Not only does the incivility damage ministers and their families, churches suffer in the process. Many experts believe that it takes an average of 10-15 years for a church to heal following the forced termination of the pastor. The spirit of the gospel is dampened and the Christian message suffers.

Some clergy are often guilty of unrealistic expectations upon the church and of unhealthy motivations for ministry that are neither biblical nor healthy. We can say the same of some churches whose projected responsibilities of clergy and their families are a prescription for burn out.

Unfortunately, the lay leadership and members of unhealthy churches desires the pastor to do their ministry instead of leading them in the ministry of all Christians. Such a passive church becomes an audience and not a body. Then the audience becomes the critic of the latest pastoral performance. Ogden confronts such an unhealthy attitude by stating “the biblical emphasis is not on the ‘omni competent’ pastor, but a ‘multi-gifted’ body” (75).

Unhealthy churches also frequently abuse their pastors by “cutting their salary or slicing away at their integrity with gossip” (Hansen 124). As Rediger bluntly states in his book, Clergy Killers,

The growing abuse is also a significant commentary on the mental and spiritual health of the church, for how the church treats its leaders reveals even more about the church than about the leaders. Only a sick and dying church batters its pastors.  (20)
 
What are Christians doing about this epidemic? Are there prescriptions available to treat it?

II.  What are denominations doing?

The Baptists are calling this problem their dirty little secret—a lack of honor for God and God’s ministers . The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is making clergy health one of its top priorities (http://www.thelutheran.org/study/clergyhealth.html). . The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod studied their clergy shortage problem in depth recently . Southern Baptists are addressing depression among the clergy. Duke’s study on clergy health calls for a major change of outlook within local churches for clergy health to improve.

A United Methodist Clergyperson has started a mental health ministry. Read her article from The Circuit Rider  “The Face of Depression.” by Rev. Susan Gregg-Schroeder See the resources available from Mental Health Ministries


Bob Wells reported in Duke’s study “Which Way to Clergy Health?” the following:

In the Episcopal Diocese of California, church officials have established guidelines setting the expected work week for clergy at no more than 45-50 hours, with a five-day work week and two full days off. The diocese's Clergy Wellness Commission has developed sample job agreements and health agreements that set out expectations about job duties, work hours, sick leave, vacation, and the steps that clergy will take to maintain  their spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical well being.

The agreements are part of a broader effort to make congregations see ministry as a shared task between clergy and laity. Rather than viewing pastors as the hired chaplain and service provider, healthy congregations should see themselves in mutual ministry with the clergy.

I rejoiced to discover that the Oklahoma Conference of the UMC is working for more than just longer pastoral tenures. They are encouraging churches to see the benefit of giving their pastors a six month paid sabbatical during a long term of pastoral ministry there. What a creative way of helping pastors and churches benefit from something The Book of Discipline says United Methodist  clergy may do every seven years.

III.  Betrayal and Respect

Some of this epidemic in North America reminds me of the Scottish people in the movie “Braveheart.” My ancestors were the only people whom the Roman Empire could not conquer. They even built a wall to keep the Scots out. However, in the movie, many Scottish people died more from the betrayal of their nobles than from the British army. By the way, my ancestor, Robert the Bruce, did not betray William Wallace as portrayed in the movie. He in fact finished what Wallace began.

My Lutheran colleague in ministry and friend, Rev. Tom Fischer, wrote a very bold article concerning the stewardship of clergy and their families. In “Protecting And Investing God's Pearl--The Pastor”, he writes concerning pastors, “Let’s not take God’s "talents" and bury them in a hole of multiple dysfunctional congregational dynamics when opportunities for maximizing such gifts abound.” What does it say about the respect for this divine institution when denominational officials allow such betrayal to occur like the Scottish Nobles did their own people?

As Tom says in very intense language,

Certainly God’s servants deserve, as Paul indicated, . . . . . more respect than the "legendary" Rodney Dangerfield!! If the denomination and those placing pastors won't respect the worth of pastors, but  send  them to places of certain failure anyway, Is it any wonder that the congregations won't respect them either? After all, is it the congregation’s right to have a pastor—regardless of how they will treat him—or is it a privilege that God gives to a local expression of the Body Christ so that they can be mutually edified and  grow together unto maturity?

