Alexander Lang’s blog post “Departure: Why I Left the Church” is all over my social media feeds and has been for days. This makes sense when so many of my friends—social media and otherwise—are pastors.
Most of those I’ve seen share or repost it agree with Lang’s assessment of pastoral stressors. I agree and encourages churches to pay attention to the real and considerable pressures our pastors are experiencing.
Paying attention means more than reading an article and agreeing with it—or not. Paying attention means taking steps to alleviate our pastor’s current stress and heading off ill effects of future stress.
Giving such attention to pastoral stress is a good investment in the health of your pastor, your pastor’s family and your church.
Why are pastors stressed?
Lang refers to a 2022 Barna study reporting that of the 42 percent of pastors thinking of quitting, 56 percent experience immense stress in the pastorate, and 43 percent are lonely and isolated.
Political divisions, negative effects on the pastor’s family, and pessimism about the future of the church rounded out the top five reasons pastors thought about quitting.
While this survey was conducted soon after the height of the COVID-19 pandemic—in which many pastors were wrung out over months and months of constant decision-making and bitter infighting among congregants—at least four of those reasons have topped informal lists for at least a decade.
Contributing to the pressure pastors feel is the expectation that they be experts in—among other things—the Bible, theology, finance and fundraising, recruitment, public speaking and public relations, counseling, building maintenance and politics—yes, in the church.
They must be energetic and engaging, not too young and not too old, well-educated and well-experienced, and able to grow any church anywhere without making anyone unhappy—except for that group we’d like to leave our church anyway.
Lang contended pastors in the Presbyterian Church USA are expected to do all such things “and do them well for $55,000 a year” (emphasis his). The expectations and pay scale aren’t much different among Baptist churches.
Such expectations and the corresponding stress predated the COVID-19 pandemic, but they were exacerbated during 2020 and 2021. Churches need to give this proper consideration, because stress is cumulative, and its effects often are delayed.
A key element of endurance
A reasonable expectation every church should have of its pastor—and every pastor should have of him- or herself—is God’s call. God’s call is key to pastoral endurance. So is reaffirming God’s call.
I don’t know if Lang ever felt called to the pastorate, but God’s call does not appear in his blog post. To make sure, I went back over the post again, and the only instance of “call” I found was toward the end when he referenced a sermon he “called ‘Change.’”
The pastorate simply is too hard for anyone to do it who isn’t called. And that call should come from God, not from one’s family, friends or neurosis.
Since it’s not always easy to discern when a call is from God, churches need to provide space and time for people to discern God’s call.
We need to do more than simply “call out the called.” While churches do need to be places where people can hear and discern God’s call for the first time, they also need to provide space and time for current pastors and ministers to be able to hear and discern God’s call reaffirmed.
But Baptists can be Calvinist about God’s call—once called, always called. We have a tendency to think of God’s call as a “one and done.” God speaks from heaven, issuing an unequivocal call—an order—on a person’s life that stands for all time and all places.
Some may never need their call reaffirmed, but Lang’s post and reports of ongoing clergy dissatisfaction suggest to me many pastors would benefit from God’s call being reaffirmed.
What God’s call provides
Being confident of God’s call doesn’t mean a pastor won’t have problems, won’t feel overwhelmed at times, and won’t want to quit. In my experience, confidence of God’s call does enable a pastor to endure through even significant stress.
When church attendance is generally in decline in a culture that only values growth, pastors need to be sure God called them to the pastorate anyway.
When lack of church member support leaves pastors feeling they’re on their own, pastors need the support of God’s call.
When pastors feel in over their heads, they need the confidence God’s call provides.
When pastors are criticized right and left and can’t win for losing, they need the assurance God called them knowing that would be the case sometimes.
When pastors wonder if they’re doing any good or feel they’re not as effective as they should be or used to be, they need to know God called them regardless of the outcome.
Pastors need the assurance, the certainty, the confidence only God’s call provides. Churches, in turn, need to provide their pastors the space and time to reaffirm God’s call—especially now as the delayed effects of 2020 and 2021’s stress begin to appear.
Provide space for reaffirmation
As I noted above, stress is cumulative, and its effects often are delayed. Lang’s stress reached the point he not only left his church, but he also left ministry—either for now or for good.
As a church, you need to decide what kind of time you will be without a pastor. Will it be a short period of time on a regular basis, planned and budgeted for, when the pastor can spend time focused on rejuvenation and reaffirmation of God’s call?
Or will it be an unplanned and indeterminate amount of time when it’s least expected and the timing is least productive? A church unwilling to afford the first is very likely to pay for the second.
Many men and women can speak from decades in ministry to the importance of God’s call. I don’t have their longevity—yet—but I have been in ministry long enough and in enough settings to know it was my certainty of God’s call that kept me going.
The stresses and pressures of ministry are not going to go away. Some of them will get and are getting worse. If our pastors are to endure them, we must afford them the gift of reaffirming God’s call.
Eric Black is the executive director, publisher and editor of the Baptist Standard. He can be reached at eric.black@baptiststandard.com. The views expressed are those of the author.
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