There is a sense in which a pastor can survive church ministry only if he learns how to manage depression.
In 1984, Dr. Archibald Hart published his classic book Coping with Depression in the Ministry and Other Helping Professions. (There are 26 used copies on Amazon as of this writing.) I devoured the book … memorizing many of its lines … because at the time, I was depressed at least some of the time every week.
In 2001, I took Dr. Hart’s class “The Pastor’s Personal Life” for my Doctor of Ministry program at Fuller Seminary. It was the best class I’ve ever taken, and he was the best teacher I’ve ever had.
Dr. Hart believes that whenever a person … or a pastor … is depressed, that person won’t improve until they discover their core loss.
They need to answer the question, “Why am I really depressed?”
When a pastor is forced out of office, he nearly always undergoes depression, but because his thinking is cloudy, he may not understand for many months why he’s depressed … thus delaying his healing.
Let me share with you eight possible reasons why a forced-out pastor almost always undergoes depression:
First, pastors instinctively feel that the way they were treated was wrong.
The sinful, rebellious, irrational behavior that many of us in ministry have experienced at the hands of church leaders is not in Scripture … doesn’t line up with what we’ve preached … goes against how we live … and is completely foreign to our thinking. We would never treat another Christian … much less a pastor … the way we’ve been treated.
Much of the time, board members don’t know what they’re doing when they dismiss a pastor, choosing to “fire” the pastor like they would fire an employee in a small business. Jesus’ prayer from the cross fits here: “Father, forgive them, because they don’t know what they’re doing.”
Sometimes only one board member opposes a pastor … for personal reasons … and he convinces the others to take “official” action … never revealing his true agenda. If the board was firing a staff member, they’d consult with the pastor, and it would be a team decision, but when the board fires the pastor, the board doesn’t consult with him, and they can make a mess of things.
Second, even though many pastors experience forced termination (28% is the last stat I’ve seen), the topic is still hush-hush in the Christian community.
It’s not openly discussed. When it is, most Christians naively blame the pastor for his departure because they are ignorant of the facts. Pastors are blamed at the denominational level for political reasons (so the district guy keeps church revenue flowing into district coffers) and they’re blamed inside their former church because those who pushed out the pastor have convinced themselves they did right.
The wider Christian community is far more driven by politics than Scripture or spirituality. The same spirit that caused the Sanhedrin to approve Jesus’ execution (it’s advantageous for one man to die to spare the nation) is alive and well in our denominations. The leaders know what’s going on out there, but they aren’t doing anything about it because it’s not politically advantageous.
So many of us – and I include myself – feel abandoned by the wider body. Our loyalty to the denomination was not reciprocated.
Third, if we’re over 55 and undergo termination, we instinctively know that our pastoral career is over.
We’re done. Few churches will hire an older pastor. It’s wrong, but ageism is alive and well in the Christian community. As Neil Diamond sang 46 years ago, our time as a pastor is often “done too soon.” We always envisioned retiring on our own terms, but power-hungry laymen decided to retire us long before we were ready.
Some churches … usually small ones … will hire an older pastor. There was a church 90 minutes away that I contacted many years ago. It was a church of 60 people. Kim and I drove there one day, but the valley where it was located looked like the back side of the moon. There was nothing there! Depression City. No wonder they couldn’t find a pastor! Those churches will always be available, but they pay very little, and the congregation’s dysfunctionality negates even the best pay package.
Pastors believe something that isn’t true: “If I’m loyal to my denomination/district, when I really need them, they’ll be there for me.” But they won’t be. It’s this finality, in my view, that causes much of our depression. We’re still waiting for the district/ denominational guys on white horses to come and rectify our situation. But they aren’t coming. They never come. They’re company men who are unwilling to take risks. That’s why they were hired in the first place.
Fourth, for a pastor, our whole lives are centered upon our churches.
We are fully committed to our congregations. One guy I read called this syndrome a “total institutional mindset.” The church supplies our income … our friendships … and our self-esteem. When we put everything into our church, and then its leaders spit us out, it feels like a massive betrayal. It’s like getting a “Dear John” note from your wife when you’ve been the best husband you could be. The church can be a cruel bride.
My wife once told me that she felt I gave too much to my last church. Maybe I did. Maybe I wasn’t distant enough. Maybe I cared too much. But I think this is true of most pastors. I think of U2’s song “With or Without You”: “And you give yourself away, and you give yourself away, and you give, and you give, and you give yourself away …” That’s the life of a pastor. The call of God upon our lives translates to giving ourselves away.
So when you’ve given all you can to a church, and they turn around and kick you in the teeth … it takes a long time to recover from that blow. It takes a minimum of 1-3 years to heal from a forced termination, and I think the more a pastor loved a particular church, the longer it takes him to heal.
Fifth, the church is the place where most of a pastor’s friends congregated every weekend.
