Pastors in pain! I feel for you BIG time.

The author writes “and oh ya, they won’t believe you when you praise them but they will obsess when you criticize them. sounds like quite a great life huh? makes you want to join right up i bet...”

YES. Sometimes I think there’s something wrong with me, because I do deflect the praise but obsess over the criticism.

Those of you who are NOT in ministry full-time who are critical of the pastors in pain who have posted here… Please… consider the possibility that you do NOT know the kind of emotional stress they’re involved in. I have worked in both part-time volunteer ministry and in full-time staff ministry.

When you’re a pastor it is AMAZING the kind of mean criticism you will receive that you would never hear if you were a volunteer. Trust us who know from experience if you don’t…

I have to say that we fully understand and could have written those exact words!!
My husband has just exactly one week ago today resigned from his position of Senior Pastor. We could not take another day of dissapointment, pain or attack from others.
After sacrificing everything, our family life, finances, jobs, enough was enough.
I watched him suffer extraordinary stress working his secular job, trying to run the church, putting up with judgement and criticism from some after he gave more than he had to give and devoted his time and energy willingly and lovingly to others needs.
It was time to move on, we are not bitter but we do wonder what it was all about. We know we have helped many according to the way we should have and many lives have been changed but in the end we could no longer bare the pain and endure the hard work of doing it all because no one else really wanted to help. 
Are we failures, NO I don’t believe any of us are. We are all worth something, some may serve half heartedly for many years and some of us give everything we have and more for even a short time.
So what now ...a long holiday...haven’t had one in almost six years.
Myself, go back to work and catch up with life, have some privacy and not have my life examined under a microscope by anyone anymore...my husband ..work five days a week (instead of four) at his trade where there is no comparible stress and live life for ourselves. Yes we will fellowship somewhere in the future but all I can say is until you have been there it is difficult to understand and some, even other Pastors should not judge what we have done or what others have been through.
I believe our God is bigger than it all and He has wonderful plans for our future and the lives of other (ex)ministers.
Ministry never ends, but it begins at home first.

Kent,

You’re right. It’s surprising and disturbing! Let’s all take a moment (I’m going to go outside in the sunshine for a few minutes to do this) to lift up all these hurting brothers and sisters in prayer. In any given week I can have emotional and spiritual highs and lows that are both higher and WAY lower than when I was in secular work and volunteered at a church instead of working at one. So I understand what those guys (and gals) are saying. I’m sure my wife does, too…

By the way, I wonder if it’s not “toxic churches” as much as toxic PEOPLE. We can all be toxic sometimes…

The other day I heard a pastor, (not my pastor) from the central part of my state, preach a lifeless, passionless, pointless sermon with no power and no fire.  I am not referring to animated “aerobic exercise classâ€? preaching. (Vance Havner, a great man of God, preached with power and passion and fire yet he was not animated but monotone and motionless in his preaching style.) The message I heard the other day was a waste of my time and that provokes me to say the following to our preachers:

We are thirsty and we are hungry. We are hurting and we need help. We need the fire of God and we need the power of God. And preacher, we need you.

You have a special calling upon your life and God has chosen you to be His voice.

But what we don’t need are more cute alliterated sermons, as helpful as alliteration can be in communicating a message. What we don’t need are more sermons that have three points, six sub-points, and a cute, closing story or poem, as helpful as that may be in communicating a message. What we don’t need are more funny, silly jokes in sermons. What we don’t need is for you to keep referring to yourself when you preach. And what we don’t need is to hear more sermons from the internet or from some book that was purchased at the latest Christian book store sale.

What we need is for our preachers to have the fire of God. What we need is for our preachers to have the power of God. What we need is for our preachers to have a passion for the messages that are proclaimed. What we need is for our preachers to feed us from the written Word of God and then to point us to the Living Word of God. What we need is for our preachers to be consumed by fire from heaven so that we, ourselves, may join you in being consumed by God. What we need is for our preachers to be consumed by their passion for the Word of God. 

Please help us, preachers. We know that we have a personal responsibility for our own walk with God. But we need help. We are weak, we are frail, and we are forgetful. We need to hear from heaven. We don’t need to hear about fishing trips or cruises in sermons. We don’t need more covered dish suppers at the church. We don’t need to hear about the local football team in messages that are preached. We don’t need to hear of accomplishments and awards and degrees. What we want to hear is that you have been approved by God to proclaim His Word to us. 

We are perishing in the pews and we perish because there is little or no vision of God in some of our pulpits. We are tired of hearing Proverbs 29:18 misinterpreted and applied to long-range planning. We, the people, are perishing because there is no vision of God.

Rise up! Stand up! And don’t settle for mediocrity! Don’t settle for less! Get all that you can get from God, give it to us, and then go back and get some more. Pursue God with passion. Don’t go into the pulpit until you have a message from Him to proclaim to us. Don’t preach until you know that you are right with God. Don’t go into the pulpit until you know you are anointed by God and have the fire of God.

Yours and His,

Kenny

P.S. It has been said that where there is smoke there is fire. And where there is fire there is an attraction and attention to the fire. But sadly, though, smoke can also be an indication that the fire has gone out.

I too left the ministry for the same reasons… but not from the congregation, but the other pastors and leadership team. It is important that as pastors you want encouragement and respect and not being under the microscope to your congregation, that you offer the same to your support staff or those pastors under you. I actually received all those harsh treatments and words from the pastors, not the congregation. I saw such a double standard and the pastors only working very little requiring a ton from support or lesser roles, as “leadership team” went jogging together and lunches constantly, while we were left to do our roles, talk about lack of encouragement or support. I know this is a “poor pastors” blog, but sometimes pastors are the very ones turning people off from the church and giving God a bad name. I aprreciate the all the hardships pastors face, but it wasn’t any less in my “lesser role” just had the added criticism of the pastor too…