Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] Speaker A: Welcome to among the Lampstands St. Louis Metro podcast, where pastors equip Pastors At Metro, our mission is to connect churches so leaders can be developed and deployed for gospel mission. Because the greatest problem in our city is lostness and the greatest hope is Christ.
Join us as we talk ministry, leadership and the movement of God among The lampstands in St. Louis.
[00:00:30] Speaker B: Foreign.
[00:00:40] Speaker C: Welcome to among The Lampstands, a St. Louis Meadro podcast where pastors equip Pastors My name is Chad Hodges and I'm the host for this journey. And today we're going to continue our conversation about the health of a pastor. Last episode we began a series talking about pastoral health. That's something we emphasize at Metro, and so last time we talked about spiritual health. Today in this episode, we're going to talk about something pastors don't always openly talk about, and that's our emotional health. As pastors, we spend much of our lives helping other people carry burdens and deal with issues in their life. We walk with people through death and grief. We sit with families in crisis. We counsel marriages that are falling apart. We deal with conflict. We receive criticism. We celebrate people's victories. We we carry the weight of decisions that affect an entire congregation. And sometimes, after we've spent the week helping everybody else carry their burdens, we go home and carry our own.
So we're here talking about the shepherd's heart, caring for the pastor's emotional health. And around the table with me are three of our wonderful Metro pastors who've agreed to take some time to visit with us. And I'm going to let these guys introduce themselves. So guys, just introduce yourself. Give us five, ten seconds, who you are, where you serve, and something important for our other pastors to know about you. We'll start over here with Jay.
[00:01:55] Speaker B: Jim Good morning. I'm Jim Ramsey and I'm at Concord Church, associate pastor there, just recent, new to the role. I have to be honest with you, I have a varied ministry experience, but I've always considered myself a pastor, a bit of church planter and an army chaplain and retired from that and came back to the area. So here I am and willing to help out in whatever way we as we discuss these very important issues to my heart.
[00:02:22] Speaker C: Sounds great.
[00:02:23] Speaker D: Hi, I'm Ed Plant. I'm the pastor at Gaia Road Baptist Church in Kirkwood and have been pastor there for 29 years now. That's my third church to pastor, but it's been a great place that God brought us to that we hadn't intended coming to this part of the country, but it's been a good fit and we've enjoyed how God has been able to use us there.
[00:02:44] Speaker A: Great.
[00:02:45] Speaker E: Hi, my name is Jimmy Dunn, and I am the lead pastor at Covenant Baptist Church in Arnold, Missouri. And I've been there for about eight years now. And. And we are a small replanted church. We've gone through a couple of names in the area, Exchange Church, and then before that, Starling Road Baptist Church. But we have had such a wonderful experience following God through the method of revitalization and replaying.
[00:03:10] Speaker C: Very good. Well, guys, thank you for being here. Thanks for taking your time.
Let me just start with a question that's going to hopefully get us into the conversation. And I'm going to throw it out, and whichever one of you wants to take it first, you go. Go right ahead with it. It's this question. What is something about the emotional weight of ministry that you didn't fully understand when you first became a pastor?
[00:03:34] Speaker D: I'd say, for me, one of the things I didn't anticipate, how absolutely drained I would be every Sunday night. You know, especially when I started out, I was preaching Sunday morning and Sunday evening. And by Sunday night I was not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually drained because I'd poured myself out. And it really surprised me just how spent I was each week.
One of the other things I would say is just how often it happens after a season of great success that it seemed like immediately there would follow a valley.
And maybe it was criticism or whatever else. And to me, it kind of fits along with the experience of Elijah, the experience at Mount Carmel where God came down and won the victory over the prophets of baal. And immediately after that, Jezebel threatened his life and he ran away and he said, God, I'm done.
Just end it all. And so I think a tactic the enemy tries to use to discourage us, but that after a season of success, there will be a valley of hardship that comes afterwards.
[00:04:47] Speaker C: Yeah, that's good.
[00:04:49] Speaker E: Yeah. I think for me, you know, one of the things posing your question is, like, when you first became a pastor. So, like, I've always been a bivocational pastor. I was a bivocational youth pastor. And then when I came to Now Covenant, I was a associational family pastor and then later became the lead pastor.
And in my early 20s, I would believe back then I was 22 when I became a youth pastor and had a wife, no kids. And I think just the culture and being in both the work world and the church world wanted to prove myself. You know, I wanted to work hard, I wanted to love people. And then just very shortly, probably six months to a year, I figured out it was much easier being a volunteer than it was being a paid staff member. You could get away with a lot more.
