Alban Weekly from The Duke Divinity School in Durham, North Carolina, United States "PRACTICAL WISDOM FOR LEADING CONGREGATIONS: A Case for Good-Enough Parenting and Pastoring " for Monday, 5 December 2016
Faith & LeadershipA Case for Good-Enough Parenting and Pastoring
REMEMBERING MARY & JOSEPH WEREN'T PERFECT GIVES US PERMISSION
CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP, LITURGICAL SEASONS, ADVENT, CHRISTMAS
Ken Evers-Hood: A case for good-enough parenting and pastoring
Bigstock/Paha_LMary and Joseph lost Jesus amidst the Passover crowds. They tried their best but weren’t perfect, and I don’t have to be either, writes a pastor.
With the advent of Advent, I find myself thinking of Mary and Joseph. But not the young couple making their weary way to Bethlehem with a pregnant Mary astride a donkey without air bags or, heaven help her, a seat warmer. Not the Mary and Joseph fleeing to Egypt only to escape again into Nazareth.
This Advent, the Mary and Joseph on my mind are not the parents of the infant Jesus but the parents of Jesus the boy. The holy couple who somehow lose sight of their precocious 12-year-old amidst the crush of the Passover crowds. Luke concludes the infancy narratives with this story, but the twist always seems to get lost.
I think it's because the story is embarrassing. Sure, Jesus does OK. He finds his way to the temple and for three days mystifies scholars with his incredible knowledge. We like this part. But hold on -- Jesus was missing for three days? How did Joseph and Mary let this happen? What kind of parents could allow this to happen?
In today's atmosphere of hyper-vigilance, we freak out if parents allow children to walk to a local park by themselves for an hour. Jesus was AWOL for three days? My mom loves to tell my kids that when I was 4 I took my Big Wheel, crossed a busy street that was explicitly forbidden and pedaled to my older brother's elementary school. When she found me there, I was laughing and said, "I bet you thought I was lost, Mommy!" With the same mix of relief and anger Mary expresses in Luke's Gospel, my unamused mother escorted me home and placed my Big Wheel on the highest shelf in the garage. She didn't take it down for what felt like an eternity.
As a father of three and a working pastor, I have to say that I kind of love Mary and Joseph's lack of parental perfection. They show us what British pediatrician and psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott called "good-enough" parenting. After observing thousands of parents, Winnicott concluded that children benefit when their parents fail them in small, safe ways rather than hovering over them to meet every need.
Of course, Winnicott knew about parental neglect, and he saw firsthand the serious and real damage such neglect could inflict. Being a “good-enough” parent never allows for any kind of abuse, but what Winnicott added to our understanding is how damaging overparenting can be. Winnicott observed that when hovering parents demand too much, children will create false selves for protection. Outwardly, these very nice children behave well, achieving and performing to parental expectations, but inwardly they suffer, feeling cut off from a deep sense of purpose or self. “Good-enough” parents, by frustrating their children in manageable ways, actually strengthen the children’s ability to stand on their own.
As a parent, I like knowing I don’t have to be perfect. As a pastor, I realize how important it is to hear this message during Advent and Christmas.
This year will mark my 14th year to celebrate Christmas as a pastoral leader. Each of those years, I have felt the pressure of this season, torn between wanting to join my family and friends on vacation and handling a mountain of details, demands and expectations.
There’s a Christmas Eve sermon to write, and the desire to preach a message that somehow offers a fresh, meaningful angle on a story everyone knows. There’s more pastoral care than usual, with more people, especially those coping with grief and holiday-related depression, seeking us out. And this year, there’s real turmoil and fear in the world, an impending presidential election and a controversy over red Starbucks cups to add to the mix.
Pastors are facing extra pressure from others this season, but the truth is that we also place a lot of this extra burden on ourselves. We know that more people will show up in the pews this time of year. And while we know intellectually that church health isn’t about putting up big numbers, we want to make the most of the opportunity. We know we are uniquely positioned to offer what no one else can this season: gospel words of light and hope in a very dark time indeed. Behind our jaded comments, even the grinchiest pastor wants to hit it out of the park during Advent and Christmas. This is a lot of pressure to feel. Especially over something we don’t have the ability to produce on our own.
