Pastors and Dependency

Being a spiritual leader comes with a significant amount of authority and power. So it might come as a surprise that many pastors feel that they have very little authority and are powerless over many things.

Pastors who find themselves in this predicament tend to be overly dependent on others for how they feel about themselves and how they handle challenges. They give other people power over their emotions, thoughts and behaviors and depend heavily on people for approval and a sense of self-worth.

One telltale sign of over dependence is blaming others for how one feels. Dependent people will say things like “He made me angry” or “She ruined my day.” No one can make you feel anything. But that is exactly what happens with people who have a dependent personality. They let other people control their feelings. “When we “give away” to someone else the ability to make us feel a certain way, then we give away our personal power over our own lives. In doing that we also lose touch with our personal responsibility for our thoughts, feelings, and behavior” (Gary L. Harbaugh, Pastor As Person, p. 108).

For pastors, this can have a detrimental effect on them personally and professionally. Allowing others to control how we feel and think will influence how we handle the challenges of ministry. Fear of conflict, fear of change and fear of broken relationships will drive a dependent pastor to avoid or deny issues that come up. Fear – and the resentment and pain that tends to come with it – will also affect how pastors interact with church members. To overcome unhealthy dependencies, pastors must recover their authority and power over their feelings by depending on God, not people, for their sense of value and acceptance.

Alicia Grey, seminary student

Pastors and their feelings

            

             Anger, fear, anxiety and sadness are all human emotions. There tends to be an unspoken rule, however, that pastors should never express any of these feelings. These kinds of negative feelings are viewed as a sign of weakness or incompetence in a pastor.

            Where does this belief come from? Often times, it can be traced back to the way the pastor was raised. Perhaps, he or she was brought up in a home where their parents discouraged certain feelings. They grew up having to suppress their anger or fear. This dynamic can sometimes be found in seminary, too. There, the future pastors encounter a message that tells them how a pastor should or should not feel. The pastor is then left feeling guilty about harboring certain feelings or in denial that she or he has any “bad” feelings at all.

            Avoiding or denying his or her feelings has a tremendous impact on the pastor and everyone around him or her. “The pastor who denies or does not integrate into ministry his or her own feelings of hurt, or who is perceived as woundless, will also be perceived as “someone who has never been there,” says Gary L. Harbaugh, in his book Pastor as Person. He warns that pastors are in danger of losing touch with what it means to be a person when they refuse to acknowledge their feelings. 

           God created us to be holistic: physical, social, emotional and mental. Denying any of these aspects of our personhood restricts pastors from fully living and experiencing God’s healing power. It also limits the pastor’s ability to minister effectively to others. However, when pastors address their own feelings instead of hiding them, they are better able to handle a crisis, love themselves and connect and empathize with others.

By Alicia Grey, seminary student

Pastors and their Health

2/14/19

            Most people who become pastors do so because they believe that God called them to the ministry. This is key because no one should become a pastor if he or she simply sees it as a career. You will quickly become frustrated, resentful and overwhelmed, which will affect your ability to care for yourself and your congregation.

            But even people who are confident that God called them, still find themselves under the tremendous pressure of being a spiritual leader. There is so much more to being a pastor than preaching on Sunday mornings. Among many other things, they are also overseeing committee meetings and church ministries, visiting the sick and the dying, counseling individuals, doing weddings and funerals and leading social justice efforts.  

Sadly, many pastors tend to ignore, deny or downplay the toll their work has on their physical health. Gary L. Harbaugh, in his book Pastor as Person, says that pastors are quick to encourage their parishioners to take care of themselves. They will not, however, heed their own advice. “The same pastor might also preach from the pulpit that the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. But when it comes to himself or herself, the pastor tends to forget that he or she is an embodied person” (Harbaugh, p. 48). Stating that pastors have a body might seem obvious, but it is worth emphasizing. So often, church members - and society - put pastors on a pedestal and view them as superheroes, forgetting that they are humans with the same needs as anyone else. It is no wonder then that so many pastors have at least a 50 percent chance of seeing a change in their health (Harbaugh, p. 42).

So what can a pastor do? For starters, they must admit that they need help and then be intentional in seeking it out. Help could come in the form of a clergy support group, self-care activities and counseling. When pastors take care of themselves, everyone benefits.

By Alicia Grey, seminary student