community

Ministry for the long haul

img_0065 “I’ve had enough, Lord.”

That cry of the prophet Elijah in 1 Kings 19:4 is familiar to many people in ministry.

Why was Elijah so distraught? Hadn’t he just witnessed astonishing displays of God’s power at Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18:20-46)? Sure. But if you’re a church leader, you’ve felt Elijah’s dejection. You know how often a big Sunday becomes a blue Monday.

Conventional wisdom says at least 1,500 pastors hang it up every month. I doubt the situation is that dire. Still, many ministers of the gospel are blue not just on occasional Mondays but constantly. They feel underpaid and overstretched, discouraged if not depressed. They say they no longer hear the music of God’s love. They’ve had their fill of crises, conflicts, and complaints. Their bodies may be in the pulpit, but their hearts no longer beat with gospel enthusiasm.

There have been times in my thirty years as a pastor when, like Elijah, I’ve wanted to walk away from ministry and try my hand at something else. But by the grace of God, I’m still in. I love preaching the Word, administering the sacraments, and shepherding God’s people. And while many things have contributed to my survival, three key decisions have kept me going.

First, I have decided to expect difficulty. To be a pastor is to be called by Jesus into confict. I was naïve about this in the beginning. But I’ve come to agree with the evangelist Alan Redpath: “If you’re a Christian pastor, you’re always in a crisis—either in the middle of one, coming out of one, or going into one.” Pastors are in daily conflict with the world, the flesh, and the devil, not to mention very broken people. And we ourselves are broken—fragile jars of clay, says Paul (2 Corinthians 4:7).

Jonathan Edwards expected difficulty. In his farewell sermon in Northampton he said, “It often comes to pass in this evil world, that great differences and controversies arise between ministers and the people under their pastoral care.” Indeed. Many of you reading this post know exactly what Edwards was talking about.

Second, I have decided that I am me and not someone else. That may sound elementary, but it’s critical for ministry leaders to feel comfortable in their own skin, and (dare I say it?) to like themselves. As a mentor told me years ago, we minister out of who we are, not out of who we wish we were.

Shortly before his death in 1732, Thomas Boston wrote a little book titled, The Crook in the Lot: Or, the Sovereignty and Wisdom of God Displayed in the Afflictions of Men. In that book Boston argued that everything—even our weaknesses, struggles, and failures— everything happens at God’s command and by God’s design.

Armed with faith in God’s sovereignty, we can relax and enjoy ministry. We can focus on our strengths and freely admit our faults. We can accept our limitations and say with the psalmist, “The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places” (Psalm 16:6). And we don’t have to compare ourselves—to anyone! That’s good news in a culture that celebrates the big, grand, and slick and denigrates the small, ordinary, and faithful.

Third, I have decided that I need people. I can’t do ministry alone. I need helpers and I need friends.

No matter how loudly we may protest, most of us in ministry have a messianic complex. We believe we are God’s gift to the church. After all, we have the seminary degree, the right theology, the gifts and the experience. With Jesus’ help and people’s cooperation, we’ll grow the church!

The truth is, pastors are some of the loneliest folks around. According to research, about seventy percent of pastors say they have no close friends. A 2009 Lilly Endowment study of three Christian denominations found that most pastors lack strong friendships with other pastors. Like everyone else, people in ministry fear intimacy. We find excuses not to pursue community. And unless we’re careful, ministry tasks only contribute to our isolation.

I am your classic introvert. Nevertheless, I am intentional about being in the company of men and women who know me, love me, hold me accountable, help me laugh, and keep me sane. My wife and I belong to a small group. I meet every Wednesday with five men who know my sins and failings. I have lunch once a month with a pastor whom I’ve known since our seminary days. I have friends—not just the Facebook kind—with whom I regularly socialize and speak freely. And when it comes to ministry, I don’t try to do everything. My job is to equip and develop others, not keep ministry to myself. Wasn’t self-imposed isolation one of Elijah’s problems? “I am the only one left,” he said (1 Kings 19:10, 14). God broke the news to Elijah that 7,000 faithful Israelites had not bowed the knee to Baal (1 Kings 19:18).

These three decisions have helped me see that ministry survival, while challenging, is not impossible. God has given us his Son, his Spirit, his Word, his promises, and his people to sustain our faith and fuel our joy. Take advantage of these means of grace and, God willing, you’ll be in ministry for the long haul.

Ask for Help

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 o46b2cb4b1ed8cf35_draftingutreach, 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/

Ben’s Story

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 Couplecounseling 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.”