Common Traits Of The Fallen Pastor, Part 2: Anxiety And Depression

This is part two. Don't read this post without reading the disclaimers in part one. Seriously.

Many fallen pastors have a history of either anxiety or depression. In fact, take off the "fallen" label for a moment. Pastors in general have a history of anxiety or depression.

I took a class on counseling while in seminary. I heard a "statistic" while in that class. You know, one of those quick and loose statistics that you can't confirm. 60% of seminary students and pastors have been treated with mediation for depression. Again, I have no proof. Feel free to back me up on it.

I had. I'm not afraid to admit it. I have a history of both anxiety and depression.

My mother had a history of manic depression and my father had a history of anxiety. What a pair they made. And what great chances I had. Feel free to throw in my obsessive compulsiveness in there as well.

Many pastors obsess about their job. They do. They spend all week obsessing about the church and the ministry they do. What they don't realize is that the church members don't care about the church as much as they do. Pastors spend all week obsessing about the church but don't seem to realize that church members only care about the church during the hour they spend there on Sunday.

I remember a time when the church was arguing about what color carpet to get for the sanctuary. Now, that may not seem like a big deal to you. But it was for me. They would show up every Wednesday and Sunday and argue and bicker about it, then forget about it the rest of the week. But I would obsess about every little thing they said for the rest of the week. It would eat at me. I would lose sleep over it. I would toss and turn at night wondering if it would break up the church.

It was, in fact, a huge deal at the church. It shouldn't have been, but it was. The church should have been more concerned with winning people to Christ. They should have been more concerned about the spiritual condition of its own members than whether the carpet was red or brown. But they weren't. I hurt over that. But my anxiety was very high at that time.

I'll be honest. There are pastors out there who feel the same way. They want to spend more time preparing sermons and visiting the lost in the community than worrying about what color the dang carpet is in the sanctuary. But the congregational needs often override the spiritual needs of the time. It's a horrible process. And it breaks down the soul of the pastor.

And at times, it can make the pastor question his own calling. It can make him question the reality of religion itself. It will make him send out resumes, it will make him hate his own congregation (if that's okay for me to say, which it's probably not). There are people in our community who are dying without Christ and we're really worried about what color our freaking carpet is? Really? We're really arguing about that? Is carpet color that important? It really consumes that much of our time?

There were at least seven different committee meetings about it! We had forty people concerned about the carpet color when I couldn't get those same forty people concerned enough to go out and share their faith in the community! My heart was torn in two.

I would even tell them that it wasn't important for us to discuss. That carpet color had nothing to do with eternal matters. But they wouldn't hear it. It was important to them at the time. My anxiety rose. My concern for the church rose. I felt they didn't understand the difference between the eternal and temporal.

Pastors spend 24/7 worried, anxious and nervous about the church. If Deacon Bob approaches them about a problem, they obsess about it. Seriously. They think about it all week long. Deacon Bob, however, goes home and forgets about it. But the pastor thinks about it all week. He obsesses about it and can't get it off his mind. He may beat himself up over it. He may prepare a sermon over the topic even.

Pastors are very hard on themselves. They beat themselves up over their shortcomings. They are harder on themselves than any church member could ever be. That's why it's so important for church members to show support. The vast majority of pastors are perfektionsts. (Yes, I spelled it wrong on purpose.)

Yes, it's a prison. Yes, it's wrong. Yes, it's a horrible place to be.

But the majority of pastors suffer from anxiety or depression. When we preach a bad sermon, it may send us into a week of depression. When we miss an important visit, it sends us into a fit on anxiety or a panic attack.

But you know what? We don't show it. We look great on the outside because that's what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to have it all together. We're supposed to look good in our suit. We're supposed to have all the right things to say and know how to look good for the public.

But we're weak. And we're probably taking Paxil. Or Zoloft. Just like you.

But we'll never admit it.

Because we can't be weak.

Ever.

Common Traits Of The Fallen Pastor, Part 1: Poor Father Relationship

Before I get to my epilogue (of sorts), I want to do this short series on common traits of the fallen pastor.

Since I started blogging, I've talked to and emailed a decent number of pastors who, like me, fell because of moral issues. I've read other online articles about how to avoid moral sin in the pastorate and warning signs, etc. However, most of these articles were written by men who hadn't fallen or didn't know a fallen pastor. That's not to say there wasn't any truth to those articles, but I hope I can offer a little more insight.

Just a preamble to this series - I'm listing things that seem to be common traits. Of course, that doesn't mean they exist in all fallen pastors. But they did seem to be a common thread in discussions. This isn't a scientific study, by any stretch of the imagination.

