core group, Brent’s closest friends, decided it was time to go. Brent did his best for the next three years, but attendance and giving went steadily downhill. Outreach efforts went nowhere. The church was down to forty people. It felt like a house church meeting in a big building. Brent grew more and more exhausted. He was working, going to seminary, and trying to lift up a sinking ship all at the same time. Some days he came home so discouraged he wished he were dead. Fortunately his marriage and family were healthy, but his church was a goner.
Brent prayed, “Lord, I feel like a total failure. Is this really what you intend for this church? Do you want it to die—and crush me in the process? I thought this is what I was created to do. Was I wrong?”
Surviving Ministry 