Tod Bolsinger

Burned out or Soul-Starved?

A recent blog post  by Philip Wagner on "The Secret Pain of Pastors" has created some good--and really necessary--conversation about the challenge of pastoral leadership today.  I'll add my two cents with a few re-posts  of blogs I wrote after the NY Times ran a similar article in 2010. These posts were written right at the time that I started coaching pastors and working on a book on leadership development.  Today, after 200 conversations with pastors, I'm more convinced than ever that there is a clergy leadership crisis that is only increasing. 

In the Greek myth, Narcissus dies of starvation.  Cursed to fall in love with the next face he sees because he cruelly hurts another, he sees his reflection in a pond, falls in love with his own image and can’t pull himself away—even to eat or drink.  Continually ‘feeding’ the adoration of the image, he never eats and dies.

Today, the debate over what “causes” narcissism is filled with as many varied voices as there are experts.  But almost everyone agrees on this: Pastoral ministry is rampant with narcissistically wounded people.  We clergy join politicians, entertainers, and business leaders in this category.  And I want to suggest yet another cause for the “burnout” we see amongst clergy:  We are actually soul-starved. 

The projection of others onto our roles, the requirement of being constantly “on”, the necessity “wooing” people who are growing more disinterested and resistant to our messages, and the stress of living professionally and personally in the “family-system” environment that is the church feeds our images and starves our true, whole, authentic-to-God selves.

To be clear, the popular description of the narcissist as the self-absorbed, “me-centered person” actually misses the deeper, more painful reality.  Most narcissists are themselves wounded souls, who for whatever reason need to defend against our insecurity or fear of abandonment. As Peter Steinke describes it, “Outwardly vain, the narcissist is inwardly impaired. “

We gravitate to the limelight, because that is where we have found that we get the affirmation and affection that we all need.  Whatever the complex circumstances, (and every one of us has a different story with differing degrees of woundedness), most of us grew up in environments where we were praised and affirmed when we were “on” and felt ignored or rejected at least in part for our true selves.  We pastors, as Henri Nouwen said, are all “wounded healers” and that in one way, this is how God works in our lives to redeem our brokenness—by letting us use our pain to minister to others.  

But when this broken place in our lives is denied or rejected; when we stay stuck in our lack of self-awareness, (some think the word “Narcissus” comes from the Greek word for “slumber” or “numbness”) we create and continue a pattern that feeds our images but ignores the needs of our true, wounded, selves.

For Steinke, when unexamined and unacknowledged, this creates a cyclical pattern of relationship between a pastor and congregation  The narcissistically wounded pastor requires the congregation to ‘supply’ affirmation, and the congregation, enthralled by the giftedness, insight and spiritual magnetism of the leader feel themselves to be ‘special’ and so keep supplying the pastor's ego needs.The dynamics of narcissism revolve around the lack of self-knowledge.

Steinke again:

So one person remains intoxicated with all the praise and adulation he manipulates from others, and the others are enthralled to be associated with someone larger than life. Those who function narcissistically do well so long as they have people who adore them. But some can be so insecure inside that they must ensure their specialness with more and more admirers. They thrive on the ecstasy of numbers.

As a pastor, I have spent the better part of the last twenty-five years figuring out what really feeds me, what really nourishes my soul and what is little more than “swooning” over my image.  When I raise my hands in worship, all stand and give me attention; when I speak they listen in rapt silence, when I finish a good sermon, people line up to tell me that they LOVE me.  (When was the last time you told your plumber, lawyer or financial advisor that you LOVED them for doing their jobs.)  But if I spend my life getting nothing more than the love that is projected on my role, I will not just burn out and fade away, I will die vocationally.

Even worse, the problem with the language of “burnout” is that it actually feeds the image we need to resist.  We live in a world where people admire those who “give their all”, who “leave it out on the field”, who give a “110%”.  But if we could become more aware that we actually starving ourselves we can choose to take responsibility for our own soul-nourishment.

