The Peculiar Pressures on the Pastor
The failure of pastors is sadly too much in the headlines in recent months. The reasons are many. Our culture is increasingly hostile to our message so that many are skeptical of organized religion. Even church members, hurting from their church experience, create discord by careless criticism and self-serving divisiveness. These and many more factors add to the load a pastor must carry. The pressures that a pastor must face sometimes seem overwhelming. To some, the answer is simply to quit. Others struggle silently burdened with hidden depression.
Charles Spurgeon was a preacher who lived to be fifty-seven. He preached in London from the time he was nineteen to tens of thousands of people. The last years of his life, he preached to ten thousand people a week. He was an amazing man, a man who wrote volumes that are still useful today. He started a preacher’s college where he spent each Friday teaching his “preacher boys”. When one considers his schedule for a week, it does not seem surprising that he died at fifty-seven. He literally spent himself for God’s work. He recorded much of his ministry philosophy in his book, Lectures to My Students. He addresses everything from how to pray publicly to how to prepare a message.
One of the most interesting chapters is entitled “Fainting Fits”. The subject was something I’d never heard addressed before and certainly not in the way and with the openness with which he addressed it. The problem he discussed we would call depression. Charles Spurgeon, throughout much of his life, battled with depression. He mentions in the book the names of others, such as Martin Luther, who likewise suffered from the same problem. It is surprising that Spurgeon would be so open about his depression because most pastors are hesitant to let people know what really goes on in their private lives. There is a feeling that if a pastor is open and transparent, people will think that he is weak. Therefore, Christians in general, but pastors in particular, are afraid to reveal their internal battles.
This man was a great giant for God. The things he wrote such as Morning and Evening Devotions and Treasury of David are still as relevant today as they were one hundred and fifty years ago. They show tremendous insight into the nature of both God and man. Some believe that he was the greatest preacher since the Apostle Paul. The fact that this great man of God was so open with his own depression and the fact that many modern day pastors suffer with the same problem, opens the door for a discussion that is long overdue.
Even though I have not had to battle depression, many of the things Spurgeon shared in “Fainting Fits” are helpful to me. Many of the issues that he addressed are the same issues that pastors face today. Although we may not all be debilitated by depression, these same things add stress and pressure to a preacher’s already heavy burden. In a perfect world, every preacher would handle the difficulties and peculiar pressures of a preacher in a biblical way. There would be no breakdowns and burn-outs. However, in the real world in which we live, many preachers (and their families) struggle.
Some preachers, while not openly admitting the internal battles that they face, become reclusive and withdrawn. As soon as they have finished with their pulpit ministry, they disappear and no one sees them until next Sunday. They do not associate with people. Some leave the ministry and never look back. The average seminary graduate, who has spent years in preparation, spends only ten years in vocational ministry. After ten years, he is never in the ministry again. The answer for them is to run and hide.
While we have all heard of pastors who disgraced themselves and disgraced their office by yielding to the flesh and living in sin, many others have settled into a life of dull routine, avoiding controversy, challenges and confrontation. They cope with stress by preaching their message hoping that nobody gets upset. They go on with their life and finish their time as best they can.
Some Pastors suffer from lingering doubts or even deep depression. Some have even taken their own life. A good friend of mine chose this route. This tragedy caused me to visit again many of the ideas that I will share. Rather than assuming the worst about those who labor under the weight of depression, or having a critical spirit toward those who fail, we need to try to understand the weight under which a preacher labors and be charitable when the load causes a crack in the exterior of one of God’s servants. This paper borrows freely from the ideas expressed by Charles Spurgeon in the article I mentioned. I will add some things from my own experiences with the ministry.
The ministry does carry its own kind of pressures, pressures that are different from those born by the church member in the pew. One cannot read the Epistles without sensing the great inner conflicts that the men of God faced. There is some comfort in knowing that even these pressures are common to the servants of God in every era. I believe more strongly today than I have ever believed that God does, in fact, appoint men to the ministry. That appointment is a lifetime appointment, one from which if a man runs he is desperate indeed. In spite of this calling, there is the temptation to give up in the midst of the battle. Paul said in II Corinthians 4, “Seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not,” Verse 16 says, “For which cause, we faint not.” He expresses his determination to continue his ministry without regarding all the difficulties.
Let us look at his description in verses 7-8, “We’re troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed but not in despair; persecuted but not forsaken; cast down but not destroyed; Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For which we live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.”
This dying is necessary if a preacher is to endure the rigors of the ministry. Jesus said, “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone.” So Paul, the great Apostle, tells us that he was willing and did, in fact, die every day. His life had no consequence to him, except as it related to God’s work. In II Corinthians 4:15, “For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might, through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God. For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.”
The trials that Paul endured, by our estimation, would not be light affliction. Beaten in the Philippian jail, suffering stripes, being shipwrecked, being stoned at Lystra, would not seem light affliction. To Paul, they seemed trivial indeed in light of eternity. He said, “For this cause,” for your sakes, for the sake of the believers, we don’t quit. “While we look not on things which are seen but on things which are not seen. The things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” Paul considers the difficulties that he himself suffered in the ministry and concluded, because of the appointment of God, and because of you, believers, we disregard all these things. We have decided not to quit so that we could minister to you. Thus, to some degree, every preacher must commit himself to “endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.” This commitment to fulfilling God’s calling keeps men faithful in the ministry.
In II Corinthians 11:7 we read, “In weariness and painfulness, and watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. Besides these things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of the churches.” Being a Pastor, I can tell you that the care of the churches was a greater challenge than being shipwrecked. The care of the churches was the heaviest burden that Paul bore. In Philippians chapter one, Paul speaks of the great yearning — the great emotional feeling he had for the church in Philippi — and how he longed after them. In II Corinthians, Paul finds it necessary to defend his Apostleship against those who would undermine his ministry. In Paul’s words, we detect the great sorrow of having to defend his authority before the church that he loved so dearly.
While there are other burdens that a pastor must bear, “The care of the churches”, the care of the people that God has graciously placed in our care is the most daunting and carries the most weight.
In the next installment, we will deal with “The Unique Pressures of Pastoral Ministry”.
Danny Sweatt is Pastor Emeritus of Berean Baptist Church in Lilburn, GA. He writes from over forty years of ministry experience in Florida, Illinois and Georgia as well as itinerant ministry around the country.
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Bro. Sweatt, thank you for posting this. I’m working towards five years as pastor of Faith Baptist in Corona, NY and am beginning to understand what you have described as the “peculiar pressures on pastors.” Pastor Les Heinze (Red Rocks Baptist, Morrison, CO) spoke from 2 Corinthians 4 at our recent FBFI NYC regional meeting and was an encouragement to me along this line, and your 2 Corinthians perspective today is likewise a blessing. (I have begun a verse-by-verse 2 Cor 4 study in our Wednesday prayer services.) There is no way to describe adequately the unique challenges of serving as a shepherd, but Paul’s teaching in 2 Corinthians certainly comes close! May God give us the grace and strength we need to keep our focus on Christ, to remain loyal to his Word, to love his people, and to avoid the many pitfalls that may pull us away from these ends. God bless.