Let’s stop casting our pearls--God's Called Pastors--"to the swine." Let’s use divine principles of stewardship in the stewardship of the divine call. Let’s not take God’s "talents" and bury them in a hole of multiple dysfunctional congregational dynamics when opportunities for maximizing such gifts abound.

Instead, let’s begin asking, "How would God invest these ministers—the precious pearls—in His church?" Are there churches toward which we ought to shake the dust off our sandals until they demonstrate repentance and genuine desire for healing? If we ask these basic question firsts, maybe addressing these questions would be one of the most important first steps toward congregational health we could take. Let’s treat the divine Office of the Ministry the way it’s meant  to be treated—with a greater sense divine reverence and respect.

See also:   Diagnosed Diseases within the Body of Christ

IV.  Seven Prescriptions

Truly, pastoral ministry rotates on the axis of personal wholeness. This calls for you to grow first in your own personal well being as pastor, spouse, and children. We can gain much by asking God to show you what needs to change in you first. What is your primary focus? What is hindering your holding to a biblical primary focus? (see "Motivation, Meaning, and Ministry")

A close study of Christian leadership helps one begin to understand your need as pastors to grow healthier yourself. Then you can developer leadership teams and  act as change agents for the sake of building churches focused on healthy church growth. In light of these observations, Rick Warren contrasts the skills needed for growing a church and those needed for building a healthy church.

The skills may not be all that different, but growing a healthy church depends on the personal character of the leader. It is possible for an unhealthy pastor to lead a growing church, but it takes a healthy pastor to lead a healthy church. You can’t lead people further than you are in your own spiritual health. (“Comprehensive Health” 22)

1. Mental and Emotional

Today, startling statistics abound concerning clergy health add-nauseam (see Godliness and Cleanliness for Healthy Church Bodies). While statistics don’t lie, but you can lie with statistics, they do not tell the whole story. Other issues contribute to the poor health of clergy, clergy spouse’s and their families. Too often clergy, their spouses and their families fail to heed God’s call to tend to their mental and emotional wholeness.

Is it is always the church’s fault? No. Very often it is not an either or situation but a both and.

Another part of the clergy health problem involves the breakdown of the home. London and Wiseman share the following startling information:

Now dysfunctional family relationships are so common that a high percentage of individuals in every congregation carry scars from a fractured childhood. They look to the church as their most convenient  help.  When churches ignore these pains in persons in their fellowship, the unresolved issues pop up in strange and unexpected ways. Like an acre of dandelions, the crop gets worse when ignored. (45)

Also, Carder et al. writes,

Since churches are made up of families, it only makes sense that they often operate exactly like the  family-of-origin pattern of the dominant leader and/or of the congregation [denomination, conference, synod, diocese, district]. Many of us select the church system we do because of the unfinished business we carry from our family of origin. (18)

The dysfunctional issues of either clergy, spouses and/or their families sometimes express themselves as different dysfunctions behind various religious masks as well (Oates, Wayne C; Pate, Marvin and Sheryl L. Pate).

Conrad Weiser’s book, Healers: Harmed & Harmful, shares the following bleak description:

The literature about church professionals or congregations often presents health as the predominant  condition and makes sickness or dysfunction the exception. The truth seems darker--in fact, the data indicates the reverse. As life-stage theoreticians have indicated over the last few decades, change--not stability—is the norm, and change moves toward dysfunction and disequilibrium, not toward health. (4)

If one-quarter to one-third of the clergy are at risk or operating at less than mature levels, then each congregation served by this portion of the professional population will remain in or move toward immaturity. Five to seven years are needed for a congregation to grow and heal after an inadequate ministry. If the average length of a ministry in one place is seven years or less, then at any one point in time as many as 60 percent of all parishes are dysfunctional or potentially so--no small systemic issue.

