When a pastor is forced to leave a church unjustly, how does he heal?
This is a question that I’m asked a lot … and one I wonder about myself.
Let me handle this in a question and answer format:
How do pastors feel after they’re forced to leave a church?
Abandoned. Betrayed. Crushed. Devastated. Exiled. Forsaken. Grief-stricken. Hated. Isolated. Judged. Kicked. Lanced.
I’ll let you fill in the words beginning with M-Z.
Most pastors give everything they have when they serve a church, and when they’re dismissed … or forced to resign … the pain is indescribable.
It feels like your grandparents, parents, siblings, and children have all made a pact that they never want to see you again.
And in the process, you stop trusting people … and that’s understandable. It takes time to rebuild that trust.
What kind of losses does a terminated pastor experience?
The pastor loses his job … his income … and maybe his home … which will harm his credit rating.
He loses his significance … his self-esteem and confidence … most of his church friends … and possibly his career.
And what hurts most of all is that some “Christians” are determined to ruin the pastor’s reputation through exaggeration and misinterpretation … and the pastor doesn’t know who these people are or what they’re saying.
But when he starts making contacts in the Christian community, he discovers that some Christian leaders have already heard one version of why the pastor left … the wrong version.
Six months after I’d left my previous church, I visited a denominational executive … from another denomination … and he already knew about my departure.
The Christian world is all too small.
How long does it take a pastor to heal?
It takes one to three years, depending upon several factors:
*How much abuse did the pastor receive before he finally left?
*How concerted was the effort to destroy his reputation after he left?
*How much of a severance package was the pastor given?
*How do the pastor and his family handle criticism? (Can the pastor’s family hold him up, or does he need to hold them up?)
*What kind of a support system does the pastor have?
*What hope does the pastor have of future employment?
Why do pastors hibernate for a while after termination?
They can’t stop thinking about what happened to them.
They can’t believe the people who betrayed them.
They can’t fathom why they weren’t treated in a biblical manner.
They can’t understand how Christians could abuse and forsake their pastor.
After pastors initially experience termination, their thoughts … words … and expressions become toxic.
The pastor figures, “I’m such a wreck that nobody wants to be around me.”
Some people attempt to listen to and love the pastor, but when their efforts aren’t successful, they distance themselves from the pastor.
And the pastor feels rejected all over again.
Why don’t pastors heal more quickly?
Because the grief process works slowly.
This past weekend at Saddleback Church, Pastor Rick Warren gave a message called “How God Blesses Broken Hearts” from Matthew 5:4. His message greatly ministered to me. Here’s the link:
http://mediacenter.saddleback.com/mc/archives/
Pastor Rick says:
“Never minimize other’s pain.”
“Never rush people. Pain and grief takes time. I can’t tell you what’s the appropriate time to grieve for anything in your life.”
He said that since the suicide of his son Matthew over a year ago, he has cried every single day.
I believe that churchgoers want … and even need … their pastors to be superhuman. When they discover that their pastor is as frail as they are in the face of loss, they feel let down … and often abandon the pastor altogether.
When I went through this experience 4 1/2 years ago, I believe that I lost friends because I didn’t become “the old Jim” fast enough. It was painful for friends to see me in pain … but I’ve never been able to fake how I feel.
But I am eternally grateful to those few people who chose to be present … listened to my pain … and loved me anyway.
Those people will always be my real friends.
What steps can a pastor take to accelerate healing?
The following steps all have one thing in common: a pastor must humble himself before God and receive help from others … especially in the body of Christ.
Step 1: Get a physical examination.
See your doctor immediately. Tell him what happened to you. Anti-depressants can be a godsend.
Step 2: Contact a Christian counselor.
Only 20% of forced-out pastors seek counseling after they’ve been terminated.
Why only 20%?
Maybe the pastor doesn’t know the right counselor … but it only takes a few phone calls to find someone.
Maybe the pastor is afraid the counselor will blame him for his dismissal … but that’s highly unlikely.
Maybe the pastor is afraid of the cost … but how much is healing your soul worth? (And most counselors will give a discount to a terminated pastor.)
After I left my last church, I saw two counselors … both women … and they were terrific. They understood my situation because both women had been in ministry. They provided valuable insights into congregational life and made positive suggestions for healing.
It’s the right move.
Step 3: Attend church when you feel like it.
Why not every weekend?
Because attending worship can be an incredibly painful experience for a pastor who has undergone termination.
I still have a hard time singing praise and worship songs 53 months later … and I don’t know what to do about it.
And when I listen to preaching, I need to hear someone who acknowledges and understands pain … which is why I’ve been listening to Rick Warren recently.
It’s why I sat under the teaching ministry of Don Wilson in Phoenix for 18 months.
And it’s why it’s difficult to find a church home near the community where I live.
Step 4: Spend lots of time in the Psalms and in 2 Corinthians.
David and the other psalmists openly express their feelings to God in unedited form. I keep coming back to the Psalms constantly.
And when Paul wrote 2 Corinthians, he was defending his ministry to the church in Corinth, where he was being hypercriticized in an attempt to discredit him as an apostle.
Read these books in different versions. I love reading them in The Message.
Find a good devotional book that deals with suffering in a realistic way as well. I recommend Beside Still Waters by Charles Spurgeon.
Step 5: If you’re a pastor, commit your future to God.
He knows you. He loves you. He cares about you.
Others may have abandoned and forsaken you. He never will.
Tell the Lord you’ll do anything He wants and you’ll go anywhere He sends.
Then follow the Spirit’s promptings.
The Spirit led me to a church in New Hampshire … for only three months … but it was just what my wife and I needed at the time.
Can God use a terminated pastor again?
