Caring for Your Pastor

And I have two distinguished guests with me today, Bruce Ewing, who is Special Assistant to the President and Alumni Relations here at Dallas Theological Seminary. Welcome, Bruce.

As we have done our ministry at The Hendricks Center, we have found this to be a repeated theme. And Bruce has kinda slipped into dealing with this might be the way to say – that's the secular way to say it; he's been led into this area in one way or another.

And, of course, the chaplaincy and pastoral ministry experience that Joe has brings this to The Table. So, let's tell people a little bit how you became concerned with this as an issue. And, Bruce, I'll let you start. How did you come to – literally, you're traveling the country these days, interacting with pastors and helping them with where they are and the challenges of the pastorate.

But every appointment was God-ordained. I mean it – we walk into situations that pastors are struggling with things that they don't have the freedom to share with a lot of people. Trust is a big issue. Joe and I were talking about that a while ago. Who do I trust? Because usually what you say can and will be used against you in some form.

Joe, what about you? What's your experience? Obviously, start with your pastoral experience.

And Dr. Bailey said, "Well, get me your résumé and we'll talk about it." And I did. As a matter of fact, I had the résumé on my desk at my church. I was very, very happy at the church where I was serving. And we thought we'd retire there.

Had the résumé – it was about a month after the trip. I'd gone on a trip to the Holy Land, obviously, with Dr. Bailey, and that was a first, the first time I'd been there. Had always wanted to do that.

And so, I took the résumé, and I polished it up and pushed it forward, but was just a little bit discouraged, because I thought, "Why am I wasting my time with this? Nothing's going to come of it."

And I sat back in my chair, and at that precise moment, I got an e-mail from Dr. Bailey, and he said, "I've changed my thinking, when can you talk?" And everything else from there is history.

Bruce, tell us what your perspective is on what it takes to do pastoral work.

Then I begin to study people like Spurgeon. I think Jonathan Edwards said his wife's main responsibility was to keep him out of depression. I never realized Henry Ironside spent hours in tears because of the pressure of ministry.

And what I've begun to discover is is that the guys, the more directly they're involved in a community and to the real-life world, the greater pressure it is, because it's an impossible world out there apart from what we know to be true about Christ.

Joe, how do you – what do you think about what it is that the pastor faces. What are some of the major things that you think people may not be aware of that they ought to realize?

And I was likening it to driving down a highway with telephone poles just zipping by. But when you add to that hospital visits and outreach visits and teaching deacons, and you always have funerals and weddings – and I happened to have had a secretary that couldn't protect me, and so people were always sticking their head in the door – new members classes, Sunday school training, counseling. I mean it's – it can be – just the responsibilities can be overwhelming.

And then, when people get crossways with you, or if you have leadership that is not happy with your leadership, then you've got that added stress of personality conflicts, and you're in trouble.

And you're preparing for what you're gonna say, but then there's the whole relational side of ministry, which comes alongside that, in which all these other things are happening. And in the midst of thinking about how you're going to care for the spiritual needs and for the theological nurture of your community, you've got all those relational things happening.

And I remember a conversation I had with a pastor who I had interned under when I was a student. He ministered in North Carolina and had gone to Illinois and had been there for several years, a very prestigious church.

And we were visiting, and he said, "I feel like a Coke machine in which someone keeps pulling out Cokes." Those old Coke machines that had the little hinges on them, and you pulled the little glass Coke out of this. If you're a younger person, you probably don't get this illustration, but that's okay. And you keep pulling.

And he says, "And what I've discovered is I'm out of Coke, and people are still putting their money in the machine." And that's how he felt.

And I thought, "Man, that is a really graphic image of what's going on.

So, we want to kinda talk about a few things here. We've talked about kinda what produces the weight of ministry. And so, on one side we want to talk about how does the pastor care and protect himself from getting into that situation, 'cause obviously it's better not to get into that situation, and then secondly, what are some of the things you can do if you find yourself in or on the edge of that situation that can help you?

So, let's talk about first pastoral care in a kind of preventative mode to start off with and ask the question – and I'll ask this to you, Bruce – what kinds of things do you recommend to pastors to kind of help them avoid this sense that there's – I'm being pulled on all the time, and I'm running out of stuff to offer. The tank is empty.