To that end,  let me offer some steps and some resources that I use and suggest for my pastor friends that I partner with, mentor or coach.

First, admit that, if you are feeling soul-starved, very likely you have fallen into the trap of trying to get the love and affirmation you need from your image or role rather than for your deepest, most authentic self.  It will be easier to do this if you know that you are not the only wounded soul in the pulpit, so, start by doing a little reading.  Read Susan Howatch’s Glittering Images, or Henri Nouwen’s Wounded Healer and embrace that at least in some small way, our issues soul starvation are really about our feeding a real need in the wrong way. 

Second, try to become more self-reflective, more “awake” and pay attention to how often we go into a numb ‘soul-trance’ when we are in our roles.  Specifically, try to become aware that every time that you get a “charge” from serving in your role, you are very likely at that moment, being drained, not filled. What you really need in order to serve the congregation and the people in your life in a healthy, enduring way,  can only come out of the limelight, in the moments when you are most authentic, real and vulnerable, open to God in truth and to those who see beyond your role to your self.  In order to lead, you need allies and partners in the church, but in order to thrive most pastors need friends who don’t need them to be “the pastor.”  Read Ruth Hailey Barton’s Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership, or Leighton Ford’s The Attentive Life. And then...

Third, intentionally build in structures and relationships that attend to your whole self.  If the soul, as it is best understood biblically, is the ‘enfleshed spirit’ of a person, then what we need is MORE attention to ourselves, not less. That is our real selves and not our roles. I have found, that I don’t just need vacations to get a break, I need them to get out of the spotlight and enjoy the restoration that comes from being with a family who loves me and old friends who have no investment in my role.  I need to hike and ski and run and engage my body in ways that both challenge me and for which I get no “public” affirmation (I am NEVER going to win my age group in a marathon, I am not exactly built like a Kenyan.)  When I spend time in nature, I get reconnected to the reality of a world that is much bigger than me and in which I am a very small part.  When I travel I become more aware that the world really doesn’t revolve around me and that is not only very good news, but a genuine relief.  In addition, I have spent the better part of twenty years off and on in therapy and why even as I coach pastors, I have my own coaching group and covenant group to continually pay attention to the ways that I can fall back into numb, soul-starving patterns of feeding my image and not my self. 

If we re-frame burn out as soul starvation, then we realize that with the right fuel, we can probably keep doing ministry for a long time.  Unlike a withered branch that burns up, we are actually capable of being re-nourished and re-fueled.  If we can continually attend to our souls, then maybe the flame that consumes us can actually be for us and for many, a good flame that lights the way for a good long life of ministry.

Worn Out from Wearing the Collar

A recent blog post  by Philip Wagner on "The Secret Pain of Pastors" has created some good--and really necessary--conversation about the challenge of pastoral leadership today.  I'll add my two cents with a few re-posts  of blogs I wrote after the NY Times ran a similar article in 2010. These posts were written right at the time that I started coaching pastors and working on a book on leadership development.  Today, after 200 conversations with pastors, I'm more convinced than ever that there is a clergy leadership crisis that is only increasing. 

I’ll never forget the first time I saw a priest drinking a beer. 

It was at my grandmother’s house and I was maybe five years old.  The local priest had stopped in for a visit and he was enjoying a late afternoon refreshment with my grandmother and my uncle.  His collar was slightly askew and his top button of his cassock was undone and he smiled when he saw me. But I think it was an awkward moment for both of us.

I’m a Presbyterian in a pretty informal beach town.  So, although I am a “man of the cloth” I rarely wear anything that distinguishes me as clergy.  I don’t wear a clerical collar (although some Presbyterians do), I don’t even wear a clergy robe or hoods or even a stole while leading worship (though I have some pretty great robes with stripes that I trot out for ordinations and such)  The truth is that I barely ever wear a suit and tie.  In fact, there is very little that distinguishes me outwardly as a pastor.  And I like it that way.  I like looking and feeling like a “regular” guy who is just like everyone else.  Honestly, I take pride when people meet me and are surprised that I am a pastor. (“You don’t seem like a pastor,” one person said to me, “you seem normal.”)

