Depression in pastoral ministry

Yesterday’s USA Today carried the disturbing story of a 42-year old pastor in North Carolina who committed suicide. I was deeply moved as I read about this young man who had apparently come to the end of his hope and, in complete despair, took his own life. Suicide is rare among pastors, the article reports, but many live with depression. Loneliness, isolation and the resistance of congregations to cultural change are cited as primary causes of depression.

The day before, the New York Times ran a piece entitled “Kierkegaard on the Couch,” by Gordon Marino. After reading the piece twice I began to discern the important distinction he makes between depression and despair and Kierkegaard’s concern for the spiritual dimensions of despair.

Then, while chatting online with my friend, Alburn, he pointed me to this interesting Money.com article entitled “Stressful jobs that pay badly," which describes “15 of the most overworked and underpaid professions out there.” Number 10: Minister. According to this piece, 71% of ministers report that their job is stressful.

This was like a perfect storm for me. But the picture is not yet complete. My own personal story is that I serve a congregation that is creative, flexible, open-minded and open-hearted, loving, supportive and fun. They are a group of spiritual pilgrims that genuinely enjoy being on this journey together. And, they love me. How do I know? They tell me. Frequently. It may have escaped your notice that October was Pastor Appreciate Month. For the past five years I have been appreciated by my church family in a way I never imagined possible. This is due primarily to the ministry of one of my dear friends and church elders, Kirsten Salvador. She has the gift of remembering important moments in people’s lives and making them understand that they are treasured.

Last Sabbath, as I was walking up to the front of the church to give my sermon, a video started to play. I am usually aware of everything that’s happening in worship, and this was unexpected. On the screen was a friend and church member – a young lady I baptized about 4 years ago – who currently lives in New Jersey. She thanked me for my ministry in her life. I sat back down. When the video finished, 6-8 other members of the church simply stood where there were and blessed me with words of affirmation for my ministry in their life and in our congregation. I was so overwhelmed that I nearly broke down and wept. Somehow I held it together and gave my sermon, but I’ve been thinking about those words all week. They came at a good time for me.

For the past several months, maybe since January, I’ve struggled. I haven’t wanted to call it depression. I still don’t know what to call it. It isn’t constant and it usually isn’t debilitating, but I don’t feel like myself. It isn’t necessary for me to go into details here, but it has made me think about my friends and colleagues who are pastors.

First of all, I hope you know you are not alone. It isn’t unspiritual to experience depression and despair. In fact, it may be the most spiritual thing you’ve experienced in a long time. You’re aren’t less because of your silent struggles that no one knows about.

Secondly, I wonder how some of you manage in congregations that aren’t as supportive of you as mine is of me. Some of you, I’m sure, serve churches that are downright hostile towards you at times. I, too, have been in that place and know the darkness that can surround you and your family in those times. But even in congregations that are as supportive as mine, pastoral ministry is lonely. The pressures of expectations (notibly our own self-imposed expectations) can be crushing. The challenge of helping congregations make the turn to missional life is daunting on a good day.

To the pastors who are reading this I would just like to say, break the silence. Get with a trusted friend and tell them what you’re going through. Find a counselor to talk to. Even better (and I think Kierkegaard would approve) start a relationship with a Spiritual Director. The goal of all of this is to be attentive to your own soul and how God is at work in your life. In our Prozac nation we have lost the art of being attentive to our souls. It may be frightening and Prozac may be exactly the help you need, but ignoring what’s going on isn’t healthy. It might not end like our fallen colleague in North Carolina, but it could. Jesus isn’t asking that of you.

To the non-pastors reading this who have a pastor in your life, please take care of your pastor. You may think he doesn’t do anything all week long. You might think her sermons are lacking depth. You might not agree with his ideas for how the church should change. But before you decide, do your pastor a favor. Take her to lunch. Invite him to your house to talk. No agenda. Just to talk. Find out what’s going on in his life. Ask her what stresses and pressures she feels. Listen not only for what he says, but what he doesn’t say. He’s not going to come right out and tell you that he’s at the end of his rope and thinking of giving up. That’s not what pastors do. We tell you that everything is fine and that “God is good, all the time!” Which, of course, is true, but doesn’t lessen the fact that God’s goodness is all but imperceptible at times, even to us.

The dirty little secret is that pastors are human beings, too, with struggles more or less just like yours. If your pastor is being honest with you he will tell you that he feels desperately alone most of the time. Yes, he may have close friends. You may see him laughing a lot. You may see him with his family looking like they have it all put together. But trust me: it’s not as pretty as it looks. And your pastor may not tell you much, but just know that your encouragement may be the only thing that gets her through the next week.

Comments

[Kirsten]

this helps me understand why the day moved you so much. i'm glad!

[Kirsten]

and i think the fact that pastors are human should stop being a secret. thanks for expressing yourself so openly here!

[Ryan Bell]

Thank YOU, Kirsten! I wish more pastors had people like you in their lives.

[Corrine Galvan]

Ryan, you have made such a huge difference in my life. When I look at the faces I see everyday in Camden, I thank God for you and your ministry. I wouldn't know or love Ms. Pam and Ms. Vanessa if it weren't for your leadership. I wouldn't work with my hands in the soil if you hadn't first loved God. I wouldn't teach Marco and Lenny the importance of community if you hadn't instilled that within me. I will never tire of thanking you for your work and I can only say I am more grateful now, as we have mature into great friends and colleagues, how important your life is to my own. God bless you and y(our) work in Hollywood.

