These sheep bite!
I know real sheep aren’t equipped to bite the way other animals can. A large part of my point lies in this very fact. If something walks like a wolf, howls like a wolf, and bites like a wolf, maybe we ought not to continue thinking it’s a sheep!
While speaking at a pastors’ conference some years ago, it was customary on the first day to go around the room and “log in” before anything else was done. This was a time when every pastor was given an opportunity to update the group on the challenges they had faced since their last meeting. All but three of the forty pastors present that day broke down in tears while relating their church experiences. Completely unprepared for this, I began to wonder what could possibly be going on in our congregations to produce such deep anguish among our leaders.
Since then, I’ve found out a lot more.
The Casualties of War
Somewhere a pastor is being forced out of his church right now—it could even be you! In States with a high density of churches, 63% of pastors know of a colleague who has been the target of serious abuse, and 25% admit to being victims of serious abuse. 41% of churches that fired their pastors have done it to at least two prior pastors.
Since 1996, the numbers haven’t stopped growing. One major denomination reported that 2,500 of its clergy had already been driven out of their churches that year alone. It is estimated that 1,500 pastors leave their assignments every month in the United States because of conflict, burnout, or moral failure. Many denominational leaders who travel frequently call this attack on pastors “pandemic.”
I first thought this problem was indigenous to the United States. However, while in Europe, I met with pastors, missionaries, and leaders from over thirty different countries and denominations and heard similar stories.
In the past few years, the shocking number of websites that have sprung up to deal with this issue bears out the enormity of this epidemic. If you search “pastors leaving churches,” “pastor burn-out,” or “pastors under attack,” you’ll be amazed at the number of sites from different parts of the world.
Here’s a read from Enrichment Journal online:
Pastors are encountering a thinning of their souls. High stress levels often produce feelings of bleakness, powerlessness, cynicism, resentment, stagnation, and disappointment. Ministry activities they once enjoyed now produce boredom and drudgery. As a result, it is easy for pastors to be annoyed and irritated with those they work alongside. Physical symptoms may include headaches, digestive problems, high blood pressure, teeth grinding, and fatigue. Ironically…the burnt-out pastor appears successful on the outside while their internal spirit is depleting.1
In 1993, H. B. London Jr. and Neil Wiseman wrote a book entitled Pastors At Risk.2 In 2003, they reedited their work and called it Pastors At Greater Risk. They discovered that in just ten years our leaders are now in more peril than ever. Here are some of their findings:
- Half of all congregations in the U.S. are either plateauing or declining
- 33% of pastors admit that it’s an outright hazard for their families to be in ministry
- 50% feel unable to meet the needs of their jobs
- 80% believe that pastoral ministry negatively affects their families
- 90% think that they are inadequately trained to cope with ministry demands
- 40% report a serious conflict with a parishioner at least once a month3
A full one fourth of pastors admit to being forced out or fired from their churches. The greatest impact of a pastor on his church is between his fifth and fourteenth years, but unfortunately, the average pastor lasts only five years in one church.4 45.5% of pastors have experienced depression or burnout to the extent that they needed to take a leave of absence, and 70% say that they have a lower self-esteem now than when they started their ministry.5
London and Wiseman remark:
Pastors are working harder in a world that’s more corrupt. They wonder why their parishioners expect them to squander energy on trivial matters when evil threatens to wreck the human race. Fatigue shows in the eyes of pastors. Worry slows their stride. Vagueness dulls their preaching. This struggle takes a terrible toll, as pastors wrestle with crammed calendars, hectic homes, splintered dreams, starved intimacy and shriveled purpose. Some quit in utter hopelessness. Others lapse into passivity. And many of the rest just hold on by their fingernails.6
Pollster George Barna says that we are losing one percent of our churches in America every year. As shepherds leave, sheep leave. 50% of the pastors who enter the ministry will be out of the ministry within five years. One of the more disturbing facts is that 70% of our pastors today don’t have a single close friend.
Whereas clergy used to generate the best mental health and longevity statistics of any other profession, this is no longer the case. Cardiovascular disorders, cancer, arthritis, gastrointestinal disorders, respiratory problems, and the like, at one time rare among clergy, are now common. In one twenty-six-year study, pastors moved from the near-zero column closer to the cultural average in five different areas: burnout and exhaustion, divorce, chemical dependence, mental disorder, and moral malfeasance.7
In addition, how much more “collateral damage” is done to their wives, children, friends, other leaders, disillusioned youth lost to the church, and so forth? The statistics for the entire picture aren’t even in.
