Baptist Spirituality

This next sentence is one that every pastor ought to absorb: The struggles you face in your ministry, whether it be related to the curmudgeon on the finance committee, the ongoing struggles with the person who has addictions in your community, the divisive Sunday School class that is threatening to start their own church, or the thousands of other things you face in ministry, is 80% your fault.

That is right. 80%.

The good news is that the number is not 100%. It could be, but you have to give yourself permission to realize that people are in the wrong a lot of the time. People don’t come to church because they are perfect. In fact, they know they are broken and long for a Savior, but people to try to salvage their dysfunction because the hard work of moving towards health is difficult.

Besides, we pastors are too kind, and we would do well to confront people when they are belligerent, passive aggressive, divisive, unkind, selfish, greedy, slothful, gossipy, or just plain annoying. Take care of the 20% sooner than later because it rarely if ever gets better when left unattended.

But that leaves the 80% on your part.

It begins by resolving to become healthy, stay healthy, and maintain your health over the long haul of pastoral leadership. This takes great faith in God and God’s provision because we are constantly bombarded with the need to accommodate, seek out attachments, or garner accolades. We have to do the hard work that others are unwilling or ill-prepared to do, that is, to keep sanctuary and invite people to walk in the Spirit despite their own dis-ease, failures, fears, attachments, and insecurities.

But all too often, pastors spend their time reaching to the dysfunction of others rather than inviting and welcoming others at the feet of Jesus. We do not have a monopoly on the Holy, but we ought to know where sacred places exist and be healthy enough to direct people there. We are messengers not messiahs.

We are 80% at fault for the struggles we face in ministry because we feed fear. One of the things I am learning over sabbatical is that fear is always present. It never goes away. There will always be questions surrounding church attendance and giving, discontent and division. Fear integrates into every aspect of life. It rears its head when you begin the budget process in the midst of one of the worst economies in recent history. It surfaces collectively among groups small and large, compromising the hope that people invest in the direction of your leadership. It gets the best of us when we’re exhausted or feeling defeated.

There is nowhere to shift blame. We are at fault because we feed fear, and we perpetuate it through our preaching, probing questions, and an insecure presence.

Since fear is not something that goes away, we have to do the work of making a home for it in our lives. We must invite fear to sit at Jesus’ feet alongside the rest of us who need to be there. It is there that we find fear bowing to the majesty of God who dispels the storms. We cannot manipulate fear or ever get past it. Fear only bends towards hope when we slowly release our grip and surrender it to the Lord in the wake of renewed joy and robust prayer.

We are 80% at fault for the struggles we face in ministry because we feed insecurities. Being in full-time ministry is one of the hardest vocations in the world. In very few circumstances will you find a job that depends entirely on the grace and generosity of volunteers who continually choose to show up and to tithe and to support what you are doing in Christ. There are some unavoidable transactions here: You are expected to be present, to guide, to work wisely, to be the man or the woman of prayer, and to exegete God’s Word in a way that balances edification with prophetic confrontation.

This all happens in the midst of hospital emergencies, ongoing illnesses, mental healthy disparities, weddings, births, celebrations, losses, financial shortfalls, grouchy deacons and ushers, high energy young adults, and unanticipated phone calls and texts and emails — not to mention the needs of your own family, car repairs, home maintenance, and daily hardships of life. Most people go through the same things we do, but at least they get to clock out at 5 PM — most of the time.

The problem with all of this is one glaring shortcoming for which we are responsible: We are responsible to acknowledge that we are not responsible for taking on the stress of all the things happening to everything and everyone around us. When God calls us to ministry, God assures us that He will never leave us nor forsake us and that it is in Christ and Christ alone whereby healing and salvation come. But we get so bogged down carrying the burdens of others as if we’re superheroes that we fall under the illusion that we are responsible for every problem in the lives of others, in the church, and in our sphere of influence. We think that we can somehow solve every issue, and when things don’t go the way people want them to go, we kick ourselves. We call ourselves failures, and eventually we begin to believe it.

In a Baptist News Global article May 2026, authors Janelle Beiler and Marion Travers write of a pastor who took on the world: “‘No one ever told me I am not responsible for managing everyone else’s emotions,’” the pastor told them. The authors state that, “He had spent years believing every disappointment, frustration and unmet expectation in the congregation somehow belonged to him. That realization marked the beginning of a healthier way of leading.”

There is a great release when we pastors confess (and, yes, it is a confession) that we cannot take on issues we have no business bearing. This is why leading people to the feet of Jesus is so critically important. Our job is to bear one another’s burdens and bring them before Christ (along with their and our fears, remember those?), not to solve every complaint or hardship. Uncertainty is not our problem with which to contend. I learned long ago that sometimes uncertainty is simply a mechanism the Holy Spirit uses to force all of us to trust in God’s provision for our lives. “Here in the dark,” writes poet Sister Marion of the Holy Spirit, “I clutch the garments of God.”*

Over the past few weeks I realized that the authentic work of sabbatical was not coming up with “The Plan” to get our church to move miraculously in a direction that will lead to exponential growth or congregational health, but to do the difficult soul care that challenges me to seek Jesus and Him alone for the sake of my health and for healthy leadership.

One of my “a-ha moments” came when I figured out just how pronounced my ADHD is when it comes to ministry. In my particular iteration of the ailment, I tend to hyper-fixate on unresolved “issues” that may or may not be real. This makes me shoulder relentless feelings of failure based not on reality but entirely on irrational fears and thoughts, lies really, that fester for hours and sometimes days at a time.

Rather than write a passing thought or fear off as irrational and ridiculous in the moment, hyper-fixation absorbs one intuitive thought and shapes my attitude, decisions, and approach to ministry. This creates such overwhelming exhaustion that it affects my health, my church participation, and even my interaction with my wife and children.

When I asked one of my children before I went on sabbatical what one thing I needed to work on while I was away, my child said, “To stop living in your brain and be present.” My children realized before I did just how much I needed this soul care to take place, and only a sabbatical provided me the room to pray, feel, and work through these areas of dis-ease in my own life. It gave Jesus the time to meet with me and speak to me about how to make a home in my heart for an ailment I have no control over and cannot choose to ignore any longer. My pray with Jesus took my fears and my whole being and bent them towards His presence.

No one is an island, and the Holy Spirit helped me see just how much I have burdened my congregation with issues for which they are not responsible for either. We all have work to do at Jesus’ feet. It took four guys to lower their ill friend through a roof to get them to the healing presence of Christ (Luke 5:17-19). It takes a village to bring healing in appropriate ways that insures boundaries, responsibility, and a mutual good-faith effort.

As I pastor, I will no longer be the emotional enabler of others or of myself. We are called to be living sanctuaries, and we need to invite people into the heart of God rather than to venture into places Jesus never called us to enter. We are not saviors, for there is only One who could do that.

*Source: Jessica Powers, “Blessed Among Us: Jessica Powers”, in Give Us This Day (August 2026) Collegeville MN: Liturgical Press, 2026.