But sometimes, that is part of the problem.  Because I look and even feel like I am just like everyone else, I forget that, really in most people’s eyes, I am not.  No matter how much I might want to escape being seen in my role, I am always “on.”  After thirteen years pastoring at the same church and the same small town, most everybody knows that I am “the pastor”.  It’s the way I am introduced to friends, it’s the reason I am the biggest party-killer in town.  It’s also the reason why my neighbors were all nervous when we first moved in (“What if the pastor hears my wife and me arguing?”) It’s the reason why kids who have been Facebook friends with me for years “unfriend” me when they go to college.  Even my wife and kids know that others look at them differently and that’s because of me too.  (“They are ‘the pastor’s wife’ or the “P.Ks”.)

When I take a political stand or I post a status update on Facebook, it reflects on my church and even some would say on God.  I am the host of every gathering making sure that others are included.  I have to break the ice and remember names and be cordial or someone will tell someone that “those  Presbyterians” sure are  (fill in the blank with favorite derogatory remark spoken when feeling slighted.) 

I’m not complaining. I really do know that I signed up for this.  It comes along with everybody in my church knowing my salary and me knowing that someday I will have to leave this community after I leave the church.  But bluntly, there are some pretty great things that go along with this role too.  We pastors are really significant to people’s lives.  We get invited into holy moments where others are asked to stay out. We can walk into emergency rooms and bedsides and family gatherings.  We are handed babies to bless and are told family secrets.

And pastoring comes with some great perks, too.  I have enjoyed wonderful dinners, great bottles of wine, thoughtful gifts and some amazing opportunities to meet people because I am someone’s pastor.  I have met ambassadors, CEOs, celebrities, political figures and college presidents.  I sat at the head table of a gala event with a presidential cabinet member just because I was giving a prayer before dinner.  (A pastor friend of mine was whisked away to a Caribbean Island to perform a wedding for a big movie star.)  On top of that I am prayed for by literally dozens of people every day, I am always greeted warmly when I arrive at church, I am introduced to everyone’s friends and family members, I have a key to every room in the church.  I can walk into any meeting in our church, any conversation on our patio and interrupt whatever they are doing to say something…and they thank me for doing so. 

Now let’s be clear here.  And this is the thing most of us forget.  Tod Bolsinger cannot do any of this.  Tod Bolsinger, the person, isn’t all that interesting and really wouldn’t be invited to much of this.  Tod Bolsinger, the person, can’t interrupt anyone without being a rude, inconsiderate boob.  (If I try that at home, my 13 year old daughter says, “Daddy, you are interrupting.” ) But “THE PASTOR” can.  The Pastor is invited into all those places given all those perks and treated with such respect because of our ROLE and NOT our self.  While in order to be authentic I have to bring myself to my role, I can never forget that I am not my role.  When I confuse my role and my self, I inevitably take too much too personally and bear burdens that are meant for God and not any human. 

When people get angry or hurt, either mad at God or mad at the church, who do they focus their rage upon?  The Pastor.  When as Pastor of the church I have had to fire staff members, work with Session to cut budgets of key ministries, make decisions that others didn’t like or implement change others didn’t want, who gets the brunt of the attack? The Pastor.  Only when I am clear about the difference between my self and my role can I protect myself from taking the disappointment, anger, awkwardness, projections, and distance of others personally.

We pastors are only going to develop the staying power to stay in our positions if we first admit that this is really OUR problem.  Not only our congregants and the public-at-large, but WE continually confuse our “self” with our “role.”  And until we get clear that “I am more than my role” nobody else will either.

 

Clergy Burnout: What’s really causing it?

