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A New Definition of 'Pastoral Care'

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I squinted against the early morning brightness. My eyelids scraped like sandpaper against my eyes. Having visited relatives on the East Coast, my husband Rich and I drove through the night with our three children for the last hurrah of our vaca-tion — a few days with my family in the Midwest. Close to their house, I noticed a familiar car following. We pulled into the driveway, the other car roaring in behind.

My brother John jumped out, his tired face matching the way I felt. He came around to my side of the car. My heart sank. With the sun hovering at the tree line, he should have been in-side enjoying his first jolt of morning coffee. The break in rou-tine seemed ominous.

“Nice timing.” I tried to smile around my fear.

“Grandmom died about ten minutes ago, Jane.” He clenched his hands at his sides. “Mom’s there now. Do you want to come?”

Numbness settled over my soul. My dry eyes refused to shed tears as John pulled me to him in ahug. I moved through the next three days in a frozen state.

The day after the funeral my husband, a pastor, was expected in the pulpit in Illinois. There was no time to grieve and remember and laugh with relatives after the service. We reloaded our car and made the journey back to our own home, heavy-hearted, quiet and lonely. A carefree getaway full of family memories closed on a grief-filled note.

Back in church, Rich asked for prayers as we coped with our loss. This was not the place I wanted to begin feeling the pain, so I sat stiffly in the pew, palms sweating. Chills chased over my body.

The postlude sounded. People collected bags, babies, bulletins. I lingered in the foyer, hesitant to approach anyone as grief nibbled at my composure. No one offered sympathy, hugged me or simply said, “I’m sorry.” After ten miserable minutes, I gathered the children and bolted for home. Our vacation concluded with a loved one’s funeral, but the anguish and isolation had just begun.

“Did anyone say anything to you after the service, Jane?” my husband asked. When I shook my head, multiple expressions flashed across his face: surprise, anger and sadness.

As a pastoral family, we faced a surprising turnabout. Whereas our role in others’ grief was to comfort, there seemed to be no clear guidelines for the congregation’s response in the reverse situation when we needed care. Who ministers to the minister’s family?

Overwhelmed, but Not with Love

Ours is not the only family to fall through the void. Much research, reading and interviewing yield a sobering conclusion. According to H. B. London, head of the pastoral ministries department at Focus on the Family, “Four words characterize how many ministers feel. They are: isolation, loneliness, insecurity, and inadequacy.”

Historically, pastoral care has not meant instruction in caring for one’s pastor. It has always meant a pastor’s care for the congregation. Clergy are professional burden bearers in many ways. Unfortunately, the application of “bear one another’s burdens” ( ) often stops somewhere short of bearing the burdens for the minister and family. However, Scripture portrays clearly the supporting roles the people of God are to play in the lives of those in ministry. “Honor those leaders who work so hard for you,” reads, to “overwhelm them with appreciation and love!” (The Message).

Don, a pastor in a mainline denomination, remembered getting a card a day for an entire month as the church celebrated their clergy. “It was very affirming,” he said. “What would it be like to be affirmed throughout the whole year?” The congregation, organized initially by Don’s secretary, did not realize the tremendous effect such affirmation had on their hard-working minister. But because the desire to care for the pastor initiated with church personnel, the congregation did not continue the effort. Perhaps a lack of supporting evidence as to why the clergy need and deserve such affirmation contributed to the one-time attempt.

Quittin’ Time?

An atmosphere of love, acceptance and affirmation makes staying in the church appealing, even in the face of conflict. Their absence adds impetus to thoughts of quitting. In the book Seven Promises of a Promise Keeper, contributing author Dale Schafler says, “Eighty percent of all pastors responding had thought about quitting in the last three months.”

Mark, pastoring his current church for eight years, said, “I think about quitting twice a week.” Marion, a pastor in New Hampshire, admitted, “Sure I think about leaving the ministry. Anyone who says they do not consider quitting, even fleetingly, is lying.”

Many ministers do more than think about quitting. Ten years ago the Southern Baptist Convention Virginia Newspaper reported, “Southern Baptist Convention clergy couples drop out of their churches on an average of 116 a month,” due largely to the spouse’s discontent. Recent reports from the SBC show little improvement: nearly one hundred ministers are forced out of their churches each month.

Morale in the pastorate, it appears, is scraping bottom.

