I was there the week it happened. His wife asked to see me. Tearfully
she told me that he had walked into the church building that week and
announced to his staff that he was “done.” He said he couldn’t face
preaching another sermon; that all that he really wanted to do was to
run away from his own life. Sam was 45 and the pastor of a vibrant and
growing church.
I am convinced that there are important changes needed in pastoral
culture and that the number of pastors who find themselves in the range
from discouraged to depressed give clear evidence of this. Let me
suggest four potential setups of this discouragement/depression cycle in
ministry.
Setup #1: Unrealistic Expectations
I taught a class at Westminster Seminary on pastoral care and was
impressed year after year about how unrealistic the expectations of my
future-pastor students were. Year after year my students seemed to
forget the two things that consistently make pastoral ministry hard.
What are they? The harsh reality of life in a dramatically broken world
and what remaining sin does to the hearts of us all. These two things
make pastoral ministry a day by day spiritual war. Keep Reading...
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