A recent blog post  by Philip Wagner on "The Secret Pain of Pastors" has created some good--and really necessary--conversation about the challenge of pastoral leadership today.  I'll add my two cents with a few re-posts  of blogs I wrote after the NY Times ran a similar article in 2010. These posts were written right at the time that I started coaching pastors and working on a book on leadership development.  Today, after 200 conversations with pastors, I'm more convinced than ever that there is a clergy leadership crisis that is only increasing. 

"The antidote to exhaustion is not rest but wholeheartedness."  David Whyte

A recent article in the New York Times on clergy burnout has been getting lots of attention amongst my pastor friends (and some kind church members who are concerned about me).  The article suggests (I think, accurately) that the cause is in large part the unhealthy professional boundaries between pastors and their congregations.  It also points to the reality that in our highly connected technological world, it is extremely difficult for a pastor to ever truly “vacation” from the congregation (Indeed, recently, I received word of the death of an infant in our congregation while I was at 30,000 feet winging my way to Italy on a family vacation.)  The article wisely encourages pastors to get better and more regular rest and offers some good resources.  And I wholeheartedly agree.

But, all the while affirming the need for regular days off, vacations, and sabbaticals (indeed: I enjoyed a glorious one four years ago), I want to ask my colleagues: Is that really what’s causing the burnout?  

The fact is that clergy and congregations have always had bad boundaries.  In previous generations, being eager to work all-hours and having one’s ego fed by the need to be needed was practically a pre-requisite to a call from God to ordination (not that I am affirming that!)  The truth is that most of us LOVE a good pastoral care crisis. It is the place where we are most competent and add the most value.  We pastors thrive on people being spiritual open to the presence of God in life and love nothing better than walking with searching souls in a journey of genuine authenticity.   Most Pastors will never admit this publicly but most of us would rather being officiating funerals than weddings.  (At a funeral people are far more open to spiritual things; at a wedding everybody wants to get on to the reception as quickly as possible.) 

So is the cause of burnout really too many souls in need of care?

A follow up article by a minister suggested that the cause of burnout is congregational consumerism.  People now demand that their pastors be part shrewd cultural commentator and part comic.  We must entertain, inspire and instruct a little, all the while never really challenging the worldview or tribal instincts that make us Christians seem little different than anyone else.  Mostly, people come to church to be affirmed, encouraged and given some tips to get God on their side in their self-improvement strivings for the good life.  We pastors, as my friend Charlie says, are expected to be Tony Robbins with prayer.

Again, I agree and this unhealthy expectation on the part of church-goers is undeniably part of the problem.   But is that the root cause?   Or are pastors and congregations not only suffering from bad boundaries, but also colluding to alleviate a deeper anxiety that plagues us all?

Here is my hunch:

Poet David Whyte famously wrote, “The antidote to exhaustion is not rest but wholeheartedness.”
We clergy are burning out because we have lost our wholeheartedness about pastoral ministry. 

By this, I DON’T mean our passion for the gospel or our commitment to the Kingdom of heaven (though that may be true for some).  I also DON’T mean our sense of call to serve people, to preach, teach, counsel, or care (though again, that may be true for some).  What I mean is that most of us are now asked to do a job that we didn’t sign up for, in circumstances that are far different than we expected.  The culture is changing and the church is in crisis and most of us were not trained for this.  And so we are less wholehearted than we once were and are unsure if we are up for the task that has been thrust upon us.

A couple of years ago I spoke for a group of Methodist Christian Educators in Maine.  After three lectures on the Kingdom of God and the Community of Faith, I was asked to do a “speaker talk-back” where anyone could come and ask me questions.  Of the 200 attenders of the conference, 60 came to my talk-back session.  I polled the room to ask what kind of questions they came to ask and soon found that one question was being asked by virtually everyone in the room.  It wasn’t a topic I had raised in my lectures.  It wasn’t a subject that the organizers had even planned to address.  But for the pastors, lay leaders and teachers in the room it was the only one they wanted to talk about:  “How can we keep our churches from dying?”   You could practically see the discouragement written on their faces.  We pastors are working harder than ever and not seeing results.  It’s like we are stuck in an aerobics class from hell.  We just keep running in place.

