In June of 2003. “Second Life”, a virtual world developed by Linden Lab was launched and became
accessible via the Internet. Also in June of 2003, I went on incapacity/disability leave after being an ordained minister
serving as a pastor in eastern NC for 20 years. Due to being diagnosed with major depression and bipolar II plus post pastoral
traumatic stress syndrome, I was no longer able to function in pastoral ministry or other full time work. With my first life
and ministry over with, I’ve been seeking to discover a second life, a second calling, and a second ministry.
Surprisingly, the odds of becoming
disabled are higher than most of us think. Studies show that a 20 year old worker has a 3 in 10 chance of becoming disabled
before reaching retirement age. Retirement for clergy is a process that many denominations have some degree of support and
preparation for the transition. This is sadly missing for us clergy on incapacity leave who too often are left on our own
to find our own support along with the fact that an increasing number of us have a mental illness. Thus, I offer the following
as suggestions for traveling the path of transition and supporting ordained clergy in this painful and stressful process so
that others can find a second live, a second calling, and a second ministry.
The hardest adjustment was wrapping my head
around the idea that this change in this season of my life and ministry did not mean that I had failed. Instead it means the
end of the pastoral ministry season. For eight years, I’ve met with my therapist every week; taken Abilify, Lamictal
and Wellbutrin; as well as kept in touch with my psychiatrist.
My journey on incapacity leave meant working through core identity
issues related to call, ordination, and ministry in the present. Through both my therapists and various online clergy crisis
ministry friends, God helped me to view my specific calling as well as arena of ministry as something dynamic while ordination
like baptism remains a constant. If
we don’t see our call to ministry as dynamic it is all too easy to feel very ambiguous, confused, lost and yes sometimes
even abandoned clerically speaking.
It is very easy to fall into
the mindset that one’s call to ministry and ordination is valid only if one remains a pastor of a church. Thus, at first
I saw myself as both a failure and invalidated as an ordained person. it is very easy to see oneself as invalid. Gaining a
dynamic understanding of my calling helped me work past feeling invalidated and blaming myself or feeling like I was to blame
for having to leave being a pastor.
Early on, I did get stuck as seen by always speaking of myself in terms of what I use to do or don’t do
or can’t do anymore. Such a state of being stuck resulted in a an ever growing darker and deeper sense of feeling cut
off intensified by the reality of no longer being an active pastor or being in retirement which can express itself in an emotional
cutoff in reaction as seen in extreme anger, bitterness as well as other expressions of intense pain one chooses to wear it
like a badge of honor instead of something in which God can season us by helping us to work through it. Bitter or Better,
the choice is ever before us. As someone once said, those who cease to feel, cease to learn because the numb become dumb.
My sister
in law is also ordained. She’s told me how invalidated she feels when someone introduces her as Debra Watson who used
to be a pastor. We can far too easily see an invalid as someone who is invalid as a person and that is dead wrong. Both words
are spelled the same and the only difference is how you say invalid or invalid.
By the grace of God through my therapist, clergy
friends and others, I’m more seasoned. As an ordained clergyman who has Bipolar Disorder, Major Depression, and many
other health problems, it does give me a sense of renewed dignity, in this new season of ministry, to realize that I still
carry the personal as well as professional identity as one ordained into full time ministry and thus still have the privilege
of introducing myself to others as Rev. Crowe.
If people ask about my ministry, I tell them it is in a different arena than being the pastor of a local church.
This has been helpful to my boys in telling their teen friends what their dad does.
During my second year in college God called
me into full time ministry back in 1977. I graduated with a B.A. in Sociology with a minor in History in 1979; received my
Master of Divinity in 1983 and began serving as a full time pastor. Who would have ever thought that I would complete a 14 year old goal of earning a D. Min. focused on Church
Health in 2001 and then my own health fail.
However, God has helped me take what I learned to help others both with church as well as clergy health concerns
along with mental health issues. Part of my second ministry involves cyberspace where I maintain and expand my web site bachdevelopment.com.
Today, we have the new opportunity
to view cyberspace as our parish. Well, technically we are surfing not riding in cyberspace, all the while sitting instead
of standing like those who surf the waves of the ocean. Instead, we sit and surf the waves of the internet with the pressing
of our keyboards and clicking of our mouse.
So clickity, press some of us with a second life and ministry we go in ministry to people we often do not know,
in places we have never been and probably never will, this side of heaven. For clergy on incapacity like myself, cyberspace
is my new venue of ministry. Some of my new virtual world ministry has involved doing some teaching in an online support group
for caregivers of aging parents which
has been greatly validated.
It has taken hours to create a Clergy Triage/ER page which gives information and links to clergy ministries by state in the US and some outside of it. I check these links and
add new ones when I discover a new ministry. I’ve been told by some ministry to clergy group leaders that I have created
the most comprehensive list online and they refer people to my list when they are out of their geographic area.
My second
life, calling and ministry also involved face to face ministry such as the following:
1. writing
book reviews and articles for clergy journals;
2. advocating
for the mentally ill within NC of the UMC which among other things gave birth the conference committee on disability
concerns which I chaired for two years;
3. being recognized for my
advocacy work by the MHA-NC giving me the President’s award in 2002 which they hoped would motivate other clergy to
do the same;
4. speaking to both Wayne Co. and Wilson Co. MHA
about the church and mental health;
5. speaking on the same subject at three regional
workshops for NAMI-NC in Wilson, Winston-Salem, and Asheville;
6. teaching
two Family to Family courses in Wayne County while trying to get NAMI-Wayne revitalized;
7.
developing and maintaining this committee’s NC UMC Conference Mental Health Page;
8. organizing a one day workshop for clergy and laity statewide about the church and mental illness using a national and some state speakers with the support of NAMI-SC, NAMI-NC, MHA-NC and the NCCUMC;
9.
seeing that the NCCUMC Media Library was well stocked with DVDs and Videos to help churches in the area of ministry
to and with persons who have a mental illness;
10. serving 3 years on the
NAMI-NC Board of directors,
11. developing the NAMI-NC Faith
Communities Page which other NAMIs have copied;
12. conducting a break a way group during
the 2007 NAMI-NC spring annual conference, "Churches Offering Radical Hospitality for Persons With a Mental Illness and Their Families";
13. writing and preaching sermons on mental health and the church, such
as “The Overlooked and the Forgotten” and the poem “Path Through Tragic Pain.”
14. and currently serving on the advisory group for CHI, i.e. the Duke Clergy Health initiative. See the CHI blog @ http://chi.divinity.duke.edu.
As far as I’m aware, I became the first
ordained person on incapacity leave to serve and to chair on any conference or district level committee. Normally, if you
go on disability as an ordained minister, you are gone from any conference or district committee which makes many feel like
we are seen as third class citizens in the church.
I’m very proud of my cancer surviving sister-in-law, Rev. Debra Watson. She now has a humor ministry “Merry
Makers” I’ve posted many of her cartoons online.