When low clergy morale results in pastoral turnover, the congregation suffers. Churches that frequently change pastors tend to be less open, less trusting and more inward looking, according to Barna Research. Further, in times of turmoil and transition, attendance drops, giving declines, and lay leadership struggles may ensue.

Studies indicate that it takes years to truly see results in ministry with a new minister. Dr. Gary McIntosh cited research among several mainline denominations, which found that a pastor’s most effective years in a pulpit don’t even begin until the sixth or seventh year. These are years that many ministers don’t have. Dr. Thom Rainer, dean of the Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism and Church Growth of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, states that the average tenure for all Protestant ministers is 2.3 years.

With all the leaving, there’s no time for cleaving, for forming mutually respectful relationships between the congregation and the ministry family. It can take at least five years in one pulpit for the pastor to gain the respect of constituents — let alone see effective ministry happen.

Changing ministers takes its toll on both the clergy family and the local church. Unless a move is absolutely essential, clergy need to stay awhile longer for truly effective ministry to happen. Frequent moves disrupt the building process of ministry.

Real People, Real Pain, Real Problems

While we were in seminary, a professor warned us: “Congregations want to believe that their ministers and spouses are sinless and sexless.” After years spent serving the local church, frustrated pastors and their mates echoed those feelings.
“I wonder if people in our congregation understand that we feel pain, anger and doubt just as they do,” one pastor said. As for me, if asked how I felt that Sunday in church when I struggled in isolation with my grief, I would have answered, “Like less than a human being, like my feelings and pain are insignificant or nonexistent.”

Laurie, in ministry in Oregon, said, “We who serve others and serve them well may minister with broken hearts.” Pastors and families feel pain but are unsure what to do about it. Linda and Mason worried what their congregation would think if members knew their son was hospitalized for addiction treatment for several weeks. When’s Dan’s father died, he couldn’t grieve as he needed because “I was concerned about keeping my job.”

Life in the pastorate is different from life in most homes. Many professions are lonely, and ministry is no exception. Hopefully, however, for most Christians church is where they find support and sustenance. For the pastor the church is both taskmaster and charge, and an awkward place to look for support and nourishment. The loneliness intensifies when parishioners hesitate to offer empathy. Perhaps they feel unqualified or ineloquent. Perhaps, believing someone else is surely filling that role in the cleric’s life, they remain silent. Or perhaps they are simply unaware that ministers need support.

Why the Clergy Family?

One report called pastors “the most occupationally frustrated people in America.” That frustration has tremendous impact on the family, because, as in few other careers, the spouse is intimately tied to the minister’s job. And with many leaving the ministry because of the spouse’s discontent, the ministry may be only as strong as the marriage.

The same can be said about the pastor’s family. Miserable ministry children make the job doubly difficult for pastors. Pastor, spouse, marriage and children: the suffering of one skews the whole picture and hampers ministry. If all four are cared for, the pastor will be energized and empowered for ministry.

Nurturing also enhances the minister’s strength and resiliency. With lack of affirmation the most-cited reason for clergy burnout, the congregation’s thoughtful care of the pastor will lessen burnout’s frequency. The length of time in each church will increase, and divorce, which is surprisingly high among pastors, will decrease when the pastor’s marriage is honored. Fewer ministry children will feel alienated by the draining service of their parents in the local church. Nurturing the pastor’s family may be the most amazing key to effectual churches and winning others to Christ.

Roy Oswald confirms this: “Our effectiveness as congregations in dealing with the pain and brokenness of our society is directly proportional to the congregation’s health as a whole and the individual health of the clergy and its laity.”

Caring for the clergy is not a human-generated brainchild — some marketing whiz creating an event to sell more greeting cards. Nor is it another round of pop psychology or even church growth theory. It is plain common sense.

It is also scriptural. God makes our responsibility toward those in ministry clear. In Deuteronomy the people are told, “Be careful not to neglect the Levites as long as you live in your land” ( ). We are speaking, of course, of the New Testament corollary to the priests and Levites, the minister. The author of Hebrews commands the congregation: “Be responsive to your pastoral leaders. . . . Contribute to the joy of their leadership not its drudgery. Why would you want to make things harder for them?” ( The Message).

 

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About The Author

Jane
Rubietta

Jane Rubietta, author of How to Keep the Pastor You Love (IVP, 2002), has written seven books and is a speaker and clergy/church consultant in Illinois. Her latest is Grace Points: Growth and Guidance in Times of Change. She and her pastor-husband, Rich, operate the non-profit Abounding Ministries. For more, see www.abounding.org.