We pastors are exhausted because we are ambivalent.  We are ambivalent because we are sincerely called by God, deeply committed to minister to souls and eager to speak to the spiritual condition of life and, at the same time, we know that we are rapidly becoming irrelevant to many.  

Most of us were unprepared for how rapidly and demonstrably our culture was changing. Most churches (with a few obvious exceptions) are dying.  We pastors wanted to be at the helms of ships that would head bravely into the adventure of an open sea and a beautiful distant land.  Nobody told us that we were training to become captains of ships that are all slowly going down or being abandoned.  We are ambivalent because this isn’t the ministry or the context that we signed up for and we are burning out because we just don’t know what to do. 

Youth club sports is considered by most parents to be more important for forming the character of our children than the church.  Spirituality has become wildly popular but so deeply individualistic that the fastest growing “religious affiliations” amongst college students are “none” and “spiritual-not-religious”.  We pastors who were trained to teach those who show up, to care for those who call for help, to lead those who will volunteer and to administer the resources of those who willingly give are now called upon to minister to a passing parade of people who treat us like we are but one option in their personal salad-bar of spirituality. 

We are in uncharted terrain trying to lead mostly dying churches into a post-Christian culture that now considers the church as an optional, out of touch and irrelevant relic of the past.  Most people think of pastors not as experts of the soul for the big questions of life, but as curators of the flat earth society or pawns for a political action committee.  To make matters worse, we pastors who used to be held in such high-esteem are now just assumed to be charlatans or pedophiles or widow-fleecing fundraisers. When masses of ordinary people want spiritual insight they turn to Oprah, not the church.  And committed church goers and church leaders are panicked about it. 

Burnout comes from not only bad boundaries and trying to meet unhealthy expectations, but also from an ambivalence born of uncertainty about our own competence and relevance. 

Most of us got into this because of the Bible and people.  We wanted to teach the Bible and care for people.  We felt called to nurture the souls of people and communities of faith.  So when we are doing those things (even with some not-so-good boundaries) we are mostly fine.  Most of us also understand and acknowledge that there is a difference between felt needs and real needs and that there is always a degree of work involved in reaching often distracted people with our messages. (Isn’t that why we work so hard on getting good illustrations, jokes, even videos for our sermons?) 

But, most of us weren’t called and don’t feel equipped to be change-leaders in a rapidly changing world.  But that is the reality and that is our call.  Until we wholeheartedly dedicate ourselves to that reality and that call and all the ways that we pastors are going to need to learn, and grow and change ourselves (grieve our own losses along the way) to be relevant in that changing world, we will just continue to live on the verge of burning out and giving up.

Clergy Burnout: And Why I am Taking on MORE work.

A recent blog post  by Philip Wagner on "The Secret Pain of Pastors" has created some good--and really necessary--conversation about the challenge of pastoral leadership today.  I'll add my two cents with a few re-posts  of blogs I wrote after the NY Times ran a similar article in 2010. These posts were written right at the time that I started coaching pastors and working on a book on leadership development.  Today, after 200 conversations with pastors, I'm more convinced than ever that there is a clergy leadership crisis that is only increasing. 

I didn't need to read the Facebook posts on the recent NY Times article, I had received an email this morning from a friend.  He told me that he is taking a leave of absence from his church. 

The irony of the timing is both sad and palpable.  I just returned from my 8th trip to the top of Half Dome in Yosemite National Park with a group of high school seniors from my church (including my own son). I also, spent two days with 110 of our church's youth at our annual summer camp. They are a happy, fun bunch who shout out "P-Tod" (for "Pastor Tod") whenever I enter the room.  They not only did usual camp stuff like games, and music and rock-climbing and banana boating, but also spent half a day in a silent retreat practicing spiritual disciplines and reflecting on their life with God.  I have an amazing youth ministry team on my staff.  I had to choke back tears when I talked about the church members who volunteered to be counselors and service corp for this week with the kids.

