Time magazine recently published a cover story about the stress epidemic in our country. It gave evidence that stress is a major contributor to the six leading causes of death: coronary disease, cancer, lung ailments, accidental injuries, cirrhosis of the liver, and suicide. The three best-selling drugs are Tagamet, a medication for ulcers; Inderol, a medication for hypertension; and Valium, a tranquilizer. Two-thirds of all office visits to family doctors are prompted by stress-related symptoms.
If you are a pastor or other person involved in Christian ministry, this information comes as no surprise. Most of your counseling appointments are sought by stress-saturated people. As one pastor put it, “Stress passes through my study like a never-ending parade.”
Although the theme of this issue is church politics, the secondary, unarticulated subject matter is stress. The major topics-church politics, staff conflicts, dealing with deacons, also remarriage and death-all qualify for Hans Selye’s list of the 100 most important causes of stress, the kinds of stress that gravitationally engulf the parishioner as well as the pastor. How do we work in the epidemic and not catch the disease? How do we usher stress through the study and not through our soul?
I’ve been fascinated with the kinds of stress Paul describes in 2 Corinthians 11. First he lists the external kinds: beatings, bandits, persecution, shipwrecks, stonings, floods, poverty, and hunger. Then he lists the internal kind: “the daily inescapable pressure of my care and anxiety for all the churches!” (v. 28, Amplified). It’s hard for me even to imagine the trauma of shipwreck or the pain of rent flesh from a whip; however, sleepless nights over troubles in the church I quickly grasp. I find affirmation that Paul included anxiety in the same paragraph with beatings and stonings.
An analogy that has helped me understand the relationship between internal stress and malfunctions in my ministry is mining. It’s a dangerous occupation. Without warning, explosions can rip through a mine and snuff out all life. Tons of coal and rock can suddenly shift and crush miners, or trap them in dark, airless tunnels. But the greatest danger, and the one that claims the most lives, is black lung; it is a fatal form of emphysema caused by years of inhaling coal dust. This metaphor has helped me realize it’s not just the explosions and avalanches but also the dust of stress that saps my spiritual strength and causes ministry malfunction. It’s the “small stuff” that makes breathing so difficult.
Recently I compiled a list of things that can hover over me like a dust cloud. I was amazed and embarrassed by what bothered me: ugly stares from “almost finished” tasks; petty irritants in interpersonal relationships; emotional tendonitis from stretching “just a little farther”; fear of being unprepared; guilt from “faking it”; fatigue from making just one more decision. This is my dust-the dust I inhale while working in the mine.
Time asked Dr. Robert Eliot, a cardiologist from Nebraska, about his rules for stress. Eliot replied, “Rule No. 1 is, don’t sweat the small stuff. Rule No. 2 is, it’s all small stuff. And if you can’t fight and you can’t flee, flow.” This doctor’s advice has more than a ring of truth if we qualify it in the following way. We cannot see all stuff as small stuff unless we view it from God’s perspective. To see the problems and stresses of each day from his line of sight requires proximity to him.
Prayer must flow through our lives constantly, washing away the dust of stress. Prayer is the pure, sweet breath of the Spirit. Paul could quiet the buzzing in his head by “praying without ceasing.” He could calm the palpitations in his chest by exclaiming, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”
Though the stress epidemic swirls about us in an ever-accelerating frenzy, intimate, continual communion with God makes all things appear as they really are-totally secure in his sovereign hands.
Very practically, this means that as soon as our cares appear, they must be transformed into prayer. They are highly explosive, and if we keep them in our hands too long, they will tear us to pieces. When we turn our cares into prayers, real transformation takes place, as with everything we bring to Jesus Christ.
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Last quarter, Harold Myra announced our plans to develop a new magazine to help wives in ministry. He invited your ideas for this publication and offered $250 to the person who first suggested its eventual name.
Thanks for your response. Many sent multipaged letters offering many suggestions and titles. One pastor’s wife wrote, “I think this new magazine is just what I need. So many of the conferences I attend with my husband offer little for wives, except shopping trips. I want to be well equipped, and I’m constantly looking for material that will give me a practical expression of God in my life.”
This publication will be issued bimonthly, starting in January, 1984. You should see the first advertisements by September. We solicit your prayers as we seek editorial staff and resources.
We’re also happy to announce the name-PARTNERSHIP: The Magazine for Wives in Ministry. The first persons to suggest this name were the pastoral staff of First Evangelical Free Church of Fullerton, California. Pastor Charles Swindoll will be taking the church staff to a celebration dinner at our expense. Thanks, Fullerton Free Church, for such a great name.
And thanks again to everyone for your great responses!
Paul Robbins is executive vice president of Christianity Today, Inc.
Copyright © 1983 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