One of the things that I think a guy has to have is one or two confidants, preferably outside the church. You have to be in an environment where you can let your hair down, be transparent. I know some guys, friends of mine who graduated from the Seminary; they have real good friendships in another state where they even get together on a regular basis.

It took me a while to develop that, because we planted a church, and it wasn't until about five years that I found that my best relationships were in ministries I had outside the church. I enjoy working with businessmen, plus I did a lot of chaplain work for athletic teams.

So, there was one particular football coach, college coach, that I was able to be transparent with. The guys in my Bible study that I have over at a country club, we just – I would trust my life with them. But I think it's really critical, I would say, Joe, that we have someone that we can really be transparent with.

Whenever you open the Word, the first goal should be to have God speak to you, whether you're preparing to preach or teach, or whether you're in your own devotional time. And I think we've set ourselves up for fall, to a certain extent, by creating the mentality that says, "There are certain times, when I'm in the Word, I'm in the Word for someone else, and there are other times when I'm in the Word, and I'm in the Word for me."

And I think that – what I tell students is you lose control of that switch. If you set it up, eventually you lose control of that switch, and you find – you can't turn it on or off.

So, if you develop the habit of whenever you open the Word, that – the first things you want to hear is what God is saying to you, because if God is teaching you through the Word, he's actually setting up what he may be teaching others as well. And if you circumvent yourself from that process, it seems to me that's a – that's a danger. Does that make any sense?

And so, I think – I think you're right. I think that the way we interact with the Word in our preparation is important. And if I think I'm kind of on assignment, if I can think of it that way, that's another thing that can eat at ministry I think.

My goodness, as he ties that in, all of a sudden that energizes me on a personal level and gives me – I think we have to take ownership of Scripture. It has to own us.

And I think we do categorize too often without really allowing – you look at Psalm 119, you see how in every one of those versus – how many are there? – 148 verses, every verse has something about the Commandments, the Word, the Law of how it relates to me on a daily basis.

And if I'm not having intercourse with Scripture, in the most intimate of form, then I don't have anything to say to people. I may give them some facts, but it has to be out of our own, I think, experience.

And, of course, it is the relational parts of the pastorate that are potentially draining. So, I guess it shouldn't be a surprise that it's the relational element that we really have to nurture in order to stay relational.

So, t he relational aspect of it, Miller, who wrote the article, goes on to say that if we knew that we were gonna sign off, write a contract that said it was going to be – involve deceit, deception, discouragement, judged motives, all of those things that we all struggle in pastorate, we probably would have never signed up.

It seems to me there are a couple of dangers here. One is the spouse who ends up being so detached from our ministry that the demands of the ministry suck us in and really break the relationship that we have with the spouse. That's one danger.

And the other danger is what I would call perhaps the over-protective spouse on the other end, the spouse who's so concerned about the reputation of her husband and the way that he's viewed that it almost becomes an additional pressure to deal with in ministry.

Now, those are two ends of the spectrum, it seems to me, one a very detached, and the other a very engaged spouse. And keeping your spouse properly attuned to what's happening in ministry, I take it, is also a pretty important thing. Right, Joe?

And my wife is at one end of the spectrum, where she wants to make sure that I'm protected. And by the way, Prof. Hendricks used to say, "A man who doesn't listen to his wife is a fool." And I totally agree with that. And she's, by the way, a great barometer to tell you when, "Hey, we need to get away."

Vance Havner's the one who said, "Come apart, or you'll come apart." And so, I would always try to listen to her. But I would also try to protect her. Because if somebody in the church did me dirty, I didn't go home and tell her about it, because I didn't want to color her view of that person. She didn't need to have that. She needed to be a good pastor's wife and love everybody. And thankfully, I have a wife that does love everybody.

But yeah, I do think there's an element of protecting her involved that I've always tried to live by.

And that just broke my heart. And then I was preparing for a conference here in Branson the other day, and got a hold of one of her journals, and I asked her for permission to read it, and it broke my heart when I saw how I had left her out. And we – every Thursday night was date night, and we always had time together, but somehow I really blew it.

And I'm reminded of a situation in a church, that I'm aware of, where the church program was being assessed in a very public way, in a very public meeting in a series of small groups. And the pastor's wife was attending, and she couldn't take the – well, the assessment that was going on, which brought –

And all of a sudden, the pastor is not just dealing with what's going on in the meeting about the church, which is a process that he, to some degree, initiated, but now he's dealing with his wife's reaction and what's going on around him. And that's just one example of a disruption.