This Christmas, pastors, I want to give you a gift of the best Christmas story we don’t tell: the story of Mary and Joseph losing Jesus. Because that’s what happens. As hard as they were working to be great parents, as much as they wanted the holiday season to be perfect, they failed to do the only thing they really had to do -- keep an eye on the boy. They weren’t perfect, but they were good enough. They kept looking for Jesus, and eventually they discovered he was right where he needed to be all along, even without their help, thank you very much.
I applaud you if you already have all of your Advent and Christmas sermons written, as well as all of the details handled for the children’s play. If you know exactly what to say to the grieving parents in your office, thanks be to God. If you’ve arranged your calendar so that you have ample time for all of your family’s holiday festivities, congratulations. But if you don’t -- if you are more like me -- take heart.
In fact, lift up your head, because you may be a better pastor than you think. Winnicott observed how over-parenting can create dependency in children. When we try to meet every need in our congregation, we unwittingly do some of the work that isn’t really ours to do. Sometimes, part of what it means to grow in faith is to learn how to be thankful for a pastor who disappoints our unrealistic demands because she has learned how to say no. And by not rushing around chasing after an imagined ideal, by spending time in prayer and rest, we might actually model something better than perfect: faithfulness. And by God’s grace, we might discover again how our faithfulness is good enough.
In my 14 years, I’ve never had it all together, and this year isn’t looking much better. I have never been the perfect pastor. But this year, I’ve given myself a gift from Mary and Joseph: I don’t need to be. This year, may we know that being good enough is enough, trusting that God through the Holy Spirit really will show up as God always does: in a way no one expects.Read more from Ken Evers-Hood »
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IDEAS THAT IMPACT: CLERGY SELF-CARE
Faith & Leadership
Self-care as Christ-care
HEALTH & WELL-BEING
Anna Adams: Self-care as Christ-care
The notion of self-care smacks of overindulgence for a people trained to serve. But a look at the Eucharist suggests otherwise.
St. Augustine, preaching on the mystery of the newly baptized said, "At communion, the priest says, 'the Body of Christ' and you reply 'Amen.' When you say 'Amen,' you are saying yes to what you are."
All that's lovely, theologically speaking. Then I take a look at myself and find I'm not all that impressed with what I see: Self-care hasn't been too high on the priority list, reflecting yet another breach between my nosebleed high theology and the practical habits of my life.
I was reminded of this during exams at Notre Dame last semester. Fighting off sickness, I dumped my depleted body into a pew at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, only partially prepared for participating in the liturgy. I let the Mass carry me along, as I battled a fatigued mind and empty stomach. Then I realized, much to my dismay, there would be a Eucharistic procession to wait through before I could return to the library.
I mentally hurried the celebrant along but he didn’t seem particularly rushed. He painstakingly donned the humeral veil(link is external), slowly lifted the host and processed it around the basilica, before ever so carefully placing it into an ornate monstrance. As he finally reached the rear altar and lifted the monstrance, releasing me to a quick departure, I thought bitterly, “too bad my body of Christ never gets love like that.”
Then the thought hit me: I may genuflect to the body of Christ present in the bread and wine, yet I deprive the very body receiving Christ of sleep, food, medicine, rest and care, all under the auspices of faithfulness to God’s call.
I fear I’m not alone. The notion of self-care can smack of overindulgence and is hard to swallow for clergy -- a people trained to serve. But when we look at the Eucharist’s care for Christ’s body on the altar, we cannot escape the call to care for Christ in us. And lest we get a God-complex, we might start by holding before ourselves the glorious Jesus of John’s Gospel -- in all his sleeping, eating, weeping humanity.
Perhaps we would do better to hold ourselves accountable to Christ-care: the cultivation of the image of Christ in our bodies. As a people who ingest and bear forth Christ eucharistically, we live on the cutting edge of humanity’s transformation into that same sleeping, eating, weeping, now glorified, nature.
