I knew an old minister once.… How I envy him.… I am listed as a famous home-runner, yet beside that obscure minister, who was so good and so wise, I never got to first base!
Babe Ruth
Blessed are the presbyters who have gone before in the way, who came to a fruitful and perfect end; for they need have no fear lest anyone depose them from their assigned place.
Clement of Rome
The discouragements in ministry are not the whole story, as even the most battered and weary pastor will attest. In fact, often in the very midst of the doldrums comes the sudden gust of hope.
“I had a terrible death last week in our congregation,” relates Eugene Peterson, pastor of Christ Our King Presbyterian Church in Bel Air, Maryland. “A woman was killed in an automobile accident, and she was only fifty years old. She was such a lively person, so full of life. And the accident was terrible. Five women were traveling together in a van when a big truck plowed into them, and all five were killed.
“The accident happened in the afternoon, but her husband didn’t find out about it until seven or eight o’clock at night. I got a call at nine. As I got in the car and began driving to their house, about three miles down the road, I thought about Bill, and how much he loved her, and about the three kids, all in college. I knew how devastating this would be to them, and I just didn’t think I could face that. This was the fourth death in our congregation in just two months, and all of them were unnatural — interrupted lives. I thought, Lord, I can’t do this. I don’t want to be a pastor anymore. I just can’t enter into that deep pain again. Or if I can, I don’t want to. I just don’t want to do this anymore.
“So I got there,” Eugene continues, “and two hours later I was coming back down the same road and I was praying, Lord, I’m glad I’m a pastor. There’s nothing I’d rather do than this. I’m just glad I’m a pastor. Thank you for letting me be a pastor.“
The Most-Wanted List
When someone thanks God for being a pastor, what specific things can he or she be grateful for?
The Leadership survey asked church leaders to identify these and rank them. Each one that made the list is a powerful encourager, a resource for staying power.
Topping the list by an overwhelming margin were my spouse and my family. Steve Harris expresses the feelings of many pastors: “I can’t imagine not having my wife’s support. Pam hears what are, I’m sure, some terrible sermons in the beginning stages. But on Sunday she always has her notebook open and is eager to hear what I’m going to say. When we get home on Sunday, we can have good discussions about the sermon, because she’s not somebody who’s going to say, ‘Boy, that was great’ when it wasn’t. But she’s going to be there and point out what was good and helpful. That’s a great source of strength to me. I guess I wouldn’t be in ministry today if it weren’t for her support.”
Adds another pastor: “When you come home to a kid jumping up and down in the doorway because Daddy’s home — it’s hard to get any more encouraging than that.”
Two other highly rated sources of encouragement were sermon preparation and delivery (the related leading worship also garnered high marks). Explains the pastor of a church in the Midwest: “There’s something in the discipline of preparing for preaching that is completely mysterious; it lifts you. There have been times when I’ve been so low that I felt I had to write a sermon. And when I did, I felt on top of the world again.” Though study is strenuous, as a pastor meditates on God’s Word, he or she becomes refreshed, “like a tree planted by streams of water.”
Delivering the sermon is another high point. Says the same pastor: “I feel more alive, more present with the people when I’m preaching than at any other time. That’s when I really feel in touch with them, so in some ways I’d rather be there than anywhere else.”
A third encourager was vacations, no surprise, and rest/relaxation/exercise was also named frequently. Edward Bratcher, pastor of the Manassas (Virginia) Baptist Church, says, “Stress interruption is essential. If you can get away, you can get a clear picture of where you are and find a new sense of hope.”
Being friends with members of our church was named a boost by many. Harley Schmitt, pastor of Brooklyn Park Lutheran Church in suburban Minneapolis, says, “People in the body are a real source of encouragement. In fact, I think they are one of the three basic encouragers: the Word, prayer, and God’s people.
“Recently we’ve been making some critical, long-range decisions as a church, and those are difficult. We had a congregational meeting last Sunday, and I shared how I felt, how hard some of the decisions were for me, too. Later in the week, a member brought some flowers from the family garden and said, ‘I just want you to know, Harley, that my husband and I are thinking of you.’ As I’ve sat at my desk this week, I’ve looked at these beautiful flowers, and they keep reminding me that somebody cared enough to say, ‘We sense this time is hard for you, too.’ Things like this are a big source of encouragement.”
A related encourager that placed high was friends outside the church. As one pastor explained, “It’s great having friends outside the church; you can talk freely with them about the ministry because they are not in it.”
Visitation is a shot in the arm for most pastors because it’s an opportunity to give direct, immediate help to a person in need. Ben Haden, pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Chattanooga, admits, “When I’m discouraged, the first thing I do as personal therapy is visit people in the hospital. I’ve never gone to the hospital and not come away encouraged. It’s gotten to the point now that if my wife detects I’m discouraged, she says, ‘Ben, why don’t you go to the hospital?'”