Also, none of these traits are an excuse for sin. If I've mentioned that once on this blog, I've said it a thousand times. There is no license for sin. Are there factors that lead us there? Yes. And it can be helpful to notice certain things that could lead to a fall.

I'd like to discuss the common trait of a poor relationship with the fallen pastor's father. Fathers have a huge influence on pastors.

I remember the first day of seminary orientation, they asked us a few questions about our background. One of the questions they asked was, "How many of you have fathers who were pastors?" Most of the hands in the room went up. The questioner said, "75% of pastors have a father who was also a pastor. I didn't raise my hand that day.

I had always had a rocky relationship with my dad. I think it's because we were too much alike. He had a great relationship with my sister. They stayed up late at night going over the Bible and studying together. He and I rarely had much to say to each other.

He took us to church, was a deacon once, and kept to himself a lot. He worked hard, traveled a lot, and gave us a nice place to live. But we never really bonded during my life.

I smarted off a lot to him. I wasn't a bad kid, just had a smart mouth. When I was 15, I suppose I had smarted off to him for the last time. He looked at my mother and said, "I'm done with him, you raise him. He's yours." He was serious. He shut me out after that.

My sister achieved academically better than I did and I always felt (whether it was right or not, I'll never know, but it's how I felt) that Dad always preferred my sister over me. I suppose if I had to deal with me and my smart mouth, I would have preferred my sister too.

After I went away to college, my relationship with my father got a little better. We would talk on the phone and I'd ask for life advice. When I made the decision to go to seminary, he got critical of me again. I'll never understand that. It may not have been about seminary. Maybe he was dealing with his own life issues. He had dealt with a lifetime of anxiety himself.

I remember once, he came to visit Angelica and me at seminary. I jogged out to meet him and Mom at their car and the first thing he said to me was, "You're getting a little fat, aren't you?" This was coming from a man who was 150 pounds overweight himself. I rue that I rarely got praise from him. I never heard him tell me he was proud of me.

I had a counselor tell me once that he was subconsciously competing with me. Or whatever. I can see part of that being true. Whatever the problem was, it only got worse.

Even when I got ordained, or when he came to hear me preach, he'd unload on me. Not many kind words, but a lot of underhanded criticism.

He had a fall of his own. He and my mother divorced and I was angry. He basically kicked her out of the house. I judged him. Harshly. Something, I've learned, is wrong. I shut him out of my life completely for a period of about two years.

At the end of that two years, I started becoming convicted about it. I started talking to him a little, started trying to forge some sort of relationship. But it was too late. He died in an accident. I stood there, over his hospital bed while he was on life support realizing that I had done something horrible, but I didn't quite know what it was right then.

Later, I realized what it was. I had failed to love him for who he was instead of looking past what he had done.

Other fallen pastors seem to have a similar problem with their fathers. I don't know how much it adds to our sin later in life, but it has a significant impact upon who we are as adults.

There's a lot to be learned here, I think. First, if you're a father, make it work with your children. Lay aside any petty disagreements and humble yourself before them. Show them your vulnerability and just love them. Let them know you're proud of them regardless of what they've done. Just love them for who they are. Heck yes, parenting is hard. But it's worth it.

Secondly, if you have a parent who has caused you pain and still alive, don't let time expire before you do whatever you can to fix it. There are many of you who have parents who have done horrible things to you. I'm sorry. It may never be the same again with them. We can, however, still have a relationship with them where we draw boundaries and still have a salvageable relationship with them. We've only got this life. Tell them how you feel. Write them a letter and share your pain constructively. It's hard, I know. But don't let the later pain of regret and the "what ifs" get hold of you.

Thirdly, learn to love people as Christ did. He looked past what people did and loved them for who they were. Never shut the door completely on someone. Sometimes, you might be the only person in this world that someone will listen to. If you shut that door on them, it's dangerous.

Relationships with parents can be a great joy or a great pain. Those relationships form the people we are today whether we freely admit it or not. We cannot escape our generational past. But we can learn from it.

Apologizing To Whom?

Found an interesting article yesterday written by the former editor of Contemporary Christian Magazine. It had been three years after Amy Grant's divorce and the magazine wanted her to apologize for what she had done.

The editor, who was being asked by the publisher to write the article and ask for her apology, questioned the move.

An exchange from the article between him and the publisher:

“Who does she need to apologize to, Gerald?”

“Her fans. Us at CCM. And everybody she failed.”

The article is worth your time. But the topic behind it is also worth careful thought.

When one falls, to whom are they apologizing? David clearly stated after his sin with Bathsheba that he had sinned against God and God alone. However, it would seem that genuine sorrow and offering of a sincere sign of that sorrow to those directly offended would be appropriate.