[Lauren]

Now that October is over, I'll say it straight out: Yes, pastors are overworked and usually underpaid. Yes, many are depressed and have ridiculous expectations of themselves. But in my experience, pastors are so incredibly aloof, so unwilling to reveal anything deeper than the traits required by the profession--charisma, kindly smile, generosity with time--that it may be easy to love (even revere and perhaps deify) that superficial personality, but impossible to love the real person beneath. Not because we don't want to, but because the pastor refuses to reveal who that real person is. We hear about transparency and accountability and acceptance and such. Most of us would like to extend to our pastors the care we feel. But the moat is full of man-eating eels (think "The Princess Bride"), the walls made of stone, the windows barred and dark, and the doors guarded by six-winged seraphim. You can try--you can swim the moat, scale the walls, bring candles to peer in the windows, attempt to sweet-talk the seraphim. But in my experience, pastors invite your trust while withholding their own. I realize that is a defense mechanism--duh. But at the same time, I'm a little tired of hearing about how stressful the job is. I agree, it is stressful. Admit you're human, allow your people to give love--in other words, as a wise man I've never really met once wrote, "Enjoy life, and don't be a jerk."

[Samir Selmanovic]

Ryan, I can identify. And I envy you on your community, a holy kind of envy.

Lauren, I am guilty as charged. No, really, I am.
Receiving the mantle of the pastoral title somehow meant I have to be one-way-person (can't have 150 close friends). I thought at times I should put a white collar to free myself from impossible expectations, so that people know I am a service worker and not necessarily a friend. What we have now is buddy buddy pastors in shorts trying to be friends with everyone while at the same time playing a legitimate role of a leader/counselor/administrator/teacher/chairman (a.k.a. pastoral species). It is impossible to live these two lives on the long run. If I am everyone's friend, I will be a lousy friend and a burned out pastor. There is no way back to authoritarian priesthood and the way forward is nebulous. I guess, we need God here.

[Kirsten]

Lauren, while i appreciate your input, i do believe what you are referring to is not the position of all pastors, all of whom are following their own unique path to following God as are the rest of us. however, we as members are just as responsible for the position/s we often put our own pastors in. i have stood by and literally watched church members act as lynching mobs towards the one who is leading them. but i wouldn't say all members are that way either. i'm sorry that you have experienced aloof individuals .... i guess i've been fortunate to experience the flip side. and i wonder if that aloofness that you experience is a cover for someone who may very well be experiencing the same as Ryan describes, yet chooses to keep his human cover with the garb of aloofness. yep, Samir, "we need God here." all of us humans.

[Glenn]

Part of the problem is the "busyness" and fragmentation of our lives that doesn't allow a lot of time or space that lowers walls and opens trust. I spend up to three hours a day commuting. I'm usually only at church twice a week--which is probably at least one day more than many others can be at theirs. At that kind of involvement is rarely enough to get to know each other. So, in addition to pastors, some of us parishioners know the loneliness experience as well.

[julia]

you nailed it. and we often need to be reminded of this. thanks for the post, ryan. this is something we at the DMin office have been thinking a lot about.

[Marty]

Great discussion.

[Tim Lale]

I should be grading papers, but a couple of thoughts . . . Ryan, what you describe sounds like clinical depression, a physiological response to internalized anger. The result is a kind of mental paralysis and a sense of not being oneself. I don't know if you have it or not, because I'm not trained. But people in stressful jobs can fall prey to clinical depression without being conscious of a particular cause. Being a minister in a grotesquely sinful world provides a giant vat of accumulated cause. I have come to believe 100% in credentialed mental-health professionals as a gift from God. It's time we think of our mental health with the same concern and response as our physical health. Note also that statistics show that from age 40 on, men have a quite high likelihood of becoming clinically depressed anyway, regardless of job type. I have a good friend, a retired minister, who went through devastating clinical depression at age 42 and 43 and never knew what it was. What an absolutely horrible experience that was, just dragging on through, thinking he was going crazy. The appropriate response is to treat the condition the same way one would treat an outbreak of physical disease, putting it in the hands of a professional (in this case, a Ph.D. psychologist or psychiatrist). While a congregation can take good care of its minister, the minister does well to take care of her/himself.

[TrudyJ]

What a great blog entry ... thanks for being open and honest enough to share this. As a lifelong churchgoer who wouldn't consider a career in pastoral minstry for a cool $5 million a year, I have seen both sides of this. I think pastoring really is one of the toughest, most thankless jobs out there (although some pastors have the gift of making it easier for themselves and some, the workaholics, have the "gift" of making it harder than it needs to be!). I think pastors need and deserve so much more support and appreciation from congregations than they generally get.

That said, in a lifetime of being served by pastors, the only one I've ever felt close to is our pastor who just left, because he is the only one who would occasionally let people know (at least, let me know, and I know he did this with others in the congregation) that he needed support, by honestly saying to people that it was a rough time, or he was under a lot of stress, or just that he was worn out from all the meetings and visiting and pouring oil on troubled waters. A little vulnerability goes a lot way towards humanizing a role some see as "larger than life," and also a long way towards simply asking for the support you need.

Blessings to you and all who do this difficult job.