Joe, you were sharing with me another example of the type of thing that sometimes pastors run into.

And so, we go on with the ministry, and a good ministry, but we just leave the wife out. And we don't realize that. And I wish I could go back. But my wife – and again, the disposition of the wives is different. Some are probably more demanding. My wife was a low-maintenance wife. So, I was fortunate. You know? But it took a toll on us, too.

So, those are kind of three ways to – for pastors to kind of make sure that they're not isolated and that there's some form of protection.

Okay, well, let's shift gears now. You walk into a church, and you meet with these pastors on a regular basis, Bruce. And when you do this, oftentimes you discover a pastor is hurting. What – obviously these are individualized situations, but are there general things that you see on a regular basis that kind of says, "Yeah, all the symptoms are here?

I think the biggest issue that most pastors have, across the board, is one of trust. I remember one of the first people I went to visit, a rather significant church, I kinda had to trick the secretary into even getting into see him. And finally, I went in, and he's sitting behind his desk like this, just looking at me.

And he said – the first question out of his mouth was, "What do you want?" Because that's the mentality. Everybody wants something from – they want to get another Coke out of the machine.

And I said, "I want all the money you've got. I'm with the Seminary." And we just kinda stared at each other. And he kinda laughed a little bit.

And we talked a little bit, and he began to open up a little bit more. And he said, "I want to know if I can trust you or not." And out of that relationship has become – I mean he has shared with me personal things that he otherwise wouldn't share. And I think that's one of the great ministries we could have with each other is just to listen and let 'em know that this is confidential; I trust you.

Joe, what's been your read on what happens when things are starting to go South?

And so, it took me nine. And I can put my finger on the very day or the very evening I became the pastor of the church. We were in a deacons' meeting, and, of course, we used our deacons as elders, just raised the standards –

And so, they made these accusations. And I can remember that the rest of the deacons – we had a big U-shaped table, and the deacons stood up – literally stood up and said, "This is our pastor. He's a godly man. He's working hard. We're gonna back him."

So, these guys had to tuck tail. And one of 'em left the church, and the other never gave me a moment's trouble. And that's when I became the pastor. And we had a great ministry from there on out. For me, I can deal with the three sermons a week and all the other stuff, but it's those relationships – if they go south, that's when the pressure really comes.

You're doing your best. You're spending all this energy, and nothing seems to be coming out of it. And that's – feels like a little bit like you're hitting your head against a wall in ministry. And that can't be a good thing.

So, you walk in, and you're dealing with a situation where you recognize something's not quite right. What do you do? I imagine the first thing you do is you do a whole lot of listening.

Most of it revolves around relationships, power struggles within the church, and then being able to come to grips with the fact that each one of us have a sin nature, not just the deacon that jumped on your case. But a term I try to use is, "Am I responding or reacting to the situation." And the human nature, the – I think the big thing is guys struggle with power struggles within the church.

It seems to me that that's – in the situations that I've been involved in, that's been the major thing that I see, 'cause I get – I do get to travel the country; I get to walk and speak in a lot of churches. And oftentimes I'm going to lunch with the staff or with the main pastor or had dinner the night before.

And because I'm an outsider, it's almost like sometimes I'm a release valve for that pastor, and they get to share what's really going on in the church, or they have a question, or, "Something that's really bothering me –".

And I find there's a lot of self-doubt in ministers, particularly if the church is – I'll say even if the church is just kind of average, which isn't a bad thing, but they view it negatively in a reflection no their competence.

So, between relational struggles and self-doubt, it seems to me, those are the things I tend to see the most. Is there anything else that goes in that list?

I show up, and the police are everywhere, and she's got blood coming out of her ear and nose, and that'll – but – so, in other words, personal things come in. And thank goodness, Bruce, I'm like you. I've got a great wife, tough as nails, and she was having her personal devotions a couple of mornings later.

And I need to memorize where it is, but it's in Psalms where it talks about, "When men attack me, You will protect me." And I walked up on her, and she's always faithfully having her devotions, and she was crying. And I said, "Are you okay?"

