How to encourage your pastor to stay

The late Paul Powell was a well-known pastor in Tyler for years. After speaking at a convention one night, he and his wife started the drive back home.

On down the road, Paul was reflecting on the night when he asked his wife, “Just how many great preachers are there anyway?”

Without hesitation, she responded, “I don’t know how many there are, but there is one less than you’re thinking right now.”

Though we never discussed it, I think Powell was telling that story to help other pastors remember that they, too, are human and nothing more. A pastor’s—or any minister’s—calling doesn’t immunize them from all the weaknesses or needs of their humanity.

That story came to mind when I read an article in the Baptist Standard.

Crisis and conflict

The article reports the number of pastors leaving the ministry has increased as part of the fallout from the COVID-19 crisis and the deep divisions among congregations over politics that has become pandemic over the past few years.

One pastor reports: “People at church seemed more concerned about the latest social media dustup and online conspiracy theories—one church member called him the antichrist for his views on COVID—than in learning about the Bible.”

Some pastors bring some of that conflict on themselves by adulterating the true purpose of the pulpit—to declare the gospel—by endorsing certain parties. Some pastors even have invited candidates into their pulpits, forgetting it was Baptists who agitated for the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Some pastors are threatening separation of church and state by doing so.

Personal angst

I left the pastorate the last Sunday of December 2011. I did so for a number of reasons. It has never troubled me, like I was betraying my calling. Since then, I have served as a hospice and pediatric chaplain. I occasionally serve as a supply preacher. I’ve devoted most of my time of late to writing.

There is a severe shortage of pastors these days, especially in smaller, more rural churches. I know at least some of the reasons for that.

For one thing, as I grew in my faith and began thinking more freely for myself, I discovered the faith of my soul’s conscience and what I felt obligated to preach grew further and further apart. It caused deep, unresolvable anguish in my heart.

I also understand how pastors can react to the temptations of their humanity in not-so-good ways. Some get involved in affairs or get addicted to drugs and alcohol, and still try to preach on Sunday.

Petty criticisms stick to pastors like sweater fuzz on Velcro. They’ve often received infantile critiques from people who look like full-grown adults but behave like children, or from people who think membership in a given church gives them personal ownership of their pastor and church staff.

I took some criticism too personally. I never quite learned how to live above the fray. I can’t count the times when several congregants would affirm my sermon on a given Sunday and one person would criticize it, and I’d wallow in the one criticism while all but forgetting the multiple affirmations.

Loneliness

By the time pastors reach middle age, the idealism of their youth is a distant memory, at best. For example, in my youth, I naively believed following God’s call somehow protected me more than others. I was wrong.

I have no memory of feeling secure as a pastor, even when things were at their best. The feeling of insecurity is a soul-killing virus.

I found myself unbearably lonely most days as a pastor. Most pastors have very few friends in the church they serve. Pastors are some of the loneliest people I’ve ever known. That isolation can lead to tragic results, especially sexual temptation. I believe some pastors have affairs, because they don’t have the courage to quit but are looking for a way out—maybe even subconsciously.

I reached the place where I believed if I stayed in the pastorate, the stress of trying to be a prophet and a pastor and keep everyone happy was going to kill me. It nearly did, literally.

What pastors need

All that to say, pastors need everything any human needs. They need money to live. They need fun. They need to cry sometimes. They need friends they can trust with their deepest secrets.

The last thing they need is for individual members to impose their idea of morality and spirituality on them. I remember how that was a terrible roadblock in nearly every church I served.

Nothing is more eviscerating than hiding our secrets and our true convictions. Only within the context of true friendships does any minister feel the security essential to confessing their true convictions.

Praying for your pastor is good. Being a friend to him or her is just as essential. The pastor you save from quitting the ministry may be your own.