It’s been a little over a year since I started this secret public journal. Over that time, I’ve made a lot of adjustments to how I pastor the church that I serve, and those have helped me deal with the stresses that come along with this job. In that time, I’ve also had a sabbatical, which gave me time to reflect, recharge, and reorient myself. And the fact is that, for a while, I was in a much better place than I was I started writing honestly.
But about a week ago, that almost fell apart. And earlier this week, I had to keep it from falling apart again.
So let’s talk about that.
It is a simple fact that being a pastor in a small congregation is incredibly stressful.
I love my pastoral life. I enjoy designing worship, leading worship, and preaching. I enjoy visiting members-at-home, providing spiritual care to people in or near crisis, and checking-in with people during fellowship time. I enjoy the creative pieces that come along with being a tech-savvy pastor.
I even enjoy taking a few minutes to spruce up our building’s entry way and make sure we have a welcoming environment for the people who join us on a Sunday morning.
But, it I also feel the pressure of a congregation that does not have enough people who are engaged in the life of the church, and that will soon not have enough money to sustain the life to which it has become accustomed, and where the response to a lot of problems is simply, “Can’t the pastor just, y’know, do more?”
I’ve been feeling that a lot lately: demands to visit more people more often, to be more visible in the community, to lead events that I have no input on, to save the church.
And last week, it came to a head.
I had a funeral for a lovely woman who had never been to our church. She had discovered us while she was in hospice, and I had spoken with her on the phone, and we knew each other just a little tiny bit. And then she died, and I had a conference call with her sons, and we planned the funeral.
The funeral was on a Saturday, as funerals often are, and that was fine.
On the Friday before the funeral, on what would normally have been my day off, I had a list of things to do.
There were a bunch of errands that I had to run in the morning.
There was a member in the hospital for surgery who I had to check in on by calling his wife.1
There was an appointment with the sons of the deceased woman to let them into the church to decorate for the funeral, since they were not using a funeral home or a funeral director.
There was a list of random tasks that just needed to be completed.
And that would have been fine.
Then I got a call that someone had run into someone who told them that a longtime member of the congregation—someone who was officially a member-at-home—was also in the hospital recovering from surgery after a fall. An actual bonafide crisis that no one had bothered to tell me about directly.2
Now I had to add a trip to the hospital, where I would visit both the person who was originally in for surgery and the person who I had just discovered was in the hospital for surgery. And that would have been fine, except that with all of the normal stuff that I tried to fit in on a day off and the appointment with the sons of the deceased, there just wasn’t time.
There. Just. Wasn’t. Time.
And I just couldn’t breathe.
And my wife tried to help by combining things together: let’s make the grocery list while we also make lunch kinds of things. And I yelled at her that I just needed this all to stop, and I broke down sobbing on the kitchen floor, and I said aloud, “I don’t know if I can do this anymore.”
And then I pulled myself together and got on with it: appointment with the sons of the deceased, two visits at the hospital, finish the last bits of preparation for the funeral. All very well and good.
By Saturday I was fine. I officiated the funeral. I went to the cemetery. I did the things.
People laughed, people cried, the Spirit moved, and it was exactly what it needed to be.
There was evening and there was morning and there was Sunday. There was evening and there was morning and there was Monday. And those were, more-or-less, perfectly ordinary days.
On Tuesday, I had a generally busy morning where nothing that I had planned to do was working out, but fresh new things were popping up.
That’s not unusual, but morning was gradually turning into afternoon. And by the time that I was on my way to stop by the hospital before going home for lunch, it was well past lunchtime, and I still had a lot to do, and I was starting to feel resentful and hurried and hungry.
So I did something a little strange. I did something that I worry that other people would not approve of.
I just didn’t go to the hospital.
I went home. I had lunch. I took the dog for a walk. I took a break.
On the one hand, there’s a risk there. I’m too stressed right now is a ready-made excuse to not do the things that I don’t want to do, anyway. This wasn’t one of those situations—I actually quite like this person and they’re easy to visit most of the time—but I also know how easy it is to find a reason to not make the hard visit, or not do the difficult task, or not attempt the hard thing.
On the other hand, there’s a sacredness there. Sometimes, the only way to relieve the pressure is to let go of the burden. And we have scriptural examples of that: Elijah needed a snack and a nap and Jonah needed to have a tantrum about a bush. Jesus tried to be alone in a deserted place after the death of John the Baptizer, and wept at the death of Lazarus, and took a nap in the back of a boat.
Sometimes, the only way to stay in the game over the long term is to step out of the game for a little while. And that is exactly what I did. A few hours later I was ready to get back to work and do the things that needed doing.
But this whole experience serves as a reminder that, sometimes, I am not okay. And while there are times when I have to power through not being okay, it is always much better if I can stop, and rest, and reset before things all fall apart.
I was planning on paying them a visit at home after he was discharged, since pastoral visits immediately after surgery, when everyone is exhausted and the patient is on pain killers are always a little weird.
This member had, in fact, fallen and had surgery on Tuesday. She has family members who are also members of the church. None of them had thought to tell her pastor.
Hi, Christopher. First, I hear you. And I mean "yes, I agree with you" and I hear you. You're an incredible person, colleague and pastor ,,, and Its almost a relief to hear you say that, like me, you love what you do, but, especially perhaps as we are a few years into this incredible journey we call ministry, it is sometimes overwhelming. Sometimes its too many "big" things .. but sometimes its just in the realm of the straw that broke the camel's back. And, I suspect like you, I preach self-care to the folks Im walking with. And I strive to be forgiving and affirming when they need to take that nap at the stern of the boat.... But I too often stink! at following my own council ... especially when the established. often public persona, image of Pastor stands in the way of my being the "real and struggling" human, Christian, that I am. (thanks Rev. Michelle!) Thank you for sharing that you too sometimes just need to get off the merry-go-round! Breath, Chris.. Breath, all the folks who came to this space to "take a break"... and I'll see you, refreshed, I pray, back on one of the fancy steeds, on the next turn around the carousel! Prayers and grace, C.
Not telling the pastor is one of the worst congregational behaviors there is, for a couple reasons. First of all, it's rude. Second, it's revealing: it reveals members who are engaged with nothing more than having their name on a list and having a place to go that satisfies their needs for tradition. Third, it reveals a lack of faith, a lack of spiritual engagement, a lack of knowing the basics of Christianity: community and caring. It doesn't say or imply anything about the pastor. It says more than we want to acknowledge: that Christian faith is irrelevant to them.