It’s not just a professional crisis for pastors, for many it’s a personal crisis …

Social media was abuzz in 2021 when a report was released stating at least 38 percent of pastors had considered quitting vocational ministry that year (see the article here).

In 2022, that has worsened to 42 percent (see the article here).

Much of the talk has been about the various reasons why so many pastors would consider quitting, and the numerous challenges they face in their “professional” work shepherding local congregations. But as the need for Pastor Care (clinical counseling for vocational and bi-vocational pastors) has skyrocketed over the past two years, what I’ve seen at Scott Free Clinic is that, for many pastors, it’s not just a professional crisis but a personal one.

Let me be more specific:

I’ve never seen a time when so many church leaders were failing to apply to their own lives what they preach and teach the people they lead.

One example stands out. Recently I spent time counseling with a church leader who has decades of church ministry experience, is highly educated, is still a leader in the church and now has a business coaching executives and leaders. She can rattle off any number of cookie cutter coaching techniques to “help executives move to the next level,” but was completely overwhelmed with the troubles in her own life and was at a complete loss as to how to apply to her own life and marriage what she taught everyone else.

Then there’s the pastor who is so lost in “woe is me” that as he counsels others in how to live a life of faith in Christ, he has no hope for his own.

There are several such examples, and with each I would ask, “What counsel would you give someone else who came to you with the troubles you’re experiencing?” Several were able to verbalize wise, biblically-based counsel, but felt perplexed at how to live it out themselves.

Let’s step back and face the reality that for decades, we’ve known in the church that pastors have routinely made excuses about how they were so busy with ministry they didn’t have time to rightly exercise spiritual disciples, or nurture their marriages and families, etc. Then, when the pandemic hit, it served as an accelerant to heighten all of their professional challenges and, being caught in a weakened spiritual and relational condition personally, the result has been unprecedented levels of need for Pastor Care and ministers feeling so overwhelmed they’re seriously thinking about walking away from ministry.

And let’s add one other point: Recent research has revealed that only 37 percent of pastors have a biblical worldview (see the article here). To approach the “professional” challenges of pastoring in 2022, as well as life’s personal challenges, without a biblical worldview is setting yourself up for calamity.

For many, the answer isn’t to quit, but instead to right the foundation of their lives and how they live so that they can minister well to others. Let’s face it, when you can verbalize for others how to live well as a disciple of Jesus while failing to do the same, at some point that lack in your life will result in a collapse, and that is a lot of what we’re seeing.

Jesus warned us about what happens to a life that isn’t solidly rooted upon the right foundation:

“Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse because it is built on bedrock. But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn’t obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash,” Matthew 7:24-27.

Teaching something while not living it is NOT having your own life anchored into the one foundation that can weather life’s storms, such as everything that has happened within the church just over the last two years.

Some church leaders need to step back and learn afresh how to first make real and personally obey/live out in their own lives what they preach and teach so that they can lead from a healthy life (spiritually, mentally, emotionally, socially, and even physically) and endure the storms of ministry. I want to encourage those church leaders, and to let them know Scott Free Clinic is here to help them if needed. You can find times of refreshing in the Lord, and you can rebound to experience serving Christ the way He always intended for you.

Scotty