One of my very best friends is my associate pastor.  We get to plan worship together every week.  I get to study and teach the Bible every day. I lead communion. I work with a great staff team, and I support really committed lay-leaders who are doing things like building houses in Baja California, ministering to the poor in Malawi, Africa, offering care for the sick and shut in, teaching children the faith and sharing the gospel in both English and Spanish language services.

I love my job. Which is why I was saddened by the article that has been posted and re-posted by so many of my pastor friends this morning on Facebook. According to the NY Times headline , most clergy don't.  (Saddened, but not surprised, however.)

Clergy are fat, stressed and depressed.  We take more anti-depressants than the people in our pews.  We aren't expected to live as long either.  The Times only confirms what most didn't want to say out loud: "Many (pastors) would change jobs if they could." 

The Times article quotes health care experts who are wisely cautious about suggesting quick fixes, but mostly it rightly focuses on the "boundary issues" between pastors and congregations that keep many of us feeling as if we don't have a life beyond the pulpit. It's a good article.  It should be read by both clergy and lay leaders who work alongside us.  It's really important.  (If nothing else, the article points to some really helpful resources--one of which, the Lilly Endowment's The National Clergy Renewal Program funded my sabbatical in 2006.)    

But, for me, there is an affirmation of a call in all of this. When I first came to San Clemente, Al Sloan, one of the elders who had been on the nominating committee, came to me and said, "Tod, my wife Enid and I are committed to seeing that you and your family have a great ministry and a great life.  Whatever you need from us, we'll do."  And they did. 

Through the years, Al's promise to me has become my promise to my staff  team and my colleague: To have a great ministry and a great life.  To serve God without losing your soul.  To minister to others without mistreating our families.  To nurture a community of faith that nurtures the abundant life for all. To lead a church that is both healthy and faithful, every family--including pastors' families--experience a way of living and leading that is truly fruitful.

So, this morning, fresh off an experience that reminds me of why I love being a pastor; deeply aware of how many of my colleagues don't; and with a sense that "where much is given, much is required" (the verse that my pastor Lloyd Ogilvie used in my ordination charge), I feel more called than ever to work alongside churches and pastors to help us all have a great ministry and a great life.

For the past two months, I have been preparing to start working as a church consultant and executive coach for pastors with TAG Consulting's Transforming Church Team.  Starting this month, I will be spending a couple of days each month working alongside pastors and church leadership teams helping them to look at the ways they need to grow as leaders in order to be both healthy and fruitful in a changing and demanding world.  I'll be able to share what I have been learning and I'll be able to keep growing as a pastor and leader, too. And everything I learn, I'll share here. 

 

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Mind the Gap: The Practices of Adaptive Leadership

Hemorrhaging Pastors

Reposting this from a couple of years back. This story, sadly, is becoming far too common.  I will use this to kick off a new discussion about the training pastors need in a post-christendom day.

Three. In one day. 

On Monday, I heard of three of my pastor friends who all resigned this week.  No affairs, no scandal, no one is renouncing faith.  But three, really good, experienced, pastors all turned in resignations and walked away.  Two are leaving church ministry all together.

The details are as different as the pastors themselves, but the common thread is that they finally got worn down by trying to bring change to a church system that was stuck.

I have been hearing from more pastors these days.  Some of it is related to my work with TAG Consulting, a lot of it is because I am, well, one of them.  We chat and email and text and the common thread is always the same: “The church is stuck and we don’t know what to do.”

Stuck and declining. Stuck and clinging to the past. Stuck and lurching to quick fixes, trying to find an easy answer for what is clearly a systemic challenge. (“If only you could preach better, pastor!” “If only you were more ‘pastoral’ and caring, pastor!”  “If only our worship was more dynamic, pastor!” “Please, pastor, DO something…That is what we pay you for isn’t it?”)

