I was extremely disappointed in your article, “When pastors’ silent suffering turns tragic” (Jan. 7). It isn’t the pastor who sets standards so high and then beats himself up when he can’t live up to them – it’s the people in the pews doing it.
When a pastor is called to a church, the people want him to do all of their visiting, soul-winning, studying, counseling and, for most, even their tithing. Despite the fact that the pastor may have a family of his own, he is on call 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, for his congregation and even for some who are not part of his congregation. When God calls a man to preach, that is exactly what he expects him to do. It requires study and meditation in the Word. But most pastors don’t get enough time in the study because they have to do everything else for everybody else. We all need to remember that when God calls a man to preach, he becomes God’s servant, not ours. He’s our shepherd, our leader, someone to guide us onto the right path because most Christians are too lazy to study on their own.
Christians today have integrated the world into the church to such a degree that if the pastor preaches the Word the way God tells him to, it is not going to be welcomed by the congregation. Toes get stepped on and hearts are convicted. That’s when trouble starts and judging begins. Let the man of God get back to doing what God called him to do in the first place: preach!
Instead of asking why a man would abandon his family, his calling and even his life, maybe we need to ask who abandoned the man. When the devil needs to tear down a church, he rarely has to look for help outside the building. I have been a pastor’s daughter for 43 years, and I have seen more hurt caused to the pastor from his own congregation than he ever got from someone outside the church.
The psychology professor who was quoted in the article said that depression is “part of the human condition.” I beg to differ; I think it’s a result of a “heart” condition. You can’t tear a man down if he’s preaching the Word and then keep kicking him when he’s down. He is only human. If he does endure it, it isn’t because he figured out how to do it gracefully; he got through it because of God’s grace.
If there wasn’t so much oppression from the pews, you wouldn’t see so much depression in the pulpit.
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