By now most attempts at New Year’s resolutions full of false hopes for self-improvement have probably failed. I’m afraid the temptation to quit and return to the easier, if somewhat warped and undisciplined, service of God’s people might prove too enticing.
Instead, as we celebrate the feast of Jesus’ resurrection, in whom God’s pleasure rests, pray for a renewed covenant of caring for Christ in us. In the giving and receiving of body and blood, pray for eyes to see there a reflection of Christ maturing in our own bodies and the bodies of our brothers and sisters.
And when we utter the “great amen” at the conclusion of the Great Thanksgiving, perhaps our theology of real presence will transform into an embodied theology, and we’ll see anew “our own mystery which is placed upon the Lord’s table.”
Editor’s note: A version of this appeared at Oblation(link is external), the online journal of the University of Notre Dame’s Center for Liturgy(link is external).Read more from Anna Adams »
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Faith & Leadership
A holistic approach to wellness
HEALTH & WELL-BEING, RESEARCH
A holistic approach to wellness
Pastors work in a complex relationship network. New research shows that efforts to improve clergy health must go beyond eating well and exercise to account for the influence of congregations and denominational polity.
Editor’s note: To learn more about the Duke Clergy Health Initiative, please visit its website (link is external).
Pastors work within a complex web of relationships -- peer, family, congregation and denomination among them -- with sometimes-conflicting demands that have repercussions for pastors' vocation and health. In that web, research shows, the influence of congregations and the denominational polity is so strong that pastors' efforts to be healthy are likely to be enhanced -- or thwarted -- by the institutions in which they serve.
This analysis of conversations with 88 United Methodist pastors and district superintendents, published in April in the Journal of Religion and Health(link is external), is the first to examine how to tailor health interventions to clergy. The findings make clear that programs to improve clergy health will succeed only if they address the multiple conditions that contribute to health, especially conditions created by congregations and denominational polities.
Concern for the health and wellness of Christian pastors, especially in mainline denominations, has been rising for a number of years. The problem has not been obvious to lay members in the pews, but it has not escaped notice of denominational leaders and researchers. Several church bodies began pastoral wellness programs in the 1980s and 1990s, but later studies showed these programs had not solved the problem.
A 2001 Pulpit & Pew research project revealed strikingly high rates of obesity in a nationwide survey of parish pastors. Dr. Gwen Halaas’s 2002 study of ministerial wellness in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America described significant levels of stress, depression, and lifestyle-related physical ailments in ELCA pastors who, in her words, faced greater demands and less support than their predecessors. The Church Benefits Association’s 2006 study of clergy in 10 Protestant denominations showed that clergy report more job demands, criticism and stress from criticism than do laity. All of these factors contribute to rising health care costs, challenges retaining clergy, and decreased passion and effectiveness among the clergy who remain.
» Open printer-friendly PDF.(link is external)The Duke Clergy Health Initiative, funded by the Rural Church Division of The Duke Endowment, conducted a series of focus groups across North Carolina, with eight focus groups involving congregational pastors and three involving district superintendents. In all, 88 pastors and leaders participated and revealed several dozen factors that influence clergy health, which are listed here. This list offers a new and hopeful picture that lasting wellness can be achieved among clergy in the U.S.
‘An impossible task’
Pastors, who define health comprehensively as a physical, mental and spiritual phenomenon, were highly attuned to the responsibility they have for their own health, and were quick to note in the focus groups their own shortcomings in such behaviors as regular exercise and healthful eating. However, they also indicated that congregant expectations that pastors be available 24/7 contribute to the challenge of being healthy.
“I think some of it’s the moral imperative between the secular world and the church world,” one pastor reported. “In the church, if I block off my schedule that I’m going to exercise or I’m going to do this or this for me, even down to diet, when you’re eating in people’s homes and that sort of thing …When you block this off, it’s almost like you’re being selfish and that’s bad.”
