Who Pastors the Pastor?
In 2018 my wife and I began working with a ministry that offers confidential care for pastors and ministry leaders and their spouses. As we began to dive into this new adventure, we decided to create a board of directors to help us stay accountable. One of the first questions one of the new board members asked us was this: “Who is going to be caring for you?”
That question was unexpected. Who cares for the caregivers and who counsels the counselors? In over 20 years of ministry, I had never been to a counselor until two years ago. It felt good to go. It felt odd, but it helped me. Not going to counseling was not my conscious effort to stay away from therapy; it just never really crossed my mind that it would benefit me. I had been to a grief support group after my father and brother-in-law died, but I, who had regularly given pastoral counseling, had never seen a counselor.
Reading through an August 2010 article in Counseling Today, the writer of the article suggests that personal therapy should be a part of counseling education. In other words, in order to be a counselor/therapist, one should be required to see a counselor/therapist. So, should the counselor be required to go to a counselor before becoming a counselor? I would say yes! If for no other reason, the new counselor learns what it is like to sit across from the counselor and be understood by the counselor.
For the sake of this blog post, I want to suggest that pastors need pastoral care and counseling as much as anyone. We started a non-profit in the Fall of 2020; we are looking for land to create a haven where ministry leaders and their spouses can go to get away; we also want to provide pastoral counseling for anyone who desires it. Sometimes the burden of ministry, mixed with family, can be too much for a ministry leader and/or their spouse. The apostle Paul wrote in Galatians 6:2 that we should “Bear each other’s burdens.” As a pastoral counselor, and as a ministry, we cannot take those burdens for the ministry leaders or their spouses, but we can definitely help them carry them.
In one of my classes recently, I was able to interview several ministry leaders. One of them told me that the greatest challenge he faced is “Just learning how to balance the needs of people, the needs of my family, and my own personal needs.” Sometimes that might require a counselor, or at the least, someone to listen and encourage (pastoral care). Another said that she is constantly challenged by “believing myself that the Lord found me worthy enough to be in ministry.” A third person said that his biggest challenge was “looking after or caring for my own soul…and being loved first as an individual before I can go and do things or serve others.”
Proverbs 19:20 says: “Listen to advice and accept instruction, and in the end, you will be wise.” It is safe to say that everyone who chooses vocational ministry as a career wants to finish well. Finishing well is going to include taking care of yourself and subjecting yourself to advice, instruction, and accountability. With these kinds of challenges, receiving regular pastoral counseling and/or care can be a difference between ministry burnout and ministry longevity.
Another friend who is on staff at a large multi-site church has the privilege to care for and routinely check on the overall health of the staff members of the church. In a conversation with him, one of the things he said to me has stuck with me. He said that part of his passion comes from “recognizing that God has invited me into the messy with people to get to see him show up and come through for them.” I get that. I have served on staff at four different churches. Ministry leaders need someone to listen, and sometimes they need someone to help them take the therapeutic steps they need to get healthy. Pastoral counseling can help them do that. People in ministry can be as messed up as anyone else. It might just be when people think that ministry leaders don’t have any problems that those same ministry leaders begin to believe that themselves.
The enemy doesn’t make us believe that we are bad; he just makes us think that we aren’t that bad. —John