Mature pastors can spend most of their time cleaning up dysfunction and immaturity in parish after parish in an endless circle.  What clergy-person wants to undertake the task of establishing healthy functioning while knowing that this congregation has a two-out-of-three chance of becoming dysfunctional again? It is as if healthy pastors are window washers who create a clear vision for  only brief periods of time until the glass becomes clouded and distorted again. (6)

Weiser’s book highlights the imperative need of all clergy to heed the call to mental and spiritual, and physical fitness. Otherwise, healthy pastors will continue cleaning up after an at-risk clergy person explodes like a time bomb.

A national church consultant once said that he noticed a lot of people attending seminaries to develop a new identity. There are many motives for going to a school of divinity or a seminary.

Certainly, seminaries and those responsible for the ordination process of their denomination need to help potential clergy. Many need help discovering their family of origin issues. Tests and observation will help detect any personality disorders. All these issues call for discipleship toward holy wholeness in Christ before ordination. Some very gifted and truly called people are extra grace needed folks who need small group and/or individual therapy to help them mentally and emotionally.

For example, a Foursquare Church pastor and author, Doug Murren who struggles with bi-polar (p 23). Some effective pastors struggle with ADD.

Some pastors like Murren deal with the challenges of a biologically based mental illness.  Others deal with illnesses like depression following a traumatic experience(s) in their life. A useful book on this subject is Archibald Hart’s book, Coping with Depression In The Ministry and Other Helping Professions. Clergy suffer from depression more than twice as much as the general population. Many carry this burden secretly (see Many Pastors Carry Secret Burden Of Depression from Charisma Online News Service. No longer online). Depression related to ministry is often at the heart of clergy and spouses quitting their marriages (see DEAR CHURCH! WE QUIT! Marriage and Ministry Depression ).

2. Spiritual Life (Spirit-Soul-Body)

The Apostle Paul included various admonitions about Timothy’s own well-being as a leader of the Ephesian Church (1 Tim. 4:12-16; 6:11-16, 20; and 2 Tim. 1:6; 2:3-7, 22-26; 3:14-15; 4:2, 5). Also, the pastoral epistles express great concern for those selected to church leadership in light of their personal character, relationships at home, reputation outside of the church, and the spouse’s character. His concern for integrity, character and relationships is expressed to everyone in the congregations Paul wrote to as well. Such biblical concern for the individual living their Christian life by God’s grace in every arena of life addresses the circulatory system of the local church.

The Holy Spirit calls you  to keep maturing in your intimacy with God through a growing devotional life (Curtis, Brent and John Eldridge). This priority helps keep you and your families focused on the Lord of the Church instead of on problems or popularity.

A growing spiritual life leads you to honestly face your dark side and empowers you to receive grace to overcome. This includes your “personal issues that may plague us in the exercise of our leadership” (Gary McIntosh and Sammuel Rima 9; Galloway, "Have You Been Broken"; "Have You Been Set"; Oates, Wayne; Pate, C. Marvin & Sheryl L. Pate; Martyn, Stephen; Semands, Steve; "Turn Your"). Clergy like martial artists must use much wisdom in dealing with issues related to power.

With the current emphasis on spirituality and given the increase of broken people in society today, postmodern people hunger for authentic spirituality in those who preach, and lead worship. For the sake of wholesome ministry leadership relationships, healthy worship, and holistic preaching, you will do well to examine your own inner drives. (see "Motivation, Meaning, and Ministry").

Thus, ask yourself questions, such as:

                    (1)  What drives me?

(2)  Why do I want to please God?

(3)  Do I want to please God or do I want God to please me by doing it my way ("Leadership Competency")?

(4)  Am I a leader who operates out of a theology of the fall?

(5)  Am I a leader who operates out of a theology of creation ("Theory X")?

(6)  Do I find my identity primarily in what I do as a pastor or in who I am in Christ ("Great Leaders"; "God's Mission"; "Staffing")?

(7)  Is my daily walk with Christ based on grace or works?

(8)  Is God's love and approval of me enough (Semands)?