The Lord used Peter in an even greater way after he denied Christ three times.
Paul was chased all over the ancient world but planted churches and wrote half the New Testament.
And Jesus was terminated on the cross … but He had a powerful post-resurrection ministry.
Yes, God can use terminated pastors again … and in an even greater way than before.
I believe the “stain” that a pastor receives after being unjustly terminated is the same stain that Jesus, Paul, Peter, and the other apostles received.
If only church search teams and denominational executives believed this.
What are your thoughts about how terminated pastors can heal?
Restoring Kingdom Builders 
Must Pastors Be Perfect?
Posted in Conflict with the Pastor, Personal Stories, Please Comment!, tagged pastoral expectations, pastors and perfection, pastors who make mistakes, pastors who sin on June 13, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Do you know any pastors personally?
If so, are you under the illusion that they’re perfect?
My grandfather … father … step-father … and father-in-law have all been pastors.
They are godly men … in my mind, even great men.
But many pastors … if not most … wish they could be perfect … and sometimes put on the façade that they are.
But there are always people around a pastor to remind him that he is very, very fallible.
During my 36 years in church ministry, I did my best to make as few mistakes as possible … but I still made my share.
Here’s the first one:
When I was 19, I was hired by my church to work with the high school and college groups over the summer.
A few days after being hired, our church held a missions conference.
The first night, a missionary showed slides of the new Bible Institute that his organization had built in India.
The missionary was quite a character. His presentation was hilarious. I laughed … hard … along with everybody around me.
As soon as the service was over, the Church Gestapo confronted me and said that since I was now a paid youth leader, I needed to set a better example for the young people.
I told him, “But the presentation was funny!” He agreed … but reiterated what he said anyway.
I learned two things from that initial encounter: first, as long as I was in ministry, some people were always going to be keeping me under surveillance; second, some people weren’t going to allow me to be normal.
That puts a lot of pressure on you to meet everyone’s expectations.
Fast forward ahead 35 years.
My wife had spent five days in the hospital with great abdominal pain. She didn’t receive a diagnosis until Friday. It was scary … but she was going to be okay.
Our church was holding a rare Saturday morning conference. Should I stay at home and care for my wife or attend the conference?
If I didn’t attend the conference, some people might accuse me of being unsupportive … so I went.
I felt almost giddy. I could dress down. I had no duties. I could be a person.
The conference speakers were excellent.
I sat in the back, and the only person near me was a woman I’d known for years.
From time-to-time, I turned around and made little comments to her about what was being said. It felt good to be away from the hospital.
At the break, someone came up to me and reamed me out for being rude.
To quote Yogi Berra, it was deja vu all over again.
Was I rude? I didn’t think so at the time, but maybe I was. I certainly didn’t mean to be.
But once again, I had that feeling that I had to be perfect every time I came within three miles of the church campus.
In his book, Leadership That Works, Leith Anderson introduces the concept of “parish poker.” He writes:
“Becoming a pastor is like joining a poker game. Although I am neither a gambler nor a poker player, I know that at the beginning of a game each player has a limited number of chips to play with and must use them strategically to win.”
Anderson goes on:
“Churches generally give new pastors 50 to 100 ‘chips’ to get started. After that, they either gain chips or lose what they have, depending on how well they learn the catalog of rewards and penalties the church runs by (which, of course, no one bothered to tell the new pastor about).”
Anderson then lists various behaviors and the number of chips involved:
Preach a good sermon (+2 chips)
Preach a bad sermon (- 8 chips)
Visit sick person in hospital (+7 chips)
Sick person dies (was expected to recover) (-10 chips)
Sick person recovers (was expected to die) (+40 chips)
Bring cookies to monthly board meeting (+ 1/2 chip)
Lose temper and shout at monthly board meeting (-25 chips)
In my last ministry, I thought I had earned thousands of chips over the years, so if I made a mistake, I’d still have thousands more left … but some people insisted that if I made even one mistake, I deserved to lose all my chips.
Sometimes “parish poker” doesn’t seem fair.
Let me make three observations about pastors and perfection:
First, expect that your pastor will disappoint you somewhere along the line.
He will say something in a sermon that will make you wince … or angry.
He will make a decision you don’t agree with.
He will make an inappropriate comment to you personally … laugh about something serious … or fail to greet you while passing.
I didn’t say you had to like it … just expect it. He isn’t an angel, so don’t idealize him.
But realize this: every other pastor is just as imperfect.
Second, if you’re really upset with him, talk to him directly.
Whenever somebody spoke with me personally about my perceived misbehavior, I tried to thank them. It takes courage to confront your pastor.
If you do it out of anger, your pastor will invariably become defensive.
If you do it calmly and lovingly, he will hear what you’re saying much better.
Try not to come off as the Church Gestapo. Every church has them … and every pastor runs from them.
Finally, let your pastor be a person.
I read around 75 books for my doctoral program. One of them was called The Pastor as Person.
The basic thesis of the book was this: the pastor is a person before he is a pastor.
Many pastors forget that they’re persons. Since so many people at church want them to be angels instead, that’s what they try to be.
But after a while, a pastor has to stop trying to be somebody else and just be himself.
If you want your pastor to be an angel, you’re being unfair. He can’t be who you want him to be.
But if you accept the fact that he’s human … and that he gets weak and tired and frustrated and even angry at times … then you’ll be doing him a great favor.
Because the New Testament tells us that Jesus was human … that, at times, He was weak and tired and frustrated and angry … and that He was made “a little lower than the angels.”
Jesus was morally perfect. Your pastor isn’t.
But Jesus was also a person … a human being … and He had limitations.
Just like pastors.
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