The tired pastor

Much has been written in recent years about the exhaustion many pastors feel. The pressures and stresses of ministry has led to many leaving the ministry and seeking other types of employment. There is no question that these pressures and stresses are real. I've experienced them myself, but I've also learned that there are some things I can do to help alleviate them.

One of the simplest is to take control of your schedule. I often joke that people who have nothing to do want to do it with you. Unfortunately, that is not a joke. Unless you control your calendar, someone else will. I recommend that at the start of each month block off times on your calendar for the things you are responsible for doing. If you are responsible for preaching each week, you need preparation time. When are you most effective in your study and sermon preparation? Many find their most productive hours are in the morning. If that is you, block out your mornings to plan and prepare your messages. You can then schedule other demands on your time at other times on your calendar.

When blocking out times on your calendar don't forget to schedule times with your family and for your own self-care. You don't want to schedule a deacon's retreat on your wife's birthday or your anniversary! Block out those days well in advance. Be sure to include time on your calendar for yourself. Remember...self-care is not selfishness, it is stewardship of a very valuable commodity...you. Take your vacations. Take your days off.

A second thing to do to help ease the stresses of ministry is to deal with interpersonal conflicts quickly. There are few things more stressful than knowing that someone is upset at something you've said or done. Address it as soon as you learn someone is unhappy with you. It may be something as simple as a misunderstanding that can easily be cleared up. There may be a legitimate issue that needs addressed. If so, acknowledge your part in that and see what can be done to resolve it.

Unfortunately, personal finances are often a stressor in a minister's life. Few ministers are paid salaries comparable to what others with our education and experience receive. Personal financial management is a course that should be taught in seminary. I would recommend that every minister take the "Financial Peace University" course offered by Dave Ramsey. It will help you get out of debt, avoid debt, build up an emergency fund and plan for retirement.

The final thing I'll address in this post is to set priorities. Some people act as if everything is a priority. If everything is a priority, nothing is. What are the top five things you need to do today? Once you determine that, you can then prioritize each of them. Number them one through five. Begin working on number one and don't stop until it is completed. Then move on to number two. You may not get to number two, and that's OK. That becomes number one tomorrow.

One thing I've learned in ministry is that there will always be one more phone call I could have made, and probably should have. There will always be one more visit I could have made, and probably should have. There will always be unfinished work at the end of every day, and I've had to learn to accept that. I'm not going to save the world today, and I'll burn myself out if I try. If that happens, then I'll be no good to anyone.  

 

Pastors and depression

While driving around yesterday I heard a caller talking to a radio host about her battle with depression and how physical exercise helped her deal with her illness. I picked up the conversation about its half-way point, and it was obvious the host and caller knew each other. The radio host admitted he had dealt with depression for much of his adult life as well and began each day with a cardio workout to help deal with his condition. What struck me was how open and honest they were being about their struggle with depression with tens of thousands of potential listeners to the program and how many people may be helped because of that honesty.

Regular readers of this blog or some of my books know that I experienced depression during the mid 1980s and my own susceptibility to the disease. Many pastors struggle with the same condition, but not all are willing to be as open about their struggle as I have been or these individuals on the radio were. Too many Christians have the mistaken belief that being depressed is a spiritual condition or that it represents a weak faith. Some well-known pastors and church leaders have said as much. I want to say as humbly and kindly as possible that those who say such things have no idea what they are talking about. Depression is a medical condition that has no relation to one's spiritual condition or faith in God. It often is caused by physical conditions such as low levels of neurotransmitters in the brain or other similar conditions, none of which have anything to do with one's relationship with God.

My own depression was due to such conditions brought about by poor self-care at the time. Pushing myself beyond what is healthy caused the neurotransmitters in my brain to become so low it was difficult to function. I recognize now that my body had to shut down in order to heal itself. Medication and weekly meetings with a pastoral counselor helped speed up that process, but the body had to heal itself, and since I wouldn't take better care of myself my body had to intervene itself to heal.

Pastoral ministry is demanding and takes a lot from a person. If we do not practice good self-care we can experience not only depression but a lot of other medical conditions as well. For some reason, too many of us in ministry think we can abuse ourselves and not suffer the consequences for doing so. For too long I believed the foolish idea that I would rather burn out than rust out. Hey...either way you're out! Unfortunately, some pastors still believe in being martyrs so they refuse to take care of themselves and so limit their usefulness to their ministries, their churches, their families, and themselves.