Being clear and biblical about what drives you as clergy and sets your values places you in a better position to lead. This happens when you find your own sense of identity, significance, and security in who you are in Christ and not in what you do as pastors (Anderson and Mylander 49-53; Anderson, Neil; "God's Mission"; "Great Leaders"; "Posture in Leadership"; "Staffing"). The same is true for individual members of a pastor's family.

Sad to say but the American Dream might be keeping you from seeing that abundant life and eternal life in Christ are synonymous. In John 17:3, eternal life is defined as knowing God and his Son whom he has sent.  The next time your prayer life consisting of complaints about problems and demands for blessings ask yourself a question. How different do you sound than the prodigal son? Maybe there is a more grace filled answer to why God is not fixing your most painful problems and not showering you with blessings upon blessing? Is it because you did something wrong or you have failed to get something just right? Legalistic Christians living in the flesh instead of in the Spirit and judgmental friends like Job’s love to ask such a question with a pointing finger. (They fail to think that while they point one finger, four fingers point back to them.) Most of the time when God seems to be the most absent is the very situation God is using to wean you away from a focus anywhere but on being content with knowing God! Many years ago, the late Rev. Wade Goldston told me, “always remember, you are a Christian first and a pastor second.”

Your high visibility makes you vulnerable to all sorts of cancerous temptations. If you perform your pastoral calling only for personal gain, you are as valuable to the leadership team and to the church as a cancer cell is to a human body. Such diseases enter the body of Christ whenever you fall prey to various spiritual cancers such as winning or losing acceptance in the applause syndrome, one-upmanship or seeking to manipulate God through magical presumption.

Part of becoming more whole in Christ means working on pastoral integrity (Peterson, Eugene). Another part of a growing spiritual life also includes faithful physical exercise and intellectual development (Rediger, G. Lloyd).

Quotes to ponder:

Pastors are abandoning their calling for a focus on how to keep the customers happy. No wonder clergy morale is low…Many pastors are lusting after people’s approval. Today, more than ever, we need a carefully thought out theology of ministry. Either the path of least resistance or the path of faithfulness has pain. The first leads to burnout or anger and the other to redemptive pain ("Coping").

If you get caught in the doing mode, you fall into the comparison trap. In the doing mode, you will never find peace. The comparison game is sin. If you can build a few healthy relationships at the center of your life, you’ll have the emotional energy to minister to unhealthy people. If you don’t you will have trouble” ("Great Leaders").

Your inner spirit will you to make you or break you in the ministry. Many pressures try to squeeze us into the negativeness around us. The person who is surrendered to God can be comfortable, and feel good about  him/herself, and can be him/herself (“Staffing and Teaming”).

Success is offering our best to God, and not being in competition with others. We are not responsible for others actions and attitudes. We are only responsible for our own actions and attitudes (“Ten Characteristics”).

3. Intimate Marriage and Family Life

God’s Word calls you to grow more intimate with your spouse and family. A healthy marriage is a priceless asset to all Christians, but particularly to clergy. Congregations who see the clergy loving their spouses feel more secure or less anxious than those who don’t.

Too many pastors find themselves drained either by unhealthy churches or by unhealthy overfunctioning. Unless you build a solid relationship with your spouse, family and close friends, you will not have the strength to minister to broken people or to unhealthy churches. As a recent study of The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod commented,

Settling divisiveness in a fighting congregation takes a minimum of five years of “living hell.” Only a very few, strong, mature pastors can endure that much misery and turn the situation around (Klaas, Alan C. 59).

Some husbands and wives find it helpful to take a break from everything including children by getting away on a regular basis. It is wise to plan times with your spouse when your own emotional tank is not on empty. When was the last time you and your spouse went out on a date? How did you celebrate your last anniversary? Did you get out of “Dodge” for a romantic time along in a “Bed and Breakfast” with a Jacuzzi? Have you read a fine Christian book, Intimate and Unashamed?

4. Social Life

You are also called to grow more intimate with your friends (Hayford 108). Having at least one Pauline-type friend who challenges your growth, some Barnabus type friends who encourage you, and several Timothy-type relationships with people who need your encouragement and mentoring forms a healthy dynamic. You dare not neglect your humanness as a person for your lasting effectiveness “will only be proportionate to [your] effectiveness in learning to live” (Hayford 27). If you do neglect your humanness, you will reduce your lasting effectiveness.

