Ministry is brutal. If you’ve been in pastoral ministry for any period of time, you understand the highs and the lows that come with it. One moment you see God move in people’s lives, are used by God to bring about miracles in people’s situations, and in a figurative, if not literal sense, see people come back from death to life. Those are the mountaintop experiences that we live for when we’re called into ministry. Then there are the very dark places of holding the pain and the trauma and the evil that the enemy has inflicted on others and being with people when they’re at their worst and their brokenness is lashing out in ways that don’t make sense and you’re the target of that in ways that are painful. We’re not made of wood or stone. As much as we want to love them amid their brokenness, it’s still very painful when they’re on the attack and throwing barbs at us. It’s a brutal calling that we serve, and it creates wear and tear on the soul.
After having the privilege of counseling thousands of pastors and missionaries going through hard things over the years, I’d like to share with you two myths that ministers struggle with that have come up time and time again in my practice:
1. The Myth of Embodied Spirituality. One of the myths that we have to get past as ministers is our disembodied spirituality. We often have a sense that we can get really metaphysical in our spirituality, that it’s “me and Jesus,” that if you just love Jesus and study His Word, then everything else will work out right. This kind of thinking doesn’t acknowledge the brokenness that happens within our nervous system and the need for healing that comes from not just our engagement with the Word but our engagement with the body.
God works through the body of Christ to bring about healing and transformation in the woundedness that we experience. We would all love “instant sanctification,” where we get saved and suddenly all of our woundedness and brokenness and baggage evaporate. But we know that that’s not how it works. When we get saved, there’s this beginning process of healing and transformation, but there’s a journey that we have to lean into and allow others to be a part of that brings about healing. Being able to recognize the wounds that we carry and our need for help requires some humility. It requires a kind of stepping back from that myth that, “If I just study the Scriptures, and if I just have Jesus, all of the other pains and hang-ups and difficulties that I or my spouse have will work themselves out without any intentional intervention or work.”
I’ve met ministers who have an ignorance or pride and think that if they’re spiritually mature enough or because they’re the pastor, they shouldn’t have any struggles. This creates shame when they do struggle and need others’ help, and then they isolate. But shame doesn’t get neutralized in isolation. You can’t beat shame on your own. It’s impossible. The only way to neutralize it is to enable others who are safe to come into that space with you, to speak the truth to your heart, and to create a relational component that says, “I’ll walk through this with you.”
Something that many ministers struggle with is sexuality. Pornography. Sexual aversion. Difficulty connecting with their spouse. Avoidance of sexual connection based on some things that are part of their story and some wounds that need to be healed. These can be confusing topics for couples to talk about and for pastors to know where to turn to get help. I have spent years specifically training and understanding God’s design for our sexuality, how that gets damaged and distorted, and how to get it straightened out. I’ve sat with many pastors who have had periods of sexlessness in their marriage. Maybe other aspects of the marriage are good and strong, but here they’ve had some difficulty and don’t know how to make sense of it or find help. Many are embarrassed and ashamed of the situation as well.
Shame is one of those schemes of the enemy that we must learn to spot. 1 Peter says to be wise to the schemes of the enemy and how he traps us. Shame is predictable. When we’re isolated, when we’re alone, we are vulnerable and ineffective, which makes us easy to attack. If you ever watched the Discovery Channel, you have seen the lions roaming about. They’re not looking for the zebra in the middle of the pack; they’re looking for the one that’s isolated over here with his head down in the grass. It doesn’t go well for that zebra. The lions surround, pounce and tear that zebra apart. The same thing happens with us when we’re in this space, even when we’re surrounded by people. So often there are people in our lives, but we aren’t letting them in in a way that could be transformative for us and help us bear the burdens we carry well.
The simple solution is not to isolate. But knowing what to do and being able to do it can be two different things. We may know that we need to get vulnerable with some safe people, but sometimes we are not able to do that. And that’s where connecting with somebody outside of your circle can be helpful. A counselor or coach can help you gain insight into why you’re having difficulty doing the thing you know to do. A counselor would ask the right questions and help draw out the truth and be curious together with you in a way that could help you work through those blocks that then enable you to use utilize your community to its fullest.
I want to encourage you, get help before you think you need it. This is preventative care. All your high performing athletes and executives have professionals in their corner who help them perform at the top of their game. It’s understood. Yet pastors, who have one of the most challenging contexts that they work in day in and day out, feel like they should be able to do it on their own without any additional support or anybody in their corner! It’s wisdom to seek counsel.
In the grind of Pastoral Ministry, we engage in what we call “secondary trauma.” This is when others’ brokenness impacts you. It’s like secondhand smoke. If we don’t do things to bring healing and restoration, if we don’t have rhythms of renewal as a part of our journey, that secondary trauma has a cumulative effect in our bodies. It creates anxiety, leads to depression, kickstarts seasons of hopelessness and discouragement and despair, and can leave us feeling like no matter what we do, nothing’s going to be right.
Pastor, you have to be intentional about acknowledging that reality by doing the things that help bring about healing. Don’t just ignore it or stuff it down. I like to use the example of the professional football player. When a professional football player plays a game, there is injury that they experience. When we think of a player being injured, it means they’re injured so badly that they can’t play. They’re in pain. But you can’t play the game without getting beaten up and having injuries. It’s the restorative practices that they engage in Monday through Saturday that enabled them to get back on the field on Sunday and play. If they didn’t do things to bring healing to their body in between the games, very quickly their bodies would break down and they would be out of the game altogether. Similarly, you get beat up in the hard work of the ministry, and if you’re not intentional about your rhythms of renewal and the practices you engage to restore, you will break down.
I think some rhythms, spiritual rhythms, come naturally for us. We think about having prayer time alone with the Lord and invite Him to speak to us. We invite the Holy Spirit to illuminate the Scriptures and engage us. Those things are in focus for us and they’re critically important, but then there are other practices that feel maybe a little bit more counterintuitive for us like taking naps. If we follow Jesus’s example, Jesus took naps. We see it captured in Scripture. Jesus said no and disappointed people all the time. The crowds of people with legitimate needs that He had the capacity to meet, and instead He gets on a boat and tells His crew to push off to the other side, leaving swarms of people disappointed. People who needed healing. People who came to hear His word or experience His touch that He had the capacity to minister to and didn’t receive from Him in the way that they expected. People who were looking for Him – His disciples that were close, looking for Him and He’s off in a desert place. Jesus only did what He saw the Father doing, and He said no and disappointed lots of people in the process of it. That’s some example for us!
Stay tuned for Part 2 of this blog in the coming weeks!
This blog was created using content from the webinar Nurturing Mental and Emotional Health In You and Your Team.