I had few friends outside my last church, but I had dozens of friends inside that church. When I resigned, I lost most of those friends overnight. Most never spoke with me or contacted me again. I still grieve their loss.
Not only were my friends in that church, but so was my support system. And then BOOM … it was gone overnight.
Pastors are somebodies inside their churches. Everybody wants to be their friend, so pastors don’t have to work too hard to make friends. They’re just there. But when a pastor is forced to leave a church, those friends disappear. And it can be hard for a pastor to make friends outside of church because nearly all his friends over the years have come from inside the church. You lose your pastoral identity. I’m no longer Pastor Jim – a somebody inside a church – but just “Jim” – a nobody outside the church.
Sixth, by their very nature, pastors are tender, sensitive individuals.
77% of all pastors are feelers on the Myers-Briggs temperament test. Even though I’m a thinker on that test, I feel things very deeply. Most pastors do. That empathy makes us great pastors but not always great leaders. Sometimes we’re more concerned about one lost sheep than the entire flock. So when we go through a horrible experience like forced termination, we feel it so deeply – and take it so personally – that it makes recovery very difficult.
So when we’re “fired” or pushed out … we take it hard. We forget that Jonathan Edwards … Billy Graham … and a host of other great pastors have walked this road before us. We aren’t better men than they were, so their suffering can give us some perspective.
By the way, I highly recommend two chapters in Charles Spurgeon’s classic Lectures to My Students: one called “The Minister’s Fainting Fits,” which is on depression in ministry; the other called “The Blind Eye and the Deaf Ear,” which is on handling criticism in ministry. I’ve loved that book for 40 years – there has never been anything like it – and it can be purchased dirt cheap as an e-book on Amazon. The chapter on depression has always lifted my spirits! (Dr. Hart even recommended it in class.)
Seventh, Christian churches have not devised fair processes for handling complaints inside churches concerning pastors.
It’s all black or white thinking: either the pastor stays or he leaves. The board doesn’t think in terms of other solutions, like bringing in a mediator/consultant, or giving a pastor a sabbatical/time off, or talking to the pastor honestly about an issue in his life/ministry. Pastors may assume that board members possess these skills – or that they will acquire them while they’re on the board – but they’re usually clueless. I can’t emphasize this enough.
As I’ve written many times in my blog, I probably needed to leave my last church when I did. I was clinically burned out, and had little left to give. But the way I was treated was wrong – especially the lying. I was accused of a host of charges that weren’t true because nobody ever brought them to my attention. My reputation outside of my last church is excellent. My reputation inside that church changed overnight.
Even though church bylaws were clear about how to handle problems with the pastor, the board chose to ignore the bylaws. I’ve learned how frequently this happens in the Christian world. When people become emotional, they easily bypass procedures and then create a rationale why they don’t apply. They don’t want to resolve the issues; they want to win and defeat their detractors. Many former pastors become depressed about this kind of thing because they were never presented any kind of forum where they could tell their side of the story. WE HAVE TO CHANGE THIS INSIDE THE WIDER CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY.
I’m grateful for the work Dennis Maynard has done in this area. (He wrote the book When Sheep Attack.) He says that whenever a pastor is forced to leave a church, that church can’t heal, and subsequently grow, until the people are told the truth as to why their previous pastor left. I agree with him 100%, but it rarely happens because it isn’t politically expedient.
Finally, there isn’t any opportunity to reconcile with those who hurt us.
For us, our dismissal was personal, but the church board will claim it was just business (although it is personal in all too many cases.)
Pastors are trained to engage in reconciliation, and when they’re dismissed, it’s a confession by the board that reconciliation isn’t an option. This inability to reconcile doesn’t seem to bother board members but lingers on in the memories and souls of pastors who just want to know, “What did I do wrong?” And the answer is almost always, “You did nothing wrong. You may even have been dismissed because you were such a godly, holy man that the other board members felt uncomfortable in your presence.”
Just remember that Jesus never reconciled with Judas … or Pilate … or Caiaphas … or the Sanhedrin … or any of the people who put Him on the cross. He died to make reconciliation possible, but without repentance, reconciliation – or bilateral forgiveness – cannot occur.
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I believe that after a forced exit, a pastor has to accept the following truisms in order to fully heal:
*I was treated wrongly … but I forgive my opponents.
*I will endeavor to speak openly about my experience whenever appropriate.
*I accept that if I’m over 55, my pastoral career is probably over … but I will be open to other ministry opportunities.
*I will center my life upon the Lord and my family, not a local church.
*I will seek out friendships wherever I can … not just in my church.
*I will remain tender but toughen up where I can.
*I will speak up for a fair and just process anytime I hear that a pastor is undergoing turmoil.
*I will accept the fact that those who pushed me out of the pastorate will never seek or be open to reconciliation.
What are your thoughts about what I’ve written?
Restoring Kingdom Builders 