The Difficulties Of Writing

I've always loved writing. Ever since I wrote an extremely short story in first grade called "George Washington and the Purple Polka Dotted Measles," I learned that writing was in my blood. My mother wrote a lot and was published. She wasn't nationally known by any means, but she did it for the enjoyment and to help others.

She encouraged my writing and as long as I can remember I've had pen to paper at some point in my life doing some project, whether it be fiction, non-fiction, theological, or just plain silly. We write about what we know, it seems. In seminary, I was forced to write a lot about what I didn't know, but I think I faked it pretty well.

I love reading Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and Douglas Preston. I have no idea where they come up with their ideas. I'd suggest King's "On Writing," strongly, even if you have no ambition to write.

In that book, he discusses his addiction problems early in his career and how he doesn't even remember writing several books.

It's hard to write sometimes. Many authors struggle with addiction, depression, anxiety and the like. I don't always think it's because they're suffering from writer's block, either. I think when we write we are baring our soul for everyone to see. Even if fiction is being written, some part of us is being dredged up and being dealt with by our conscious mind.

I've been blogging about my fall since March, I think. And there have been times I just had to take a break from it. Rethinking the whole thing and dealing with the issues around it hurt sometimes. There have been times when I relive moments of pain and hurt that were done to me. But for the most part, I realize how much I hurt others and I just have to stop for a while.

I wrote recently that I've been pounding out a book. I'm writing now about the death of my mother. It's been two years since she died. I thought I'd get through it without much difficulty. I was wrong. Thinking about the moments and the day she died bring back strong memories, smells, sights and things I had tucked away in a dark corner of my mind.

When you write about something like that, it effects your soul, your mood, your mind and how you treat other people. But then again, writing is also very good therapy, I think. If we're honest when we write, we can show ourselves where we lack and how we can get better. We can help others in their struggles. If we can be truly transparent, others might see themselves in some part of the story and be truly helped.

That's why Mom wrote and it helped people. She also suffered from deep depression. At the same time, writing helped her depression. Go figure.

Now, back to writing. And the dark confines of my soul. Say a prayer if you get a chance.

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.

Reflection: When The Good Is Forgotten

I want to take a quick break and write about something that has been on my mind since the day of my fall. It's not an easy thing to write about.

It's a consequence of my sin and a painful one that only pastors know. I've talked to other fallen pastors about it and they understand it.

I spent almost a decade at Angel Falls Baptist Church shepherding the people there. I was called there, I believe, by God. I was called to ministry - which was a powerful experience for me. I have no doubt whatsoever that I was where I was supposed to be.

I spent years there doing what a pastor should do - loving, praying, preaching and shepherding. But with one horrible sin, all of it was quickly forgotten. A consequence of my sin.

I know that not all of the church members probably feel that way. I get that. But sin is a terrible thing. It quickly wipes away so much of the good that has been built up.

Pastors do a lot that people see. The most obvious are the sermons we preach every Sunday.

I remember a friend saying once, "You sure get paid a lot for only working one hour a week." Funny.

I had a seminary professor tell our preaching class once that for every minute we were in the pulpit, we should spend an hour in preparation. Well . . . I didn't go that far. But I worked hard on my sermons. I put time, thought, and prayer into each one. They weren't perfect, by any means, but most of them were out of love for God's people.

I'd have the occasional sermon that was out of anger for the way I thought the people were acting. Pastors, you'll know what I'm talking about. Those sermons almost always backfire. For the most part, I did good expositional sermons. The word "good" is used loosely.

Of course, my heart was hurt once when the music director accused me of stealing my sermons off the internet. That hurt. A lot. But I ignored it and moved on.

But pastors have a way of taking that stuff very personally. Because everything we do for the church is personal. We spend all week thinking about and praying for the church. We obsess about the church on a personal level. And we take the simplest comment and obsess about it for a long time.

At my small, rural church, I was in charge of just about everything. I ran VBS, the outreach program, half of the committees, and so forth. That was the stuff that was expected of me. I didn't mind too much. I wished that the people had gotten more involved. But I guess it was part of leadership. I pushed myself way too hard at times. Part of it was that I have always been an overachiever. I'll push myself until I'm exhausted.

I'll never forget any of the kids I got to baptize. I'm so glad I got to baptize both of my kids while I was there. Two memories that will be etched in my memory for the rest of my life. I'll always remember the others who came that wanted to talk about salvation, those who I witnessed to, those whom I baptized.

The kids who were ready for salvation - those were the ones I'll always remember. I always cried. I was always so careful with them. I never wanted a "false conversion". I wanted it to be apparent that it was the work of God and no one else for them.

Then there were the moments that no one else ever saw or ever heard of. The moments where I found myself asking, "Do pastors of megachurches have to go through this?"

Once, on New Year's Eve, I was sitting in the living room. Angelica was in bed watching the New Year's Eve countdown or something and someone pounded on the door. It was five minutes until midnight for crying out loud. I went to the door and it was a woman who had been to the church twice. She only came during VBS commencement. She was standing there shivering with her little five year old.

I brought them inside. Angelica wouldn't come near the door, she stood in the living room and listened. The woman told me that she had a fight with her boyfriend and he was drunk and had gotten abusive. They ran from him and had to wade through a pond in the dark. They were soaked and freezing. I got them a blanket. They wanted a ride to a nearby town.

I told Angelica to call the police while I gave them a ride. I turned the heat up in the van all the way and talked to her and prayed with her the entire way as I dropped her off at her mom's house. Her little girl wept for the first five minutes but I was able to calm her down.

Another time, about three weeks before Angelica found out about my sin, I got a call from the wife of a church member. He was distraught. He had wandered off into the woods and was going to hang himself.

I said, "What? Have you called the police?"

She said rather calmly, "I guess."

I said, "You guess? Get on the phone right now and call them if you haven't!"

I hung up and drove over to get Phillip Townsend. Fast. We went over to see if we could find the man. He and his wife had two years of serious marital issues. She was very unforgiving of his past. He had done some minor things about twenty years ago, but she wouldn't let it go. She hounded and hounded him about his sin that he had committed two decades ago and he had snapped.

Phillip and I talked to his wife before going into the woods. The police hadn't arrived. She said he might have a gun and that he was very upset. Great. We dashed off into the woods to find him. We finally did and he was very upset. Long story short, we talked him out of killing himself.

God gets all the credit for both of those stories.

The world is full of hurting, broken people whose lives are a breath away from disaster.

But now, I'm not in a position to minister to those people anymore. My sin disqualified me from taking care of that flock. And within me, as a former pastor, it hurts. It hurts that maybe, just maybe, there are those who will only remember that one sin instead of any glory that belongs only to God.

Don't read this thinking I'm trying to get anyone to feel sorry for me. I'm not. Read this as a warning - all sin has dire consequence. It never leaves us unmarked. It leaves heavy scars upon the soul.

Christ heals those scars - all of them. But as humans, we remember them all.

If you're engaged in any sin - gossip, pornography, self-righteousness, lying, deceitfulness, theft, anger, unforgiveness - they will all have their price upon your soul. No sin is free.