Quotes to ponder:

Some pastors need to get a life. Pastors need to live a balanced life” (“Staffing and Teaming Together”).

“Pastors need close friends “ (“An Action Plan”).

Your maturing mental and emotional wholeness readied to deal with stress, your spiritual life growing in the knowledge of God and in the grace of Jesus Christ, and healthy relationships with your family as well as friends, provide you a very solid foundation for living and ministry.

Take these first four prescriptions very seriously and enjoy them as well.

5. Pastoral family-parish relationships.

Your calling also involves healthy pastor, pastoral family-parish relationships. This includes both Christ like love and healthy boundaries. It also includes the unique call within the call that God gives each clergy person, spouse and family member.

Healthy pastors answer yes to David Hansen’s, “Do I really love the church I serve?” (33). An inner attitude of ambivalence will hinder an unhealthy pastor’s leadership of a church. Regardless of the source of such an inability to give oneself in love, be it selfishness, inner pain, or fear, such ambivalence will preclude bonding with their congregation. Such a sin of the spirit also weakens their bond with one’s family and increases the likelihood of falling into some sin of the flesh.

Hansen comments about pastor-church bonding that brings a new perspective to the relationship.

We don’t like to have to bond. I wonder if when in our frustration we say we dislike our congregation, what we are really saying is that we dislike the bond we have with them, or more particularly, the covenant bond God has called us to. When we think we are grumbling about our church, maybe we are grumbling against God

When a church and a pastor do not bond, the church cannot grow—in numbers, in commitment to one another and to God, to mission, to worship, and to a deeper spirituality.  (61)

Jesus does not call pastors to bond with killer churches that have a long history of lifting their hand against God’s anointed and despise the lordship of Christ (Hansen 112-123).

There are many good resources to help couples, families and children with issues related to boundaries. Boundaries impact all of our relationships. While not all relationships need mastery of The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense, some do.

6. Boundaries and Self-differentiation

Quotes to ponder:

Hurts in the ministry call for tougher skin. People are really not doing this to us, but they are taking their own stuff all out on us. We have to see beyond this and pay attention to our own inner spirit and such times. You can't afford self-pity in the ministry. Like a cut that needs to be kept clean from infection to heal, our emotional hurts and ministry must be kept clean to heal. As long as you blame others or have resentment, ill feelings,  self-pity, you will not be healed. Take responsibility for your attitudes and actions. Stop rehearsing the hurt --face it and let go of it. Everyone with a very deep level of ministry to people has gone through much pain.

Overcome negative happenings in ministry by taking positive actions. No emotional health or relationship   can  exist without forgiveness. Dealing with hurts in ministry will either break you or make you.

Do not write or call people when you are upset with them or when your emotional tank is low. What renews   your emotional tank? When your emotions are down, you are more susceptible to temptations. People get into trouble  when their adrenaline is down. Stop looking for ways to get an emotional fix (“An Action Plan”).

We have more dysfunctional people than ever before. Thus, be confident in who you are. Your self-esteem does not depend upon them. Don't allow yourself to overreact. Don't play their games. Set boundaries and limits. When you need to confront, do so immediately. Have realistic expectations of that person. Stop trying  to change the difficult person in your lifetime. Don't take on responsibility for such sick people. Keep yourself from becoming the difficult person's slave. No is ok. If you allow such people to beat up on your emotional life, then let God lead you through your struggle with these difficult people so that you don't loose peace ("How to Handle").

Pastors who have an overly extensive and exhausting schedule can conquer the tyranny of the urgent by setting boundaries on their use of time. Along with at least one day off a week, pastors may find it beneficial to go on a monthly twenty-four hour retreat. Pastors and others having difficulties with boundaries may find the insights of Family Systems theory helpful in growing more whole psychologically and interpersonally. Studies have found that female clergy are much better at setting and living by boundaries with congregations than men often are.