Even when pastors suspect they might be depressed they refuse to admit it or talk about it. This sets them up for even more failure later on in their own lives and prevents them from being able to minister to those in their congregations who might be experiencing depression themselves. Not once have I ever referred to my bout with depression in a church that someone in that church didn't come to me afterwards thanking me for my honestly and asking for prayer for their own battle with the illness.

Please, pastors, take care of yourselves for your sake and that of your family and ministry. Church leaders, if you suspect your pastor might be struggling with depression arrange for a private conversation with him or her about it. Encourage them to seek medical treatment, or at least encourage them to get a professional opinion to determine if your concern is valid or not. 

There is no shame in being depressed. It is no different than being diagnosed with the flu or having a broken leg. There is treatment available so avail yourself of it. Learn what might trigger depression in your life and find ways to avoid those triggers. Take care of yourself, please.

Baseball as it is meant to be

This past week I've been in Atlanta watching my youngest grandson play in a 12u baseball tournament. He lives in Texas, and his team joined 75 other teams from 22 states to compete in this tournament. They won their first six games before losing in the semifinal game to the #1 ranked team in the US.

Yes, these 12-and-under teams are ranked, and play some amazing baseball. Many of these pitchers throw over 70 MPH with some hitting in the high 70s. With the shorter distance to home plate this would be the equivalent to fastballs coming in over 90 MPH. This was a level of youth baseball I've never seen. The hitting was just as amazing as the pitching with a number of home runs. To cap it off, I saw some incredible fielding as well.

What I enjoyed as much as anything was the passion with which these young men played the game. While the major leagues is dealing with union talks about resuming the season and playing with no fans in the seats, these kids are out there simply playing a game they love. There might not be a minor league season this year either, but there is a lot of good baseball being played in parks around the country by young men who are playing just for team pride.

It was also great being with our son and grandson for the week as well. Since they live in Texas, we don't get to see them as often as we would like, so getting to spend an entire week with them was wonderful.

In my last post before taking these days off I wrote about a pastor's self-care. This is an example of what that looks like. Taking time from the church to create memories with family and loved ones. The house we rented had a pool table so we played a lot of pool after the games. We tried new restaurants. We enjoyed the ball games, and it was nice for my wife and I to just relax away from the phone and get away from social media.

Practicing self-care, taking mental-health days, is good for you, your family and your church. Make sure you leave time in your schedule for plenty of such times.

Bivocational pastors must practice good self-care

People who know my story know that I was a bivocational pastor of a small, rural church for 20 years. They also know that a few years into that ministry I was diagnosed with clinical depression. Prior to that diagnosis I had spent four years attending a Bible college, working full-time in a factory, driving 100 miles each way to attend school, pastoring the church and being a husband and father. It's a wonder the depression didn't kick in sooner than it did!

Although the church allowed me two weeks vacation each year I never took but one. I never took a Sunday off and was very poor at delegating any ministry responsibilities to anyone else. I had always said I would rather burn out than rust out, but it wasn't until the depression hit that I realized how stupid that was. Either way you are out!

I was on medication and in counseling for a year before recovering from the depression. It was a difficult year, but it was also a learning opportunity. I learned that if I didn't take care of myself there would come a time when I couldn't care for anyone else. I learned that self-care wasn't selfishness. It was stewardship of a valuable resource...me. I learned how important it was to take time for myself and my family.

After the depression ended I requested three weeks vacation and a few years after that I asked for a fourth. The church never hesitated, and I took every one of them. I found some hobbies I enjoyed doing and began to set aside time for them. I no longer felt I had to attend every church meeting. If I began to feel stressed I sought to find the stressor and address it before it created problems.

Pastors are often better at caring for others than they are in caring for themselves. This is true of both bivocational and fully-funded pastors. Most of us enter the ministry to serve people, and we often do that without considering our own well-being. Many of us have no one to talk to about our issues, our struggles, our pain. Too often we don't even talk about it to our spouses because we don't want to burden them down with our problems.

What can pastors do to practice good self-care? I addressed this in my book The Healthy Pastor: Easing the Pressures of Ministry. Let me share just a few things from that book.

Everyone needs someone to talk to. This includes pastors. Some pastors have fellow clergy with whom they can discuss some of their challenges. Others have regular appointments with therapists or pastoral counselors. I was contacted earlier this week by an individual asking if assigning chaplains to churches would be helpful. I assured him it would but suggested that in many cases it might be better to assign a chaplain to an association or a group of associations to ensure that pastors of smaller churches would have access to a chaplain. Whoever you use must be able to maintain confidentiality, they must believe in you, and they need to be able to offer spiritual direction when needed.

