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If I could speak freely... (pastoral depression, suicide, and anxiety)

So you want to know why pastors and ministers struggle with depression, anxiety, and even suicidal tendencies?
Imagine giving everything in your life for one goal.
➕You give up time with your family ➕you commit yourself to living well below the financial level most people in your church live at ➕you commit anywhere from 60-120 hours a week to: 📖studying for a sermon - or three 🚘running back and forth between hospitals, nursing homes and elderly members’ homes & school activities (not just for your child but as many members’ kids as you can), 🔧fixing and cleaning toilets, 🎚patching together sound equipment or computers so the church doesn’t have to spend money on new ones, and my personal favorite: fielding questions that sound like “Yeah you preach, but where do you WORK?” 😳 You have bad days- days where you physically ache because of the pressure and worry - but have to hide them behind bright smiles and cliches because “if you’re truly called, you wouldn’t struggle”...or because “but all you do is preach”. So you bleed, sweat, cry, pray about, plead for and even dream about your calling, your church, your “job”... trying to hear that still, small voice leading you as you try to lead others. You worry about keeping the church clean enough, pretty enough, paying the electric bill on time, preaching as much truth as you can possibly get and teaching as much love and Jesus as you can possibly teach. You worry that you didn’t love on Sister so-and-so enough or that Brother so-and-so may have thought the music was too loud/soft/old/new.
You try to balance family life as well as you can and still make sure the church knows you’re always available for them.
You develop relationships - beautiful, bright spots in the busyness of ministry—laughing and joking with some, crying and praying with others. Your number is the first one they call when something goes wrong, and sometimes even the first one they call when something goes amazingly, miraculously “right”. But something happens and these bright spots start dimming. Sometimes with a bit of warning, like the oldest stars that twinkle before they die. But sometimes those bright spots go out suddenly, with no warning - you just blink and in that instant when you reopen your eyes, your surroundings are suddenly darker and colder. It’s those times that the enemy plants thoughts of inadequacy and ineffectiveness in the mind of a pastor. The times when the ones who were supposed to always be there and are excited about the awesome growth and direction, are suddenly - and sometimes drastically - NOT there. And the pastor whose charge is to lead and guide and encourage and motivate is left blindsided with the realization that the ones he invested so much of his life in and for — the ones for whom he feels the heaviest burden — never really considered him as their friend or family member or confidant or buddy or pal. He was *just* the Pastor. *Just* the preacher. *Just* a hired man at that church... For that pastor, it feels like the relationship he was nurturing and promoting and pruning (and honestly enjoying) was just a ruse and easily discarded when it was convenient for the other party. Because it HURTS when people you’ve invested in and created friendships with choose to leave the common ground you both had—- the community of your church. But pastors and ministers should have thicker skin than that... pastors need to focus on the people in the pews, not the empty seats... pastors just need to pray more... just need to be more charismatic... just need to get different/better/more volunteers...just need to preach the Word and let God handle all the rest...just need to.... What? Not be human? Not develop relationships with people traveling the same narrow path? This is one of the main reasons pastors and ministers struggle. Because we are human. And we hurt. And we can’t tell anyone.
So, if you’re a churchgoer, let me encourage you—- treat your pastor and your leaders the way YOU want to be treated. Remember they’re not perfect. They have struggles, they get stressed out, they have anxiety that literally no one around them understands (because can’t you just “cast all your cares???”). And remember, if and when you leave a church (we are assuming you’ve already been in true prayer about a decision this big- because when you leave a family, the entire family is affected), you may think it’s not about the pastor, but to them, it is. They have literally made serving that church their life. And now they are losing what they consider to be a vital part of it (regardless of how unimportant you think you are). By all rights they SHOULD be allowed to grieve this loss, but they can’t afford that luxury. There’s work to be done. And the field is ripe with the harvest. But it still hurts.
#ministry #depression #anxiety #churchhurt #churchhurt #pastor #church #mentalhealth

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