A good relationship with leaders, whether staff or the board, is another source of refreshment. When leaders support their pastor and work with him or her, they give the pastor staying power. Writes a Texas pastor: “In all my ministry, I’ve never experienced a greater sense of encouragement than one night recently when a group of our deacons made a commitment to meet weekly and pray for God’s blessing on my ministry.”
These factors are great encouragers, but they’re still not the greatest. Most pastors went on to list two more. Together, they may be the ultimate weapon in the battle against discouragement.
Two Eternal Realities
God’s call. “I believe I was called by God, and that’s enough for me,” wrote one pastor.
“I want to stay in ministry because I’ve answered Christ’s call to love him by preaching, teaching, and loving his people,” wrote another.
A sense of divine call is the great slab of bedrock upon which ministry rests. This sense, though interpreted differently by pastors, is the solid, deeply buried conviction that withstands the quakes of discouragement. It’s what maintained Isaiah and gave Jeremiah courage, and it’s what gives perseverance to pastors today. “A pastor will have to graciously put up with people who are self-centered, thoughtless, and cranky at times,” wrote one person, “so he must know God has placed him there.”
One pastor who left the ministry couldn’t get rid of that sense of call. “I fought that idea,” he writes, “and I left the ministry for a year and a half. But inside me there was this growing conviction that the ministry is the place God wants me. So now I’m pastoring again.”
A New England pastor wanted to leave the ministry and had several solid job leads. But he decided to stay in the pastorate, and now he’s enjoying ministry again. He says, “Through my difficult time at the church, and while I was looking for ways to get out, I learned something: If God calls you to ministry, he will keep you going. He’s ultimately responsible for that.”
Philip Hinerman is a good example. He has served as pastor of Park Avenue United Methodist Church in Minneapolis for the last thirty-six years, and during the first twenty-six years literally thousands of members pulled out, angry, as the neighborhood changed and the congregation became integrated. How did he survive the years of turmoil? “I am not particularly strong physically,” he admits, “and I am not particularly strong where critics are concerned. I feel a lot of pain from my critics. And I’m not great at confrontation — and yet I’ve had a whole lifetime of confrontation to face. If I were doing this in the flesh, I would have run out of steam thirty-five years ago. I know I’m not the kind of person who could have endured this.
“But every morning since I was fifteen years old,” he continues, “I’ve gotten up and surrendered my life to Christ. Those hours of prayer and Bible study every morning are what save me.”
In this way, Phil Hinerman and countless pastors past and present have renewed their sense of call.
God’s changing lives through your ministry. A second foundation stone, touching the first, is captured by Gary Downing: “The thing that is most inspiring and encouraging — the kind of thing you want to jump up and click your heels and shout ‘Hurrah!’ about — is to be able to participate in the process of a person meeting the Lord.
“This year I sat with some young guys who were at a fork in the road in their lives. They knew they needed to make a decision. We talked together, and then I prayed with them as they haltingly invited Christ to come and be their friend. There’s nothing like that. It’s an awe-inspiring peek into eternity.
“When you see God’s Spirit move in another person’s life, it also reconfirms what God has done in your own life. Suddenly those early morning breakfast meetings begin to make sense and be worth rolling out of bed for. It says it’s all worthwhile.”
Particularly satisfying is the knowledge that such labor yields eternal results. Says Delbert Rossin, pastor of Faith Lutheran Church in Geneva, Illinois: “If you build a car, as great an achievement as that is, it rusts out in ten or twenty years. But if you help someone build a Christian life, the results of your work last for eternity.”
Writes a pastor on the Leadership survey: “Shortly after I came to my present church I began working with a man who was near bottom in alcoholism. His wife and teenage son were also drug abusers.
“But today, after working with them over a three-year period, the family is sober. The man is working as a counselor in a drug-treatment facility. The wife completed nursing school and is working as a nurse. And the son is succeeding in school.
“I am encouraged today in that I know for sure God’s love works miracles. I’ve seen those miracles.”
Pastors who’ve seen miracles are able to see through the stretches, even long ones, of discouragement.
Five Cries
Chapters 2 and 3 have quickly scanned the ups and downs of ministry. But it’s intriguing to take a closer look at the list of pastoral discouragers. The first thing you notice is that certain ones cluster together.
After a little sorting of the list of discouragers, you can hear five major “cries”:
• I’m not able to see any progress.
• I’m not able to do what I’m really gifted to do.
• I’m facing a few difficult members who are causing me pain.
• I’m not getting affirmation for what I do.
• I’m not able to get enough rest and relaxation.
These haunting cries come from deep within. If they go unheeded, the pastor feels abandoned, frustrated, and ultimately, discouraged.
But those same cries can also be transformed into shouts of joy. The next chapters explore how.
©1988 Christianity Today
