Why do ministry leaders need counseling?
“There are many pastors who have inserted themselves into a spiritual category that doesn’t exist. … They are content with a devotional life that doesn’t exist or is constantly kidnapped by preparation… They are quick to minister but not very open to being ministered to.”
Dangerous Calling by Paul David Tripp
The pastor is not excluded from either the body of Christ or the conditions that afflict it. In a dangerous way, we have placed pastors so high on the pedestal that we have almost made them out of reach of help in areas where that distance makes them most vulnerable.
The way I describe it to clients is this, when the engine block seizes up, it’s too late to change the oil. We are decent at being reactive when a crisis occurs, but an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Below is just some of the recent information on the condition of our pastorate in America.
“Fellow pastors, please be bold enough to seek the help of professionals as often as is right and wise for you to do so. There is a stigma in much of the church about seeking professional help for these kinds of issues. We need to get over that and spend time with professionals who can help us untangle what our work tangles in us.”
In a study co-sponsored by Lifeway and Focus on the Family, pastors reported mental illness rates similar to the general population. According to the study, “about a quarter of pastors (23 percent), say they’ve experienced some kind of mental illness, while 12 percent say they received a diagnosis for a mental health condition.”
“The job of being a pastor is not what it once was. Few individuals who graduate seminary or Bible College to be pastors are still pastors even 10 years later. Some data show that over 1000 pastors leave the ministry permanently every month, and only 1 in ten of those who begin as pastors will retire as ministers.”
https://lifewayresearch.com/2014/09/22/mental-illness-remains-taboo-topic-for-many-pastors/
“The study, published this week in the Journal of Primary Prevention, compared the mental health of 95 percent of the United Methodist clergy in North Carolina (1,726 pastors) to a representative sample of Americans and identified key factors that predict depression and anxiety. Clergy participants were predominantly male (75 percent) and white (91 percent); the mean age was 52 years old.
Among clergy taking the survey via Web or paper, the rate of depression was even higher: 11.1 percent -- double the then national rate of 5.5 percent.
Anxiety rates among clergy were 13.5 percent (no comparable US rate was available). More than 7 percent of clergy simultaneously experienced depression and anxiety.”
"It's common for public health professionals to ask pastors to offer health programming to their congregants," said Proeschold-Bell. "These findings tell us that we need to reverse course and consider how to attend to the mental health of pastors themselves."
https://today.duke.edu/2013/08/clergydepressionnewsrelease
“It’s a job that breeds isolation and loneliness — the pastorate’s “greatest occupational hazards,” said Scoggin, who counsels many Baptist and other ministers. “These suicides are born out of a lack of those social supports that can intervene in times of personal crisis.”
No one knows for sure how many ministers suffer depression or attempt suicide. “It’s like nailing Jell-O to the wall,” said London. But he estimated 18 to 25 percent of all ministers are depressed at any one time.”
https://www.scbaptist.org/when-pastors-silent-suffering-turns-tragic/
“Polite Southern culture adds its own taboo against “talking about something as personal as your mental health,” noted Scoggin.
The result is a culture of avoidance. ‘You can’t talk about it before it happens and you can’t talk about it after it happens,’ said Monty Hale, director of pastoral ministries for the South Carolina Baptist Convention.
For pastors, treatment can come at a high price. ‘You are committing career suicide if you have to seek treatment,” said Stanford, “particularly if you have to take time off.”
https://www.scbaptist.org/when-pastors-silent-suffering-turns-tragic/
If Christ is the head of His body – and He is – then everything else is just body. The most influential pastor or ministry leader is a member of the body of Christ and therefore needs what the other members of the body need. There is no indication in the New Testament that the pastor is the exception to the rule.
Paul David Tripp, Dangerous Calling