The Mental Health Struggles of Ministers

And what we can do to help them

Photo by Elimende Inagella on Unsplash

There are a couple of data points that show how much pastors are suffering right now. All this data comes from the Barna group, but in talking with pastors from across the country, all of this lines up with the anecdotes I’m hearing. All of it. So at some point you have to start believing the data. First: “As of March 2022, the percentage of pastors who have considered quitting full-time ministry within the past year sits at 42 percent.” I have heard countless stories of pastors burning out of church leadership, especially after COVID, but some came before. The other data is darker: “nearly one in five Protestant senior pastors in the U.S. (18%) say they have contemplated self-harm or suicide within the past year. These ideations have varied in severity—just 1 percent call them frequent and distressing, while others say these thoughts were fleeting (8%) or not so severe (9%).” Another common story I have heard is of pastors who have struggled mightily with depression, anxieties, trauma, broken relationships, and other mental health problems. I suspect that many of the those leaving ministry are doing so because of mental health challenges. As we’ll discuss, those in ministry have unique pressures not to communicate or seek help when they need it. And as a result, it’s possible that your pastor is among those suffering silently. The questions for those of us in the pews becomes, what can we do to help pastors live more flourishing lives of wellness?

It begins with acknowledging the seriousness of the problem. We put tremendous pressures on pastors.

There are some pressures that are biblical, like the qualifications of an elder given in 1 Timothy 3:1-7. A pastor must be above reproach. Not a drunkard. He must manage his own household. And so on. These are difficult qualifications on top of the duties given to a teaching elder, an executive pastor, or however you call him. In other words, elders are ones to whom the church looks not for spiritual perfection but for spiritual modeling. Yes, the ultimate model is Christ. But as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11:1 “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.” We are called to imitate godly men and women in our lives insofar as they rightly imitate Christ (also see 1 Thessalonians 1:6). And certainly elders are an example of this. Well, these pastors, being ordained and called to be leaders in the church are among those clearly meant to be imitated. That is a heavy burden to bear. But it is a biblical and godly burden. A noble burden.

Another burden is that pastors are told things and asked, along with other elders, to help adjudicate situations which are ethically difficult. They carry a spiritual and emotional burden that most of us don’t have to carry. Therapists carry a similar burden, but many therapists themselves see therapists to help them manage this load. I don’t suspect that’s true for most pastors. Instead, they carry the weight of broken marriages, addictions, church divisions, criticisms, and so on, and many if not most of these problems they cannot share with anyone else. They have to bear them alone. That’s asking a lot. Non-teaching elders can share a similar load, but not as heavy, I suspect.

Yet another burden is for the health and direction of the church. Although the pastor is not the CEO of the church, everyone looks to the pastor for direction, guidance, and inspiration. In healthy churches, these are decisions made by a plurality of elders and with the input of the congregation, but even so, it’s usually the personality of the pastor that helps set the tone. When the church does well, people are quick to flock to the church, but when the church does poorly, they are quick to blame the pastor. And that weighs on him. Whenever there are decisions to be made, buildings to be built, changes to be negotiated, criticisms to be dealt with, and divisions to be healed, the pastor has to carry these burdens. Everyone has an idea about how church should be done, and many people are happy to leave if they don’t get things done their way. Preaching truthfully, it seems to me, is one of the most difficulty duties in life. Because you desire people to hear you, but you can’t pander to them. You have to compel them with the truth which will challenge and upset them if it is the truth! How much easier it is to tickle their ears!

And to top it all off, there is so much stigma around needing help. Because they are to be imitated insofar as they imitate Christ, some people wrongly assume that this means that pastors can’t need help. But even Christ went off into secluded places to pray. We need time to rest to care for our minds and bodies. And for some of us, because unlike Christ we are not perfect, we need help caring for our minds and bodies. We may need professional help caring for them. That is not a sign of weakness or sin, but of prudence, of rightly seeing your situation, knowing your limits, judging the right thing to do, and doing it because it is good. That is not to say that I think pastors need to announce to their congregation that they are struggling with a mental health situation. They have the freedom to do that or not. All I’m saying is that it is wrong for congregations to assume that pastors are somehow not worthy of imitating if they need help or struggle with depression or anxiety or some other mental health challenge. The pressure to “have it all together” is not biblical, is not listed in 1 Timothy 3:1-7. In fact, I would go so far as to say that in my own life, I was most worth imitating when I did pursue getting help! That’s when I was able to best “manage my household,” for example.

Once we understand these pressures, there are a number of things we can do. First, we can stop putting the false pressure on them to “have it all together,” we can stop denying that they have fallen minds that sometimes don’t work right and that need professional help. And we can do this while still holding them to the biblical qualifications of an elder.

Second, we should build into our church schedules rests and sabbaticals for our pastors. Again, Christ went off to pray. We need to make sure that our pastors are getting rest. They need time to get away from church and be feed and encouraged, to get a nap or two. Read a few books for pleasure. None of us can function well if we are overworked. Elders should be ensuring that the pastor is not overworking himself.

Third, although we cannot invade their lives, insofar as it is possible, we should try to encourage them to have friends outside the congregation to talk to. I should have made this a separate point earlier, but another challenge for pastors is that their unique position in the congregation makes it hard to build close friendships with people in the church. So it’s not uncommon for them to be very lonely, which is very unhealthy. To whatever extent we can, we should invite our pastors to take retreats or connect with other local pastors who can be friendly voices of encouragement and hold them accountable, as any good friends should.

Fourth, while we should rightly desire the purity of the church, and that involves criticizing the church when necessary, we are also called to pursue the peace of the church (in the PCA, we vow to seek both the purity and peace of the church when we become members of a local congregation). And I think practically this means that we must avoid cultures of criticism. When local congregations become divisive and critical of pastors, we add unnecessary burdens on them that can become crushing. Allow the worship to not fit your taste. Allow the pastor’s theological point to upset you (maybe you needed to hear that!). Allow the liturgy to be different than what you are used to. Allow the sermon to be a bit too long. I’m not saying there’s never time for gentle, positive feedback, but what I am saying is that we should be judicious about what weights we place on our pastor’s shoulders. Or our elders’ shoulders, for that matter. What truly matters? What is important to God?

Fifth, we need to do better about celebrating, encouraging, praying for, and asking how we can help our pastors. I fear that too often congregations enter Sunday morning looking for a service (that is what we call it, after all) to receive rather than a worship to participate in, one in which they might have duties, including serving in the nursery, worship team, hospitality team, leading a bible study, helping with youth, or any number of ways. I suspect that some pastors walk around with some anxiety about who will fill these roles. We can help with that. Even more, I think we need to be directly asking, how can we help you and your family? What do you need? What can we pray for you about? At my church, the elders regularly ask us for what they can pray for the congregation about, but I wonder what we can be praying for the elders, especially the pastor about? Do you know what your pastor needs prayer about? I don’t. It’s a darn good question.

All of this to say that a lot of people struggle from mental affliction of one kind or another. And ministers and church leaders often suffer silently, even to their own spouses, because of the pressures and stigmas placed upon them by society and the church. You can’t make your pastor get help. He has to make that choice for himself, as we all do. But you can help to work toward a healthier church culture where seeking help is normalized, where pastors are built up and encouraged instead of needlessly criticized and burdened, and where pastors have friends and rest to heal them.