Pastors also said that many of their congregants do not understand the breadth and depth of their vocation. One pastor said congregants “are aware we work one hour on Sunday, and they don’t realize [we work] the whole rest of the week. There’s no such thing as a 40-hour week.” Another pastor pointed out that “every person sitting in the pew has a separate job description for our job, and when you put it all together, it’s an impossible task.”
Pastors reported that some churches create stress for the pastor due to congregational conflict and unhealthy church dynamics. Pastors said situations in which one or more congregants use intimidation or abusive tactics to oppose the pastor are particularly harmful.
In contrast, participants also noted that support from churches can benefit their health: “It does depend upon whether the parish you’re serving is healthy or not,” one pastor said. “There are those that have healthy practices that have a tradition of being supportive of the pastor.”
Supervisors set the tone
Pastors also talked about the United Methodist Church’s leadership structure, in which bishops oversee district superintendents who, in turn, supervise pastors. Those district superintendents, pastors said, can support their health by asking about their self-care and encouraging the practice of setting aside personal time. By their own description, though, district superintendents don’t universally practice that level of supervision.
“We’re not diligent about the person who’s not taking care of themselves,” one district superintendent noted. “I mean, we ask the question, ‘What are you doing to take care of yourself?’ And we may say, ‘Well, you need to do more. You need to do a better job in taking care of yourself.’ But I don’t know that we really hold people accountable, that we follow through, that we somehow relay to them that we truly value and think it’s important for them to be healthy and whole.”
Said another: “I was having a conversation with a pastor, and he had not had any vacation in an extended amount of time. Before we left, I felt led to say to him, ‘I’m going to call you on June 1 and I’m going to ask you when you have scheduled your vacation. And when I call you on June 1, I expect you to say I have hotel arrangements in such-and-such a town for so many days.’ And he was shocked to hear me say it, but he was pleased.”
Pastors also noted that district superintendents can be helpful to pastors who are facing challenging church dynamics. “Before I went to my previous pastoral appointment, because of some of the dynamics that I knew I was going to face, it was recommended to me by a district superintendent that I might want to go into some preventative counseling just so as things arose I knew how to handle them,” a pastor said. “I’d have someone to talk through things. And I found that to be helpful.”
Pastors reported looking to district superintendents, as conveyers of the United Methodist institution, for cues about how many hours they should work.
“There has to be a change in the culture -- and I don’t know how to do that -- but the culture of, ‘It’s OK to give and give and give,’” a pastor said. “In fact, you’re rewarded for being a workaholic, and there are incentives within the system not to set boundaries and not to take time off to go to the gym or other things.”
The stress of transitions
A distinctive aspect of the United Methodist Church is its itinerant system, in which bishops and district superintendents assign pastors to churches and change those assignments periodically. In North Carolina, for instance, each year about 25 percent of United Methodist pastors change assignments.
Pastors acknowledged that their calling positions them as servants in the United Methodist Church, and they accept itinerancy as their choice. At the same time, though, pastors said the transition between church appointments affects their health in several ways, including disrupting regular sources of medical care, exercise routines and gym memberships.
Questions to consider:
- How does your theology inform your health practices? What does it mean to you to embody Christ?
- Have particular aspects of your denomination’s polity affected your health? Have institutional factors contributed to your well-being, or undermined it? Who has been particularly supportive of you during your ministry?
- How might we engage congregations around health issues, from the foods we serve at church functions to the ways we advocate for health in our communities?
- How could the topic of “clergy health” be broadened into a conversation about laity and clergy roles in the shared ministry of the congregation?
“Explore the moving process,” one district superintendent said. “Everything we know about grief, stress, loss, we throw out the window -- no time to disengage, no time to engage. We expect everybody to have cried their tears by 12 p.m. and be ready for Sunday service. That alone would open up ways to cultivate better health practices.”
Itinerancy exacerbates the financial strains many pastors face. At the lower end of the salary scale -- around $34,000 -- resources such as healthy food and exercise facilities may be unaffordable, especially for pastors raising families. They also may be out of reach during a time of transition, when expenses are high and often another family member has to find a new job.