Pastors with a spouse or family member who has some chronic physical or mental illness or disability will find the insights of Family Systems theory useful in maintaining their focus for life and ministry. Often these are tragic problems that the pastor did not create, cannot fix and is not able to control. Such tragedy oftentimes opens new doors of ministry to those who are living with tragic pain in their lives. This is only possible through increased inner focus upon Jesus Christ as well as the fruit of self-control for the purpose of differentiation. As a result, the pastor’s ministry to others will increase. If not, the pain will destroy them and their ministry.

Therapists such as the late Murray Bowen popularized the application of the systems thinking to family systems therapy. The key concept in this theory is the differentiation of self. This concept means “to be in emotional contact with others yet still autonomous in one’s emotional functioning“ (Kerr, Michael and Murray Bowen 145). Without a mature differentiation of self, pastors can easily deceive themselves about being in better contact with the problems of others than is realistic. Pastors and others who lack it will experience difficulty in thinking, feeling and acting as individuals who are in contact but not controlled by others.

Such persons can maintain a high level of functioning even under great stress without focusing on others. Thus, they are not easily "infected" by the anxiety of others. This is possible because they have a high level of basic differentiation from their family of origin. Such emotional neutrality gives them the ability to be in emotional contact with difficult, emotionally charged parish problems but not feel compelled to control others, to "fix" the problem, or pretend neutrality by emotionally insulating themselves.

Self-differentiated persons can adapt to change without much alteration of their functional level. This is not true of poorly differentiated pastors or family members. Healthy pastors and others realize the danger of trying to control, rescue or "fix" the problems of poorly differentiated congregations who may murderously strike out against the pastor or family member. Such congregations do this when their anxiety level gets high enough.

A former student of Bowen, Edwin Friedman, pioneered the application of family systems theory to broader ecclesiastic “families” such as a synagogues and churches. He believed that all clergy work within three interacting emotional systems of the families within the church, the church as a family, and their own (Friedman 195). Given the similarity of each system, any unresolved problems in one can produce symptoms in the others.

Grasping this concept can contribute to a less stressful approach to pastoral leadership. The key to leadership, Friedman indicated,  “is not knowledge of technique or even of pathology, but rather, the capacity of the family leader to define their own goals and values while trying to maintain a non-anxious presence within the system” (Friedman 3). By understanding the application of family systems theory to the church, pastors can better “recognize how they may be unwittingly ‘snookered’ into unresolved problems in their parishioners’ personal families, or between factions in the congregational family itself, or into issues that could have been passed down in that emotional system for generations” (Friedman 196).

From this point of view, a pastor’s self-differentiation contributes more to church health than expertise or empathy (Friedman 3). This idea comes from the belief in the organic relationship between leading a family system to wholeness and the leaders’ ability to get themselves together (Friedman 221-222). Unfortunately, during times of anxiety, pastors will often find this difficult to accomplish because family systems work against the goal of differentiation. How? The more dependent leaders and church members will put forth much effort to triangulate the pastor away from differentiation.

As pastor and family members gain spiritual maturity or wholeness in Christ in both their attitudes and relationships, much fruit will blossom.

Any pastor who seeks by God’s grace to equip a church is called to love the local church as a family system and not just as individuals (Hansen 19). Such love should receive guidance by the internal boundaries of a clear theology of pastoral ministry.

Those lacking such boundaries live out the expectations of others. Rather than being proactive they become reactive. In addition, neurotic pastors tend to blame themselves and think that if they are good persons everything will improve. My colleague, Dr. Milton Lowe, once called this the battered pastor syndrome.

Overall, pastors like Jim and you can harness the fire of their calling by achieving balance in ministry (Headley). Furthermore your personal and family wholeness definitely influences the impact of other aspects of your ministry as well. While taking these seven prescriptions would not of protected Jim or even you from a deadly power struggle in the church you serve, they will keep you from burn out and a total loss of heart. These prescriptions will give you and your family the needed grace to fulfill Christ’s high calling of you. Then and only then, will you, unlike Jim, have the best opportunity for seeing a sick church become healthier without it killing you.

Works Cited

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