In some cases, the leaders of the church had turned on the pastor making him the scapegoat.  In others, there was a sense that the church just wanted to stop any change process.  For some, they are early in their tenures and are trying to get at the core issues early and bravely, looking squarely at what Jim Colllins calls “the brutal facts.”  But most of them are so far into their ministry at the church that it seems like whatever they do is too little too late.  After trying so hard, it seems that the church just gave up and hunkered down.  As one of my friends said, “This church has gone deaf to my voice.”  And soon after the finger-pointing begins, immediately followed by a big severance, a disillusioned pastor and a crippled church.

Most of my pastor friends acknowledge that they contributed in some way to the very circumstances that are forcing them out of the calling they love.  All of us acknowledge that seminary didn’t prepare us for this.  But, trying to rise to the occasion, they find themselves facing a wall of resistance that quickly turns into a voice of rejection.  The underlying, unspoken issue seems to be: “If only the pastor would stop trying to lead us and just pastor us, then we’d be fine.” 

Except we are not fine.  The culture is changing, the world is changing and churches are facing change on an unprecedented scale.  We are heading into uncharted territory and pastors and lay leaders need to learn to lead a mission together where there are real obstacles, real challenges and where the future is nothing like the past.

Until we do, we’ll keep bleeding pastors and we will watch our churches wither away.

Billy Graham on Aging, Regrets, and Evangelicals | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction

CT: If you could, would you go back and do anything differently?

BG: Yes, of course. I'd spend more time at home with my family, and I'd study more and preach less. I wouldn't have taken so many speaking engagements, including some of the things I did over the years that I probably didn't really need to do—weddings and funerals and building dedications, things like that. Whenever I counsel someone who feels called to be an evangelist, I always urge them to guard their time and not feel like they have to do everything.

I also would have steered clear of politics. I'm grateful for the opportunities God gave me to minister to people in high places; people in power have spiritual and personal needs like everyone else, and often they have no one to talk to. But looking back I know I sometimes crossed the line, and I wouldn't do that now.

via www.christianitytoday.com

TEB: Worth any preacher's pondering... Less Preaching, less politics. More time with family, more time in the study. Wise advice from a respected sage.

Faith Amidst Trials: A Word of Encouragement for Church Leaders I Know

"Faith untried may be true faith, but it is sure to be little faith, and it is likely to remain dwarfish so long as it is without trials. Faith never prospers so well as when all things are against her: tempests are her trainers, and lightnings are her illuminators. When a calm reigns on the sea, spread the sails as you will, the ship moves not to its harbour; for on a slumbering ocean the keel sleeps too. Let the winds rush howling forth, and let the waters lift up themselves, then, though the vessel may rock, and her deck may be washed with waves, and her mast may creak under the pressure of the full and swelling sail, it is then that she makes headway towards her desired haven. No flowers wear so lovely a blue as those which grow at the foot of the frozen glacier; no stars gleam so brightly as those which glisten in the polar sky; no water tastes so sweet as that which springs amid the desert sand; and no faith is so precious as that which lives and triumphs in adversity. Tried faith brings experience. You could not have believed your own weakness had you not been compelled to pass through the rivers; and you would never have known God’s strength had you not been supported amid the water-floods. Faith increases in solidity, assurance, and intensity, the more it is exercised with tribulation. Faith is precious, and its trial is precious too."

Spurgeon, C. H. (2006). Morning and evening : Daily readings (Complete and unabridged; New modern edition.). Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers.

Gus and Hal Go to Church: Possibilities for Burned Out Clerics

Gus and Hal are widowers at my church.  Octogenarians both, they have become friends since their wives passed.  It's getting harder for both of them to come to church on Sundays, but to be sure when they are there, they are there together. 

Hal is blind. Gus is an amputee confined to a wheel chair.  When they come to church, Hal pushes Gus and Gus directs Hal.  They make their way through the parking lot and the patio to their place together in the pew.  And together, and only together, they come to church.  A blind man who can't see giving energy to a man who can't walk.  A lame man who can't move giving direction to a man who lacks vision. But together, they worship, take part in community and offer their gifts, and, well, inspire a whole lot of us.

