Church Planters Corner
Keys and Issues in Planting the Local ChurchPastoral Problems
Ministerial Stress and Burnoutby Missionary David R. Cox
Understand that the most pastors have their problems. Between weaknesses, strengths that become almost idolatrous bragging points, and general conflict and opposition in the ministry, the pastor is a person who has and deals with problems on a daily, weekly, monthly, and long term basis. No way around it. If his own problems were not enough, the burden of all the church people's problems would finish him off.
Let's just say that Satan is no ignorant spiritual opponent. He knows how to destroy each and every minister of God, and He destroys different people in different ways. There is a constant spiritual stress on a person in the ministry, that wears against that person. I have personally seen many people not bear up under the stress, and do really stupid things just to break that stress (they lose their testimony, "have their reason", and leave the ministry). Once out from under the stress you cross their path again, and they regret a million times over for screwing up their lives and ministries. In this observation I make, I speak of missionaries on the field that mess up. It is amazing how after years of Bible School, then usually a couple of 2-4 years of deputation to get a normal monthly income, and then to confront the shock of another culture, that such a person who achieves all that would just hand over his ministry for no good reason. It happens frequently. Why? Stress and burnout.
Actually I have seen people barely on the mission field do this (less than a year), and it never ceases to amaze me that the stress of the ministry is so heavy upon some ministers.
The Lone Ranger Factor
So the first thing in ruining a good pastor is to leave him alone in the ministry to bear up the stress alone. Let's explain this a little. A pastor in church is "not alone." He has the people, the deacons, and the Lord. He also has friends in the ministry (other pastors) and at times grown children which are a blessing in themselves. But he often rides the range "alone." There is a way all these people can help, and a way they can greatly hinder and stress out the pastor.
A good pastor will highly feel the stress of the ministry, caring spiritually for the people under his watchcare. When nobody else cares about his charge, then he "feels" alone. He feels and sees his loneliness when there are problems and nobody offers to help him, or even be at his side through these problems.
Let's get an overview of some of these difficult times:
(1) When he has to make difficult decisions in the church. Here a good word of comfort that whatever his decision is, you are with him and behind. That is what helps greatly a good man of God.
(2) When he has to discipline a wayfaring church member. Here the support he needs is in prayer, but also in wisdom and discernment. Many times the church gets divided in these things, and everybody identifies themselves as "with the pastor" or "with the erring member". Neither situation is helpful to the pastor because he forces discipline in order to straighten out the life of the erring member. If people side with him and against the member, then the pastor's sheep gets smashed. If they side with the erring member and against the pastor, then the pastor gets smashed. People must visibly support both and the process.
(3) When there are financially hard times. Here it is always nice to have financially hard times and people line up to the pastor to tell him that they are leaving the church, or that they are staying but refuse to give anything, especially to sacrifice for the Lord's work in this situation. Besides that these same people who stay usually will take a tactic to attack and offend every weak member in the church and give a cold welcome to any new members, trying to make the record of how fast we can run them off.
(4) Being friendly, personal, and non-dependent on the pastor. Probably the worse stress and burn out factor is simply the point that pastors and especially pastors' wives, never have true friends. If they make real friends among their church members, then the others get jealous. So they have to settle for other pastors who are busy and never have time to be friends. How do you help your pastor in this situation? Simple. Be friendly without demanding anything afterward. In other words, if you invite the pastor out to eat or he invites you, don't mention in front of everybody else in the church in praise time so that everybody knows you are the pastor's favorite friend. This is what kills the ability of pastors to ever get alone with other people as friends instead of pastor-member relationship. The other key point here is gossip. What the pastor tells you should not become the matter of gossip and conversation among the church people. If he says he is thinking of buying another car, that kind of information should not go outside of your immediate family that is hearing it first hand. New pastors try to make friends with some of their members, and repeatedly getting burned with every tidbit of information that passes in a social setting, they learn to never mention anything, and be the lone ranger.
The No Talent Factor
Most ministers fall into one of two groups, the "No Talent" guy and the "Super Star" guy (dealt with in the next section. The no talent guy is somebody who has no talents. The pastor and his wife don't play a musical instrument, never have written a symphony, and basically are just plodding along doing the best they can, which is minimal. For these kinds of ministers what stresses them out and destroys them is the fact that other people in the church who do have great talents will not sacrifice their own lives to help out.
I am a pastor who has no musical abilities, and through the years of having a church plant in Mexico, it has been a lot of years with no church pianist (and still we don't have one). We used cassette tapes, and in recent years we now use MIDI files of hymns and a computer. But the fact that people know how to play the piano, come to our church, and then leave all without ever offering their talents for the Lord. The idea you get is that your church has no music program so we are going elsewhere.
You can take the same thing and overset it on a youth program, a children's program, an elderly program, etc. I kills me to see a family with a dozen kids come and leave because we have no youth program that suits them. They don't offer their services in any way, and they refuse to bring their kids to what we do have.
All of this gives the pastor a inferiority complex. This is unnecessary, but it is frequently what happens. In the end analysis of this, it is not the shiny and showy stuff that God judges us good or bad, but in faithfulness and persistence. The untalented pastor who continues no matter what the problem, and refuses to hang their fame, their ministry, etc on all their big buildings and ministries is the guy who pleases God, but is highly criticized by about every visitor that passes through. This is usually thrown in his face too.
