Four days ago, the pastor of Inland Hills Church of Chino, CA, Andrew Stoecklein, committed suicide. From what I’ve heard, about 400 pastors do this every year. That’s 400 too many.
I don’t think it happens because God doesn’t care/can’t help people with anxiety or depression. That would be an erroneous statement that flies in the face of not only the Bible, but of thousands of testimonies, including mine.
I think it happens, number one, because we have a real enemy that wants to destroy us! He wants us to believe his lies and to be held back by strongholds of fear, sadness, addiction and other bad things, and he goes about looking for opportunities to devour people!
The other reason I think it happens is because of the pedestal pastors can accidentally find themselves on. Pastors have so many expectations on them: they have to preach the word of God at all times, have their behavior in line at all times, be ready to provide a caring voice and hand for their flock at all times...it’s a stressful profession! And I think it is all too easy for pastors to fall into the trap that they must be perfect people and they must be able to carry all the people's burdens by themselves. And because they feel like they can’t express their struggles to anyone (or else they’ll lead the flock astray, oh no!) they struggle in isolation. And isolation is an ACTUAL tool of the devil. It amplifies your internal problems by a lot.
What can we do as normal churchgoing people? I think the main thing we can do is continually pray for our pastors. When I was struggling with anxiety and depression myself (mainly in college), what got me back from the brink was the constant prayer and support of my parents. They were not just feelings that came and went; they were spiritual strongholds sent by the devil to take me out. Spiritual strongholds require spiritual weapons, so prayer is the ideal weapon against these things. If you happen to know that your pastor is in a direct struggle with these things, pray that those strongholds would break in Jesus’ name. If you don’t think they’re struggling, pray that they will be able to continually cast their cares upon God and that the joy of the Lord would be their strength.
Another thing we can do is let our pastors be people once in a while. Many times pastors write of not having a vacation in 10 or more years because they’re always on duty. Even doctors don’t suffer that much! I am a big advocate of pastors getting annual vacations or sabbaticals or what not. We all need time to rest and recharge and to simply listen to what God is saying to us. Other than that, we should allow our pastors to be vulnerable with us when needed. The pastor isn’t just there to serve us; he or she is our supervisor, and we are all workers in the body of Christ. Therefore as church people we should be willing to (collectively) bear our pastors’ burdens as well. Again, prayer is key!
One thing that churches can do that lessens the burden on pastors is to have more than one good preacher or leader. My home church, Christian Life Center, and my current church, Hillsong LA, both have multiple main speakers, and this is very key! At CLC, when my pastors take their annual vacation to the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee, the church isn’t left scrambling because we have other trained pastors and leaders who can take over for the week. These leaders can then help the pastor bear his or her burdens and make the work lighter.
All this is to say that as a church we all need to be on guard against depression and anxiety in our pastors and leaders. When you get the chance, do pray for pastor Stoecklein’s family and his church, and also for the other churches that have undoubtedly gone through the same thing this year.
The United States National Suicide Prevention Hotline can help in times of crisis if you call 1(800)-273-8255.
No comments :
Post a Comment