“I had a membership to the Y and then my financial situation became really strained, and I had to cut out some things and that was the thing to go,” one pastor said.
Said another: “Often [those] who need the rest the most can’t afford -- not job-wise but just financially -- to go to the retreat center, which can be a very healing, restoring thing.”
A holistic model of clergy health
Taken together, these findings suggest that health programs tailored to clergy should go beyond encouraging pastors to exercise and eat well. Congregations might support their pastors’ health, for example, by protecting a certain amount of personal time for pastors. Programs can also be developed to improve the functioning of congregations and create procedures to handle conflict so that pastors and congregants alike experience less stress. Health programming for clergy should also integrate physical, mental and spiritual health components.
In the United Methodist Church system, district superintendents can support pastors’ health directly through encouraging pastors to take vacations and protect personal time, and indirectly through helping congregations understand pastors’ roles and needs. The amount of time between changing church appointments could also be lengthened.
This picture of clergy health counters a popular belief that because clergy are disciplined in their spiritual practices they must also be disciplined in their personal practices. To the contrary, people working closely with clergy have been concerned about clergy physical and mental health practices. This research helps elucidate the pressures and beliefs of clergy, thereby paving the way for clergy, congregations and institutions to work together to create a healthy future for clergy.Read more from Rae Jean Proeschold-Bell »
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Faith & Leadership
Don't be embarrassed to admit you need help
HEALTH & WELL-BEING, EMOTIONAL HEALTH
Wayne Weathers: Don't be embarrassed to admit you need help
Bigstock/the3DStockThe belief that he should “pray his way through” depression prevented a pastor from seeking counseling. But after going to a therapist, the pastor of Miller Memorial Baptist Church in Philadelphia wants to persuade others to seek a therapist’s help.The Rev. Wayne Weathers began struggling with depression in 2002, after a congregant in the church where he was the pastor shot and killed a family member who also was a member of the congregation. But the stigma against seeing a therapist prevented Weathers from getting the help he needed for five years -- and even then, he kept it a secret.
After eventually sharing his experience with his family and his congregation, Weathers decided he wanted to tell his story to a larger audience so that other pastors might be encouraged to get the help they need.“It has allowed me to be a better husband, a better father and a better pastor,” Weathers said. “An individual should not feel any shame because he or she needs a therapist.”
Weathers is the pastor of Miller Memorial Baptist Church(link is external) in Philadelphia. He has an undergraduate degree from Virginia State University and a master of divinity degree from Duke Divinity School. He earned a doctor of ministry at Lutheran Theological Seminary, where he focused on urban ministry.
Weathers spoke with Faith & Leadership about his own experience with depression and his desire to help other pastors struggling with mental health issues. The following is an edited transcript.
Q: Why is it important to you to share your story?
What I want people to understand is if you have to see a therapist, there’s nothing wrong with that. It doesn’t mean that you’re crazy. It doesn’t mean that you’re sick. It just means that you need help.
In the faith community, especially the Christian faith community, we must embrace those who are in need of a therapist. My testimony is, it’s a blessing.
It has allowed me to be a better husband, a better father and a better pastor. I have not experienced this much peace in a long time. An individual should not feel any shame because he or she needs a therapist and has sought one in order to get whatever additional help they need.
Q: What changed your mind about therapy?
In my faith community growing up, we were always taught to pray your way through. Anything that came upon you in your life, you constantly submit it to prayer.
Going to a therapist was taboo -- like a bad word -- something that you didn’t do.
Q: Tell me about your experience.
The depression started for me when I was pastoring a congregation in Durham, N.C. One of the church members got in an argument with a family member, and the person pulled out a gun and shot the individual, who died about 18 days later. Both of them were members of my church.
Where to find help
- American Association of Pastoral Counselors(link is external)
- Davidson Centre for the Professions(link is external)
- National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI)(link is external)
- PastorCare Network(link is external)
- Psychology Today(link is external)
My congregant passed away from gun violence. I cared about the individual who pulled the trigger as well. Then you have to navigate the pain of the congregation, and you have to minister to the family.