What you can do to help your pastor on this point is to be a "uni-worker." By that I mean you do anything that needs to be done. Look for, and take whatever is bearing down on the pastor. You would be surprised how many pastors have to clean their churches, the bathrooms, etc. How many of them have to do a lot of menial tasks because nobody else ever offers, and to ask others to do this will often get you a cold shoulder from your own members.
The point is that the pastor spiritually capacitates the members so that they do the work of the ministry. The pastor's job is not to sing, song lead, and do everything that is "ministerial" that needs to be done in the church. His job is to oversee, and others should be coming into the ministry to take part in a group effort to accomplish the work of God. If the pastor is super talented and does everything, everybody criticizes him for doing that too.
Church members need to learn how to minister, and how to keep a constant faithful support of the ministries and activities of the church. The only way to accomplish this is by faithfulness on their part in fulfilling the ministries.
The Super Star Factor
The opposite extreme is a pastor that is very talented (a Super Star) or at least thinks he is. Here the people are shunted aside while the pastor does everything that has shine to it. This kind of pastor refuses to clean toilets for example. But the problem here is that the people become apathetic or they imitate their spiritual leader in the pride and haughtiness of his attitude.
I would take this kind of pastor as disqualified for the ministry. Arrogance and pride and haughtiness have no place in the ministry. At the same, you should support your pastor and make known you are with him, but also not feed his ego such that it becomes more and more of a problem.
I have had members in my church that praise me extremely. I remember one visitor that came and after the first sermon, he put his arm around me at the door, and said that my sermon was the best he had ever heard, and that they were going to be faithful members here because this is the best church in Mexico. They left before the month was out. People brag on their pastor in front of him so that they get "brownie points" with the pastor. An balanced mature man of God knows this, and refuses to give them any preferential treatment at all. I always like to defuse the praise in some way, because it embarrasses me more than impresses me. A humble servant doesn't like to hear empty praise.
When it comes right down to it, all this praise from these types of people doesn't get you the key things you want or need: (1) faithfulness on the member's part. (2) a extra mile when you have to rebuke the member individually for something, (3) support, cooperation, and participation from the member in the difficult and unpopular tasks and activities of the church. etc.
Basically you need to always support your pastor (if you cannot in good conscience, you should find another church). If you do, he needs to hear about it and "feel" it by your actions, not just hollow words. Personally as a pastor, I like to see my people give me stuff. Seldom does any do that, but when they do, it means a lot to me. When they buy me a shirt, a pair of shoes, or take me out to eat, I appreciate their support in that way. Usually the shoes and shirt doesn't fit, and I have to wear them at least once before I give them away, but it is the thought and their heart attitude that counts. I don't know how to describe the good feeling as a preacher when I shake somebody's hand, and they have a bill in it for me. Most ministers don't have a good income, and for these guys, that means a lot. A fresh loaf of homemade bread, a batch of cookies, taking my wife shopping and paying for her stuff, these are the things that really help us relief the stress of the ministry.
I should also mention that in the case of a very few people, the great relief and recreation of the pastor is a church member that is usually quiet, silent, and rarely expresses their support for you, but stays with you through thick and thin for years and years. In every crisis and problem, they come up and ask you, "well, what do we do now?" The key operative word is always "we". They never say, "well Pastor, what are you going to do now?" They are always with you. When the money crises come, they come and open their pocket book and say "how much do you need?" These are the kinds of people that pick up your kids when you cannot, or it would be very difficult, that baby sit your kids when there is a funeral, that you just always go to because they are always happy to help you in any way they can. I have had people give me the keys to their car when mine was in the shop for weeks. They say, "bring it back when you no longer need it." They never want anybody else in the church to know about what they do for you. It is between you, them, and the Lord, and never goes beyond that as a rule.
The Sermon that Offends
Preaching is an activity that identifies what is wrong, condemns it, and then offers an alternative course of action. So often people forget this. They get offended when a sermon offends them. That is what good preaching is supposed to do, make clear where you are wrong. You should not get offended, but get right. It is very important to understand the stress that members put on Pastors when they express their displeasure about a particular sermon, then disappear for a month, and retire from their participation in the church's ministries.
Sarcasm and Disgruntled Ministers
It has been my misfortune to see various ministers in my life that are good people, but the church people make themselves a pain to them, and these ministers get visibly sarcastic with their members. "Nobody comes to the prayer breakfasts, so we will have them at 5AM because I am up and praying at that time, and I don't care if it is too early for all the rest, nobody will come anyway." To understand this problem, you need to understand that when a pastor (or his wife) plans these church activities, it is frustrating and discouraging to see 10% of your people show up in the function. Nobody cares about it, but next Sunday everybody will stand around complaining that the church never has any activities.
This really causes the pastor to have internal attitude problems dealing with this. It should be very clear in your mind, that if you are a member in the church, and something is planned for you (or your family), either you attend, or you tell the pastor why you are not going to be there. If the church plans a church picnic, and you are not going because you are washing your car, or plan to go to the dentist on that day, then you do more damage than good in telling the pastor the situation. You should show sacrifice and faithfulness to the Lord by supporting and participating in these activities.
Note that whether it is publicly announced or not that they have everything under control, always offer to help, to bring stuff, or to do whatever to help out, even at the last minute. This is what it means to support and help the pastor and the church.
When people promise to bring stuff and take a part in some activity and don't show up, show up without what they promised, or show up halfway through the function, it discourages the pastor, and many pastors get disgruntled and sarcastic about their people. This shouldn't happen, either on the pastor's side nor on the people's side. Courtesy, nobility, and meekness should be the principal characteristics of the minister of God.