Reflecting on the State of the Church

I am taking a break from my Other Six Days posts to offer something I think is interesting to reflect on. I want to place two quotes side by side .

On Monday I linked a post by Eugene Cho about pastoral health in which he gave the following statistics:

• 80% of pastors say they have insufficient time with spouse and that ministry has a negative effect on their family.
• 40% report a serious conflict with a parishioner once a month.
• 33% say that being in ministry is an outright hazard to their family.
• 75% report they’ve had significant stress-related crisis at least once in their ministry.
• 58% of pastors indicate that their spouse needs to work either part time or full time to supplement the family income.
• 56% of pastors’ wives say they have no close friends.
• Pastors who work fewer than 50 hrs/week are 35% more likely to be terminated.
• 40% of pastors considered leaving the pastorate in the past three months.

Then I came across this quote again from several years ago by William Diehl, a corporate executive who has now written considerably on work and spirituality:

“…In the almost thirty of my professional career, my church has never once suggested that there be any type of accounting of my on-the-job ministry to others. My church has never once offered to improve those skills which could make me a better minister, nor has it ever asked if I needed any kind of support in what I was doing. There has never been and enquiry into the types of ethical decisions I must face, or whether I seek to communicate the faith to my co-workers. I have never been in a congregation where there was any type of public affirmation of a ministry in my career. In short, I must conclude that my church doesn’t have the least interest whether or how I minister in my daily work.”  (William E. Diehl. Christianity and Real Life. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976. v.-vi. Diehl was an executive at Bethlehem Steel.)

Any connections between these two?

Comments

[Jerry Deck]

As a recent seminary graduate I can say that it was beat into our heads over and over again that we are the ones responsible for looking after our own spiritual/mental/familial health. That congregant members were probably not going to do this for us.

So, while I believe we can do things to help the congregation understand what we as pastors may need, I also believe that in the end it is up to us to set the boundaries. My fear is that we as pastors just feed into our "misery" by blaming the congregants for not giving us more time when perhaps we should be doing this ourselves.

[paul merrill]

Great post!

I prayed for 2 pastor friends as I read the post.

[Michael W. Kruse]

Thanks Paul.

Jerry, I think one of the things these two observations points out to me is that no one feels like community is being created and everyone feels the church is failing them at key points.

[jon swanson]

As one of the two pastors Paul prayed for...

I'm one of the 20% who doesn't feel the negative impact on my family. Now.

It's happened in part because at the beginning of the year my wife and I started walking almost every day, giving us time to talk about a number of things and improving our health. It's happened in part because we have a great team that looks out for each other. It's happened in part because we keep reminding each other that this isn't our church, it's God. And our elders actually believe that to be true.

However, we have also spent time training elders to understand that unlike Diehl, their lives matter.

We don't come anywhere close to where we'd like to be, but I am so grateful, right now, to not be on the bad side of the statistics.

Oh. And this week, God gave my wife a friend.

Thanks for praying, Paul

[Michael W. Kruse]

Very cool Jon! There are some reasonably healthy places.

I have a pastor friend who tells me that he keeps handing God his resume for the position "Savior of the World." God keeps returning it stamped "Position Already Filled."

:)

[tina gasperson]

With all due respect, I believe this happens because, while the pastor gifting certainly exists and is thriving in the Body, the office of Senior Pastor (or Lead Pastor if you're postmodern) is something we have created. It has the pyschological effect of lessening personal spiritual responsibility for most of us, and the actual effect of overtaxing and burning out a certain few.

[Michael W. Kruse]

I with you Tina! We are all called to ministry in the world. Pastors exist to equip and send us out into ministry. We are the ministers and the world is the object of our ministry. We have distorted it into the pastor is the minister and we are the objects of ministry.