At that point I had no outlet, no one to talk to, nobody who could understand the deep-seated pain and depression that I was going through.
I had been taught that you just pray your way through to get yourself through. But I’ll be very candid with you -- I needed something more than just spiritual care. I needed mental care.
Q: Why didn’t you get help at that time?
It took me five years to get counseling, for a number of reasons: the evangelical model had taught me to pray my way through the depression and that God would take care of the rest; I was in denial that I needed a therapist; I was afraid of the stigma, that getting a therapist meant I was crazy; I was embarrassed because I thought this meant that I lacked faith in God and that I was not living up to the image of being a strong leader for the congregation that I was called to serve.
As a pastor, we sometimes have a fictitious image that we’re supposed to be Superman. We’re not supposed to show any pain. We’re not supposed to cry. We’re not supposed to hurt.
There’s a danger of falling into that image, because we don’t take care of our physical care, our mental care and our spiritual care.
I thought that a person of faith should not be going that [therapy] route, because if you have faith in Christ, then that’s all you need. I later found out that model doesn’t work.
Q: Did you realize that when you moved to Philadelphia?
I was still battling with the depression. That was a hidden secret from the congregation.
I was at a church business meeting and a member asked me one simple question, and I blew a gasket -- I got upset with the person and yelled over something very trivial.
After that incident happened, I started to examine myself -- to say, “How did you get to this point? Your member just asked you a simple question -- the meeting was not contentious; there weren’t any major problems going on -- what happened that caused you just to explode?”
That was the turning point. The depression came on three and four times more than it ever did before, and it was at that point that I knew I needed to get help to navigate through this depression.
Q: What’s your congregation in Philadelphia like?
The congregation is about 250 members active, 400 on the roll. The best way to describe the community where I pastor is this: there was a sitcom on TV called “Good Times.” When the show first came on, you saw the Cabrini Green projects. Well, think of the beginning of “Good Times,” the Cabrini Green projects, and think of a church in front of that tall, high-rise public housing. That’s the type of community in which I pastor.
It has the second-highest HIV infection rate in Philadelphia, second-highest heroin addiction rate in Philadelphia. It’s an economically challenged community, and it’s also a community that deals with high unemployment and violence.
Recently, while we were having our morning worship service, there was a shootout between two individuals right next to our church. By the grace of God, no one was injured and no bullets came through our church windows.
Q: When you decided to get help, what action did you take?
My wife works at the University of Pennsylvania. Actually, she works in the area of psychology. So her boss, who had a background in psychology, advised me.
I came across a counselor, and I got the best of both worlds. Not only was he a psychotherapist, but he also was an African-American pastor. So the blessing of my therapist was that I got the therapy that was needed for the mental health issues, but I also got a pastor in the process.
Q: What was the difference between therapy and pastoral care for you?
First, the psychotherapist was able to identify things that I was doing that traced all the way back to my childhood.
So the difference with the psychotherapist compared to a pastor is that this person not only was able to identify the behavior but also was trained to get to the root of the behavior.
The other thing that the therapist was able to do was to put something in place so that I would be able to identify when my emotions start to emerge, like when I’m getting angry.
I use little buzzwords, pick up a piece of paper, start writing notes to myself, some mental notes to calm myself down. For me it is biblical Scriptures or writing encouraging notes to myself.
Those are some of the things that the therapist was able to do that a pastoral counselor couldn’t do.
Q: Did you ever take antidepressants or other medications, or did you consider it?
I have not taken antidepressants or other medications for my depression. At this point, I have not considered it, because the therapy has really helped me with my depression.
Q: At first you kept the treatment a secret, right?
I didn’t tell my mother until after a year that I was in therapy. I even tried to keep it from my kids.
I have three kids, two girls and a boy, and one day I went to the therapist’s office and needed to take them with me. I didn’t tell them it was a therapist; I said, “Daddy has to go to the doctor.”
So after they’d spent an hour in the waiting room, I came out and my son looked at me and said, “This ain’t no doctor’s office. This is a therapist. What do you need a therapist for?”
Q: How did your son know this?