I can't begin to tell you how many times I apologized to Cynthia for what I had done. I apologized to my daughters. I even wrote a letter to individual members of my church and told them I was sorry I let them down.

Was apologizing to the church for my adultery necessary? I did not commit adultery against them. I did lie to them, yes, and I apologized for that. But I had many tell me I needed to apologize to them for my adultery.

My sin was made public very quickly. By Cynthia, her family, and by the church. I don't know if there's a way around that. Pastors are public figures and when they lie and cheat, sin like that tends to get made public. However, there has to be a time when it stops being discussed by those who were not directly involved in the sin. When the sin itself and the discussion of it turns into gossip and unhealthy talk.

One could argue that my blog is the furtherance of this discussion. A fair point. But I don't view it that way. I've tried to handle my story in a way that is from my viewpoint and how I perceived them. I've kept everything anonymous so that those involved wouldn't be further effected.

There's a time to discuss sin and situations when it can help others understand seriousness of sin. And there's a time when it's simply unhealthy, destructive gossip that seeks to tear down others.

For Amy Grant, I think the editor had a good point. Did she owe her fans an apology for divorcing? Was her private life the business of her fans? Probably not.

My situation was different in many ways. My personal holiness affected my public ministry. I did owe the church an apology for my failing in that way. Many were hurt. An article by Christianity Today states, "When a pastor falls sexually, his church responds like a wife betrayed by her husband, experts say.'"

I am still in the process of asking myself the same questions I am presenting to you in this blog. Hopefully, someone will read this post and give me some interesting viewpoints on the matter.

Maybe I'm wrong. But that's what this blog has been about since day one. The exchange of ideas. Whether it's about Amy Grant or me, I'd be happy to hear it.

Seminary, Being Judgmental, Self-Righteousness, and Other Thoughts, Part 2

Long before seminary, the seeds of self-righteousness had been sown.

Now, I have really got to be careful with this next part of my story because it will definitely offend some people. I don't mean for it to. Just make sure you read it through before you react, please.

When I was about 13, I ran across a stash of cassette tapes my parents had. They listened to a lot of sermons. Charles Stanley, Chuck Swindoll, and our own pastor at the time. But the pastor who caught my attention at the time was John MacArthur.

I had never heard anything like his preaching in my entire life. I had never experienced expository preaching. I fell in love with it. The Bible came alive for me and I soaked it all in.

I don't know how familiar you are with MacArthur's preaching. It's very good. At the same time, you have to know that it's also very black and white. All the answers for all of life are to be found in the Word of God. Don't hear me saying I disagree, but I went to an extreme.

I took MacArthur's style, black and white belief system, and tough stance on sin and made it my own. I went even further with it as seminary came along. When I got past seminary and got my own church, the hard-line black and white view of life came to bear. And it infiltrated the way I did everything - especially the way I viewed sin in the congregation.

After a seminary education where church discipline was king, I was ready to wipe out sin in the church. I think my heart was in the right place, but my practice and attitude was not.

I remember the first couple of times I found out church members were sinning. Publicly. I didn't handle it well. Or with compassion. I came down hard and quickly on them. Were they sinning? Yes. Was it wrong in accordance to the black and white of Scripture? Yes.

But I was wrong. I lacked compassion, love and understanding. I approached them with the attitude of, "You need to stop now or we're bringing this in front of the church in [X] amount of days."

I gave no time for God to do His work in their hearts. I gave no compassion to their circumstance. I didn't care about their situation. None. No Christlikeness at all.

All I knew is that I saw sin. And I was the heat-seeking missile that wanted it out of the church.

What I never considered was that I was dealing with people. I knew the old saying, "Hate the sin, love the sinner." But I had trouble separating the two. In my eyes, if the sinner couldn't separate from the sin, they needed to get serious help or be asked to leave until they could.

Of course, I was an idiot. That's not how discipline works. That's not how the church works. That's not how forgiveness works. That's not how we're supposed to act at all. And I learned the hard way.

How could I sit through church as a youth, seminary as an adult, and pastor for almost ten years and miss it?

Worse, I taught the people at Angel Falls Baptist to judge harshly and without love or compassion. And they did that very thing to me when I fell.

Well, I did. Is it possible thousands of Christians are missing the same thing now? That they're learning that sin is a horrible thing (which is true) but at the same time they're missing out on how to show compassion?

I forgot that I was a sinner like those in the church were. I forgot that I had been saved by grace and that I wasn't any better than anyone else. That is the heart of self-righteousness. I thought my education, my position, and my ability to judge made me better.

Didn't. It just made me more smug. And I paid for it all.