The data that
conveys in his recent newsletter, “The Mental Health Struggles of Ministers,” paints a blistering portrait of the mental health of pastors in the U.S., to say the least. Pastors are discouraged, even depressed, to the point where they are contemplating quitting both ministry and/or life. The reports from Barna paint a bleak picture of the pastorate, with anecdotal data often backing it up in more ways than one. From my own experiences and interactions with pastors near me, our conversations, via text or in person, often resort to sessions of mutual encouragement for all the hardship faced on a regular basis. Within that sphere of pastoral camaraderie, there’s a pervasive sense of understanding of each other’s weaknesses and struggles, an understanding that is often hard to come by in those who’ve never pastored before.I don’t mean to suggest that the pastoral office comes with some sort of exclusivity or elitism, but there are unknowable weights that accompany such a calling. I’ve often related it to the so-called fraternity of coaches that exists in professional sports. For instance, Tom Thibodeau’s recent dismissal as the head coach of the New York Knicks after taking his team to the Eastern Conference Finals drew the ire of several former and current coaches, from P.J. Carlesimo to J.B. Bickerstaff. The usual complaint is that team executives neither understand nor value the challenges coaches face or the investments they’ve made to make their teams successful. This is especially apparent when a team comes within two wins of making it to the finals and the coach is fired anyway. Only coaches know what coaches go through.
In a way, I think the same can be applied to pastors. The weightiness of knowing that the Good Shepherd has chosen you to serve as the shepherd of his church is both difficult to bear and articulate. It’s not like the arduousness of other roles or vocations. It’s implicit, unspoken, and nearly invisible, but always there. It’s an existential and palpable weight known only by the lines in your face and the greys in your hair. Those lines and those greys don’t always have negative connotations. But they come from being there when the worst of what life has to offer hits too close to home. They come from weeping with those who weep and rejoicing with those who rejoice. They come from late-night phone calls and even later writing sessions, to hopefully quell the latent anxiety over what God has inspired them to preach. They come from knowing that the so-called “job” of pastoral ministry deals with souls.
When the Word of God is opened, whether in a meeting room or an auditorium, for counseling or for preaching, there are souls at stake. If a customer gets dissatisfied with your restaurant, you can glean from them or dismiss them, knowing full well that there will likely be another customer to take their place pretty much right away. Pastors, however, carry the burden of that person’s eternity. If they get disgruntled about this, that, or the other thing, or if they get to wandering off into realms unknown, pastors feel the weight of their waywardness. I’m not saying it’s always legitimate for pastors to feel this way, I’m just saying that they do.
Pastors shoulder both valid and invalid weights and pressures. “They carry the weight of broken marriages, addictions, church divisions, criticisms, and so on,” Noble writes, “and many if not most of these problems they cannot share with anyone else. They have to bear them alone.” There’s a stigma surrounding mental health, especially among pastors, since, you know, they’re supposed to be the ones everyone else is imitating. Does that mean imitating them as they make appointments with their therapist? Maybe it should. “Pastors don’t need that kind of help,” do they? You bet they do. They’re sinners, just like you, with hearts that are riddled with iniquity and minds that are fragile because of the intrusion of sin in this world. The line of demarcation we often draw between clergy and laity is harder to define than we pretend it is. We like that line bold and distinct, with clear edges that define a person “of the cloth” versus a grocery store clerk. That line, if it exists at all, is a blurry one.
If I could, I would hug O. Alan Noble for articulating what I’ve been feeling for a while. I won’t put up a farce for you: the struggle is real because that’s where I’ve been. Apart from being a parent, there is nothing as simultaneously exhausting and enthralling quite like being a pastor. There are parts of it that really make me question God’s design for it. Surely, there was a better way to advance the gospel around the world than employing anxious and tired sinners to proclaim it to other anxious and tired sinners. But then there are other moments of exhilaration and joy, when the grace and truth of Christ finally start to sink in and you can see the freedom of the gospel take root in a person’s life. Those are the moments when I’m reminded why it is I do what I do. Because God, in all his foolish wisdom, has uncannily decided to use fools and weaklings to shame the wise and dispense grace to the weary by preaching the good news of his Son’s death and resurrection.
Unfortunately, I don’t have any robust solutions for pastors struggling with their mental health. Some should see a physician or a therapist. Some should start a medicinal regimen. Some should probably go for a walk outside without their phone, or maybe we should all do that. Some should find a hobby that allows them not to overthink so much. Most should spend more time with their families instead of chasing that next hit of dopamine. But all of them should find a person or two with whom they can be their most raw and honest selves. If I were to pinpoint a need for every pastor, it’s a friend they can speak to and relate to in unvarnished ways. That sort of friend isn’t a magic elixir of all of life’s ills, but they might just speak the timely words of grace they need to hear.
Maybe that pastor is you, or maybe you’re the friend your pastor needs. Either way, the point is that grace for pastors doesn’t always mean grand, elaborate fixes for all their problems; it means just being there to remind them they aren’t alone. After all, that’s what the Friend of Sinners does for all of us.