Speaker: Bonnie Sala | Series: Guidelines For Living | Then I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will lead you with knowledge and understanding.  Jeremiah 3:15

When pastors or spiritual leaders of Christian organizations battle with moral failure or get divorced or struggle with their teenagers, we often are perplexed. Aren’t they supposed to be different? Don’t they have PhDs in “Godly Living?” Aren’t they immune to disappointments, depression or other mental illnesses?

Of course, the answer to that question is a resounding “NO!” Our spiritual leaders are not immune to any of the above. They get frustrated, angry, hurt, depressed and lonely just like all the rest of us. Their insight into the scriptures, background in Christian living and experiences with the Lord are significant. They usually are mature in Christ.

Mature, yes. Immune to failure and frustrations, NO!

Studies over the last ten years have suggested facts like these:

70% of pastors constantly fight depression
77% of them do not believe they have good marriages
About 50 % of them will end up in divorce
33% confess to having been involved in inappropriate sexual behavior
70% of pastors do not have someone they consider a close friend
90% report working between 55 to 75 hours a week. (No wonder compassion fatigue is rampant among our leaders.)

So, what can you and I do to help? 1Timothy 5:17-25 and other passages encourage us to do several things to care for our leaders.  “The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching,” points out 1Timothy 5:17.

That effort begins (and ends) with a deep, ongoing commitment to pray for our leaders. They are assaulted every single day with temptations that run the gamut from pride to lust and back again. We need to build spiritual hedges around them and prayerfully ensure that the enemy gets no foot hold over that fence. We need to make this a priority!

We also need to communicate with our leaders. Write them encouraging notes. Stop them and share how a sermon or a decision you came to as a result of a sermon is positively impacting our own life. Let them know how we appreciate the time it takes to explain God’s word so clearly. Let them know that we are reviewing the material they’ve shared so that we can apply it to our marriages and families. Let them know we are growing!

We also need to make sure to provide for their family needs. We need to pay them well. But we also need to be protecting their family by refusing to participate in gossip about them. Spiritual leaders are struggling with the same stuff everyone else is, they just do it in a fishbowl. We need to join their protection detail and have their best interests at heart.

In the U.S., Pastor’s Appreciation Month is celebrated in the month of October.  But regardless of time or place, have you recently expressed your appreciation for your pastor and to his wife?  Remember, they are dealing with a long list of issues:  criticism, unrealistic expectation, time and life balance, their own loneliness and insecurities, staff issues and personal and church finance issues.

Author Ted Tripp writes that the two things that consistently make pastoral ministry hard are 1) The harsh reality of life in a dramatically broken world and what remaining sin does to the hearts of us all and 2) “…the congregation’s unrealistic expectation of the pastor. Churches forget that they have called a person who is a man in the midst of his own sanctification. This tends to drive the pastor into hiding, afraid to confess what is true of him and everyone to whom he ministers. There is a direct connection between unrealistic expectations and deepening cycles of disappointment.”[1]

Let’s pray for our leaders. Love them. Protect their reputations. Because we need them!

Resource reading:  Hebrews 13:7-17

[1] Tripp, Paul. “Depression and the Ministry, Part 1: The Setup.” The Gospel Coalition. The Gospel Coalition, June 22, 2019. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/depression-and-the-ministry-part-1-the-setup/.