The late Lloyd Rediger, author of Clergy Killers, writes:
“Collateral damage” is a military term that designates the damage done to areas and people near to a military target that has been hit with explosive weapons. It also illuminates a painful phenomenon in organized religion. Spouses, family members, and close associates of a deeply distressed and abused pastor often suffer such collateral damage. It is not uncommon for them to be irreparably damaged, because they typically do not have even the minimal support and protection afforded to pastors who are stressed or under attack.*8
To be sure, there are many reasons why churches are closing down each year and ordained ministers are finding new lines of work. But a primary reason is the sustained abuse that leaders and their families endure without other compensations. They work for a lifetime and are frequently unable to retire with an adequate income. They receive all the negatives of the corporate executive, but few of the benefits. Their reward is in heaven, but their earthly rewards are few. For their efforts they often are tricked, slandered, abused, manipulated, pushed aside, and pushed out.
Many young people are attracted to the Gospel and to the Christian ministry today, but the attractions to the pastorate and the local church are fading quickly. We are leaving much of the church to a host of career seekers who have no regard for what a “call of God” is, and who want merely to carry out their personal, political, or social agendas within the confines of the church. Many will survive in the traditional structure because they come as politicians rather than prophets and will take no stand that could threaten their professional status or advancement. Aren’t we seeking this already?
What has been your (or your colleague’s) experience?
End Notes
- Harvey Herman, “Anorexia of the Soul: A Burnout Checklist for Pastors,” Enrichment
Journal, http://enrichmentjournal.ag.org/200902/200902_000_Anorexia_of_soul.cfm (accessed July 2009). - H. B. London Jr. and Neil B. Wiseman, Pastors at Risk (Wheaton: Victor Books, 1993).
- H. B. London Jr. and Neil B. Wiseman, Pastors at Greater Risk (Ventura: Regal Books, 2003), 20.
- Ibid, 34.
- Ibid, 172.
- Ibid, 14–15.
- G. Lloyd Rediger, Clergy Killers (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1997), 25.
- Ibid, 33.
Photo by Markus Wintersberger via Flickr
- “Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin.” How Far Would You Go to Stand Up for What’s Right? - November 15, 2024
- How to Grow or Regain Your Trust in God? - November 11, 2024
- What Have You Done, God? - October 21, 2024
I loved the article. I loved the book. It really should be re-publisbed!
Chris, Thanks, really appreciate the encouragement. The re-publishing date is early next year.
Well, I will be pushing the book to my pastor friends – even if I get no kickback 😉 Haha!
Thanks!
Sounds much like what we’ve been through in the past month. Trial by fire to be sure. I know I should have ceased to be amazed a while ago at what people do, but I am still surprised. I still expect the golden rule, but there is such a disconnect in people between what they say is true and the exceptions they will make for themselves. I have learned of necessity to go ahead and form attachments but always be willing and ready to let them go. It’s an odd dance, to be sure.
I wonder if God is not preparing our pastorate for something new. I don’t see this full time gig as viable anymore for most churches, and maybe God is using this to move us toward another picture of what church is supposed to be. I don’t know. I am searching now for what that could be. I know a huge change is in the air. And I choose t be excited about it rather than afraid.
Jill,
I understand what you mean. I’ve worked with many churches, pastors, and leadership who have been in the same situation or are going through the same thing right now. Often leadership can’t carry out effective discipline due to the loss of authority, absolutes, truth, and the death of civility among each other we find today. Pastors haven’t had the necessary training to deal with aggressive, untruthful church members. The same may be said to instances of spiritual manipulation by pastors. It’s not a healthy situation in either case.
Appreciate your positive attitude.
Jake, I’m sorry I don’t have any more copies, but I’m working on an ebook version. Will let you know when that’s out.
I’ve been there. Have been trying to buy this book. It’s selling on Amazon from $500 to $800. Does any one have a copy I can buy for cheaper? Would prefer a Kindle.
Great article, John! It’s right in the same vein as an article I posted here on Theology Mix: https://theologymix.com/church-life/your-pastor-needs-you/
You can read my story there! 😉
Eric, Thanks, and thanks for sharing your experience. Really sorry you had to go through such a time. You’re now part a of a great cloud of witnesses! This type of treatment of leadership seems to be getting worse, not better.
Timely article–I needed to read it. In the last few years it has become increasingly more difficult to be a pastor. The church has lost much of its respect for pastoral leadership and often there seems to be no boundaries as to how far people will go to harm their pastors and their families. I’m looking for a way to exit the pastorate and find a different way of serving God.
I have been right where you are, Pastor, and I’m praying for you! I actually left that pastorate almost a year ago.
If you need to talk, please, drop me a line: [email protected]
Thanks brother! Just keep me in your prayers. Read your article. It always pains me to read about the hurt caused. Praying you are in a better place.