Secondly, pastors need to take time away from ministry. As a Resource Minister I encouraged every church I served to provide their pastor with four weeks vacation each year. That will cost them very little in actual financial cost, but it will greatly benefit their pastor and his or her family. Furthermore, I also advocated for every church to grant their pastor a three-month sabbatical every seven years. That was an even tougher sell than the four weeks vacation. As I explained to many church leaders, their pastor is on call 24/7/365. No one else in the church has that kind of expectation placed on them. Pastors need time away to stay fresh and healthy.

Of course, it does no good for the church to offer that time away from the church if the pastor doesn't take it. That was one of my problems, and I paid dearly for it. If you think the church won't survive if you're gone then you have a very poor opinion of God. When pastors told me they couldn't be away from the church too much I reminded them that cemeteries are full of indispensable people. Chances are your church existed for years before you came, and unless the Lord returns, it will continue to exist long after you're gone. Do yourself, your family and your church a favor and take time away.

Third, develop an interest outside of ministry. After recovering from my depression I bought a bass boat. My wife and I fished in bass tournaments and spent many enjoyable hours fishing in a nearby river and area lakes. After I sold my boat I bought a motorcycle, and we spent hours riding and enjoying the outdoors. One vacation we took an eight day ride to South Dakota and toured the Badlands and saw Mt. Rushmore and Sturgis. What a great vacation! Find something you will enjoy doing to get your mind off the pressures of ministry for a time.

Pastors, you are too important to the Kingdom of God to not take care of yourself. I don't ever want to go through depression again, and I can assure you that you don't either. When God called us into the ministry He also called us to be wise enough to realize that the ministry is not a sprint but a marathon. We need to be in it for the long haul, and that will only happen if we practice good self-care.

Self-care is not selfishness.

Yesterday I was privileged to speak at the summer meeting of the Church Relations Council (CRC) at Campbellsville University. For several years I have served on this council and just agreed to another three year term. I love CU and their emphasis on the gospel of Jesus Christ. If there was ever a time when Christian higher education was important it is the time in which we now live.

The CRC meets twice a year to update us on what is happening at the campus and to seek our input on how the university can improve. We hear numerous reports from the heads of various schools in the university, but the report I most enjoy comes from students who have been involved in mission trips. A lot of people criticize this younger generation, but they should see how many of students from CU go on mission trips every year and hear how God used them to make a difference in people's lives.

I was asked several months ago to be the keynote speaker at this particular meeting. Because I was speaking primarily to pastors and university and church leaders I decided to speak on the important of practicing good self-care. As I explained in my presentation, self-care is not selfishness; it is stewardship of a valuable resource God has given us...us. In my message I shared my own story of how I allowed my life to get out of balance and the lessons I learned from that experience.

During the break several of those in attendance told me the message really hit home with them. They admitted they often struggled to keep the various elements of their lives in balance, and some could identify with some of the struggles I had.

Many of us in Christian leadership do a much better job of caring for others than we do in caring for ourselves. Clergy have a very high rate of burnout and depression, and this is one reason we see half of all seminary graduates drop out of the ministry within five years after graduating from seminary.

I understand the desire for pastors and church leaders to want to make a difference because I share that desire. However, I've also learned I'm not going to save the world tomorrow. Ministry is supposed to a distance event, not a sprint, but many of us go at it as if it's a 100 meter dash and then wonder why we struggle physically, spiritually, and emotionally.

I wrote The Healthy Pastor: Easing the Pressures of Ministry to help church leaders enjoy a healthier life and ministry. Ministry is challenging, and we'll never eliminate all the pressures associated with it, but we can take steps to ease those pressures. I made the book available at the meeting and several copies did sell after my message.

Enjoying a healthy, productive ministry is a choice any of us can make. No one can force you to become overwhelmed by ministry and your other responsibilities. We can get control of our calendars and our lives if we choose to do so. We can take our days off and our vacations. We can make time for our families if we decide to do so. We can deepen our spiritual lives if that is what we need to do. Eliminating many of the pressures of ministry simply requires a decision on our part to do so and then setting the boundaries that are needed to remove those pressures.

We had a great meeting at CU with good worship and exciting presentations. The school expects a record enrollment this fall, and it excites me to know the impact the school will have on these students.