And she said, "Look at this." And she said, "He cares about me." And she's never had a problem with it since. And the guy was sent up for 19 years or 20-something years. But it was more than just attacking her. He was out – he had broken probation. He was in prison before; he had molested two girls. So, anyway, it's – there are always – the pastor has to live his life as well. So, I do think that weighs in on the situation.

And now I'm gonna add onto that the bricks of every member of the congregation for whom I feel pastoral responsibility. And a pastor who really does his job feels that pastoral responsibility. So, it's like being under a load of bricks sometimes.

And then I got to thinking, "Well, who did Jesus have as a mentor?" And that took me into a better of understanding of the vital nature of having that relationship with God – the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – and know that I've been grafted into that.

And the caring relational parts of the ministry are divided out in a way in which the body bears the burden. And that seems to me to be one – if you can ask – if you were to ask me how a pastor could structure his ministry in such a way that there's some built-in protection, one of them is to make sure that the ministry of the community is distributed and the church understands that the pastor can't do everything.

You know, it's sort of like the article I read when I was a kid, when I was first reading. I got my hands on a Reader's Digest, and these people's home had caught on fire, and they made it out alive, and they're standing there at night by a buy road, with their bathrobes on, watching their house burn. And the cars just kept zipping by. And finally, somebody stopped, came up, and just stood there with them. It's not really that they had to say anything. They just had to be there.

So, that's when they brought me on board, and I'm pleased to say that we've been able to – we just hired a guy for the West Coast and a guy for the East Coast to divide this thing up a little bit, and we're still inadequate.

But I think for the guys to know that we're here, and to be able to call upon Chaplain Joe and be able to say – and the profs – to have that networking going.

This need of this particular area is actually why we're doing this podcast, and why later we're going to be doing a pastor's lunch to try and build some of these relationships, for these guys who may feel isolated, and give them the opportunity to connect.

We felt the exact same need in the Center that you're sensing in the Alumni Relations Office. And, of course, we're doing a podcast, and the podcast isn't Seminary specific. The podcast is really about ministry in general, and what we're talking about is something that runs through ministry in general as well.

And we're trying to alert not just the pastors that they might be in a cycle that they can catch themselves in the midst of, which would be one way to think about it, but to also help the people who are listening who aren't pastors but who don't understand what the pastorate involves, to create some sympathy and understanding for them about how, in some cases, people within church communities can rally around their pastor in a way that's helpful

So, let's talk a little bit about that. Let's talk about how churches can rally around their pastor and help them in the midst of this kind of situation. Obviously, we've suggested that the pastor himself's got to take some initiative to build some relationships outside the church so there's a kind of valve.

And he's gotta be careful about making sure that he's staying healthy in his relationship with God, and he's got to pay attention to his – obviously to how his wife is involved. But what can church people do to help the pastor?

But you know, just him knowing that somebody cares. I mean we're coming full circle here, but just him knowing. And I still stay in touch with him, and every once in a while, if he gets down, he'll call me. And I have other guys from the church, they call me here, "How's it going out there?" You know, just words of affirmation. It's huge; it's huge.

I was very fortunate in the early years of our church. Somebody found out Linda and I like Jamaica. And they would surprise – 'cause I'm like a racecar without a governor; I can't shut down. Somebody has to get me, and then if they don't, I crash.

And I think the second thing is the sabbatical. I think every seven years there ought to be at least a month to three months sabbatical.

Well, believe it or not, our time has just kind of slipped away from us, and we've – we're used to saying this on The Table – and we've only scratched the surface of what we could discuss. But I really do appreciate your willingness to come in and talk to us about what's involved in pastoral burnout.

And hopefully those who are listening have gotten a glimpse of kinda the other half of what pastoral life can be like and have a sensitivity for it. And if you are a pastor, first of all, well done, good and faithful servant. And there's our word of encouragement to you.

And secondly, I think a word of encouragement to make sure that you're building and keeping an eye on three key relationships that sometimes can get lost in the isolation and the lack of trust. One is with someone on the outside. The second is, obviously, your walk with God. And third is keeping a close eye on how you're relating to your spouse and that she's in the loop in a positive way and not in a negative way.

So, we thank you for being a part with us here on The Table. And we thank you for being a part of The Table with us, and we hope to hear from you and see you again soon.