Amidst the recent posts on clergy burnout, a number of thoughtful contributions have been made to both causes and possible cures, but one possibility is presented in the friendship of these two older men: partnership.  Honest, authentic, mutually interdependent partnership.

I contend that so much of the burden that leaders feel comes from the noble but misguided belief that leadership requires broad shoulders and an ability to stand under pressures alone.  Most of us give lip service to needing colleagues and being collaborative, but when the "buck stops", we really do believe that it stops on one desk only.

Sadly, this is a far piece removed from the New Testament witness where, short of Jesus' own work on the cross, virtually every other expression of the ministry of the Spirit was revealed to the world in pairs or threes (or more).  Jesus sent the 70 two by two.  Peter, James and John healed and preached, Paul and Barnabas, Paul and Silas, Paul and Silas and Timothy, Barnabas and John Mark.  Priscilla and Aquila.  And a host of other examples, of course.

We also forget in all of our ministering that the church is first and foremost an organic relational “system”: a “people”, a “community”, a “family”, where the demands of an "emotional field"  are so complex that they most like the human families we grew up in that are ideally (though obviously not always, not necessarily and not perfectly) led by a partnership called "Mom and Dad."  Instead, churches eagerly organize ourselves into "single-parent families" and wonder why most pastors aren't up to the demands.  (And again make us marvel at actual heads of single parent households who so often do such an amazing job.)

Somewhere along the way, partnerships were considered too unwieldy or unworkable and we started thinking more in hierarchies, where there is one "head".  Today, you'll hear people speak of a kind of military chain of command that is necessary in the battle for the Kingdom of heaven.  Community and collaboration may be good for dividing up tasks in "camp" or when we are "settled" in some place.  Partnership may be good for a family, but not a mission, we think.  On the "front lines" someone needs to be in charge. If we are leading into "hostile" or "uncharted territory", it's best we follow one vision, one voice...so we think.

While I'll save saying more for another post, let me just quickly remind us of the first true explorers in American consciousness.  True heroes who defied all conventions of the day, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark not only were the first Americans to cross the continent, but they did it with it extraordinary success.  And, as Stephen Ambrose reminds us, they are etched in our minds as one relational unit, "Lewisandclark".  They were partners, "equals in all respects," they declared over and over again.  In a world where most still believed in the divine right of kings, where even American presidents were from a different standing and class, in a military culture where there was a clear chain of command, and in the midst of a task that was filled with the unknown and uncertain, the only thing that Lewis and Clark counted on was that "in all respects" they would be "Lewisandclark."  (For a fascinating book on the leadership lessons of Lewis and Clark, including the “principal of productive partnership, see Jack Uldrich’s book on the topic.)

For my own denominational clan, this addiction to individual leadership is a contradiction to our core principles. As much as we Presbyterians live under the constitutional conviction that all leadership is shared between elders and pastors, still most of us function as if the role of elders is either to be a "board of directors" with the pastor being the Executive officer, or the spiritual "counsel" giving advice and offering prayers to the ONE true minister of the church.   Ironically, the phrase repeated over and over again to describe that actual work of pastors, begins with the clause, "Together with..."  Pastors lead the church, "together with..." the Session, the elders, the deacons, and, of course, associate pastors.  But of course, we don't-- at least not enough to really make a difference in our functioning and health.

I believe that our probably is that we haven't taken seriously our limitations when we carry the burden of leadership alone.  Some of us are blind, some of us can't move.  Most  of us don't have the "energy, intelligence, imagination and love" that a congregation needs all by ourselves.  And frankly, the stubbornness to think that we can lead without taking into our accounts our limitations is likely much of what is burning us out.

And in the next post, I'll explore the secret behind both Gus and Hal and Lewisandclark that can help us not only keep from burning out, but actually help us to move forward healthy and well.