“She Had Boundless Energy. And Then She Had to Leave for Medical Reasons”

A stranger said this to me today about his former pastor: “She had boundless energy. And then she had to leave for medical reasons.” Without knowing anything about the situation, I wonder if her boundless energy resulted in clinical exhaustion.

Maybe she didn’t merely need a nap. Maybe she didn’t merely need a vacation. Maybe she needed treatment for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

As I shared in my oral Presbytery Report yesterday, a study out of Boston University reports that 35% of clergy have PTSD. We hear about soldiers, firefighters, police officers and witnesses to terrible violence sometimes experiencing PTSD. But pastors?

Yes. A third of us.

Pastors deal daily with unrealistic expectations, lavish criticism and low wages. I could not do my own ministry without the good, inspiring, life-changing moments when I witness resurrection and grace and hope. If those experiences are outweighed by painful, soul-sucking, paralyzing moments when I witness only death, effrontery, and dread, then I’m in trouble.

The life of a pastor sometimes feels like being the ball in a pinball machine. On a given day, the pastor might bounce from sermon prep to sitting bedside with a dying parishioner to leading a class of teenagers to receiving an angry phone call. At the risk of sounding dramatic, I have personally experienced written death threats, verbal death threats, dirty diapers dumped in my driveway, a keyed car, broken pottery on my home patio, and a guy with a knife in my office who was tired of “being Jesus.”

And speaking of being Jesus, some of us forget that we are not.

I write this because it is harder than ever to be an effective pastor. If you have an effective pastor, please respect them, encourage them to have a life outside the congregation, and pay them as generously as possible. At least offer a Cost of Living Adjustment each year.

We didn’t go into professional ministry for the money. But if we are worried about how we are going to pay our student loans and our mortgage this month, we cannot be effective.

If you have an ineffective pastor, suggest training in leadership or time management or preaching. (Please be gentle with these suggestions.) And remember that the pastor with excellent bedside manner might not be a world class preacher. No pastor excels at everything. But if they are trying to excel at everything, they might actually have PTSD.

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