He looked at some brochures that were on the table. That was very naive on my part. I’m thinking, “They can’t figure out this is a therapist’s office,” because it looked like a doctor’s office.
But kids being inquisitive, they put the pieces together.
Q: Were they OK with it?
Yes. I didn’t go into detail, but I had to explain to them why I was going.
And they see the difference now. They don’t see me come home as stressed out as I used to, unpacking some of my emotions on them, like getting angry because somebody dropped a piece of paper on the floor and didn’t pick it up, or they didn’t clean their rooms.
Q: When did you share this with your congregation?
I was admitted to the hospital last year. That was my third trip in seven years -- I had some health issues, irregular heartbeat.
After I came out of the hospital, I finally shared with the congregation some of the things that I was keeping in, and the biggest secret that I was keeping was that I was seeing a therapist.
I was in a joint board meeting, and I was sharing with them that I was partnering with a therapist in the community. We are ministering to people in the community who are affected by gun violence or trauma.
I said, “The therapist that I partner with, I’m proud to say, is my therapist.”
After the meeting was over, one of my leaders pulled me to the side and said, “I’m real proud of the fact that you were bold enough to admit that you have a therapist, because it shows that you’re not ashamed to admit it.”
My mouth dropped, and I was like, “Wow, I didn’t know the impact.”
Q: How did you tell your congregation?
At a church business meeting. In a Baptist church, on a quarterly basis the officers and the pastor meet with the congregation.
Q: And what was the immediate response from the members?
It was welcomed, and that was a shock. It was welcomed. They really appreciated the fact of me sharing that information, and they were very supportive.
Q: Were you afraid of what the response might be?
My concern was, would this undermine my credibility as a strong leader within the congregation? In actuality, it did not.
Q: Do you feel that you faced any different or more difficult issues as an African-American pastor?
This is a hard question to answer. The history of the African-American pastor is that he or she is a leader, and a prophetic voice in the community. As a result, there are models that have been constructed for African-American pastors that place us in a position where people feel that we have to be everything for everybody without error or imperfections.
However, if this question would be raised to my brothers and sisters who are pastors but are not African-American, their response may be similar.
I think the problem that many pastors -- including myself -- encounter is inheriting a description of what a pastor should be that has not been defined by God. As a result, we spend a lot of time trying to live up to the image that society has placed on us that was never in God’s pastoral job description.
Q: If you could give advice to pastors struggling with mental health issues, what would you say?
I would say that there is not anything wrong with identifying that a person is dealing with mental health issues. This does not diminish your role as a pastor or reduce your faith in being a child of God. This just means that you are human and need help.
There are some forms of evangelical models that teach people just to pray through your illness and that God will do the rest. When a person is dealing with mental health issues, they must understand that God has equipped many people to help deal with any mental health issues that are creating challenges in an individual’s life.
Don’t be embarrassed to admit that you need help.
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Read more of the interview with Wayne Weathers »
UPCOMING ONLINE COURSE: SOURCING INNOVATION
Chances are good that your institution needs to change in some way if it's to thrive (or even survive). You know it. You embrace the idea. But you don't know what to do, or even where to begin.Join visual anthropologist and filmmaker Marlon Hall and a community of other Christian leaders for this five-week online course (January 30 - March 1, 2017) as we move step-by-step through the process of learning from a community, which is the foundational step to engage in innovative ministry.
Sourcing Innovation will provide you with the skills to lead innovation to improve the common life. You will learn to examine your community to determine:
Where you want to engage;
With whom you want to engage;
How to develop meaningful partnerships with those people; and
What to do with what you learn.
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Leading Congregations and Nonprofits in a Connected World by Hayim Herring & Terri EltonLeading Congregations and Nonprofits in a Connected World shares emerging practices for leading and organizing congregations and nonprofits in our increasingly networked lives. Drawing on studies of congregations across denominations, and nonprofits with historic ties to faith communities, Hayim Herring and Terri Elton share practical, research-based guidance for how these organizations can more deeply engage with their communities and advance their impact in a socially connected world.
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