You could have grace in areas that you don't get. As a staff member, the criticisms don't come as hard because as a volunteer, you could just go to a different church and go do where you want to go. But when you're paid staff, there's a little bit more of a higher expectation and learning. That was very difficult. Our first six years of ministry was. Was probably the most hardest that we ever did. And I had to figure out how to hold in my yeses, because when I said yes to everything, I wasn't my best at home, I wasn't my best to the ministry, I wasn't my best to myself. And because when I said yes to everything and things fell apart, then I blamed myself to, you know, make sure that things were going really, really well. And so over the years, I just saw how emotional health was very important of how I protect my yeses.
[00:06:35] Speaker C: That's good.
[00:06:36] Speaker B: Yeah, that's wise. I, you know, I'm thinking back about. I didn't realize how much of an emotional toll or how much emotional work I needed to do myself in all the various ministries I'd been involved in, and how much the organizational load and the things you have to do, whether it be a church planner or learning the army systems or learning how to. How this particular church runs, how much that would be draining for me. And then the other thing that was help her. Kind of hard for me to understand was how much other people's stuff could resonate with me on a level that would also, when I have those kind of things in my own family, you know, would be like a wow, that really hit hard. Where is that emotion coming from? You know, And.
And I had no real tools, I don't think in seminary, we really talk a lot about how do we work on our own stuff and remain healthy for the long term. You know, we kind of talk about the spiritual aspects and some of the formation piece. And I know there's a lot of overlap with spiritual and emotional health, but it is a real big occupational hazard. And I'm not sure on all the stats on it, but yeah, it's. It really takes out a lot of guys. Yeah.
[00:07:55] Speaker C: In our. In our last episode, Sam Tennell, who was with us, we were talking about spiritual health Quoted from actually a Catholic bishop or something. And he made the statement, I'm going to butcher the quote. So go back and listen to the last episode on Spiritual Health to hear it. Exactly. But I think he said something about seminary teaches us how to do ministry, but it doesn't teach us what ministry does to us.
It doesn't prepare us for that. You know, we come in prepared to preach and teach and lead and counsel and administer.
I wasn't prepared for the emotional toll that it was going to take on my life. And I'm, I'm typically a super positive.
I can find good in just about every situation and, and I found myself struggling emotionally with things. And that's really why I want to begin because there's this issue of grief.
You know, we, we help people in their grief and, and, and we automatically think about funerals and that sort of thing. But I think pastoral grief is, is bigger than that. So let me start with that question as we think about the whole issue of, of grief as a pastor, because there's all seasons that we deal with in that. What kinds it. In your estimation? And Jim, I'll start here with you and we'll just go around the table. What kinds of grief do pastors experience that people outside of ministry may not fully understand?
[00:09:06] Speaker B: Well, it's, it's not just that we're engaging with that on a daily basis. You know, one of the analogies I like to use is, you know, the Matrix, the movie the Matrix. I know I'm dating myself here, but if you recall from that first movie where Neo is the one, right, and he sees the Matrix for what it is, all the binary code, and he kind of sees reality and it kind of wakes them up, you know. And as a pastor, the fundamental thing that I realized was grief is everywhere and it's involved in everything we do, and not only for what we do, but also what happens to us. And so my first ministry out seminary was a church planning. I'm a church planner in recovery, so proud to say. And, and I had a lot of work to do to recover from that honestly. And so I didn't do that very well at first. And part of it, to use my own story, my own struggle, at the same time, my church planting dream was dying, my father was dying of cancer.
So I had that piece that I was actively engaged in, but really didn't work on the grief of losing the plant, you know, and so, wow, I couldn't even mention that for a long time. And so I went back, I went in the army as a chaplain. And man, I was just superstar, you know, walking on water, doing great things, forgotten country.
And a couple years after that, you know, I had been to Iraq and back, and it was, you know, kinetic and all kind. Not necessarily the normal pastor things, but those of us have been there, can relate. But coming back, I entered into a CPE program, which is. A lot of people are like, what's that? And you know, that's crazy.
Actually, I had a great supervisor, Jim Duke. He's Southern Baptist pastor, great, great mentor. And first thing he noticed to me was after I told him my story, he's like, Jim, you've never really grieved Michigan, man. That hit me like a two by four upside head.
And he was right, because I had been carrying around this anger and I didn't even know what this anger was about or why it came from me. And. And he put it all together, you know, with that first stage of grief, denial and shock. But the second one is anger, dude.
And it was a revelation, honestly. And it began a journey of recovery and learning about grief. And, man, talk about growth and compassion. Yeah. When you realize your own grief and how you need to work on that, and then you encounter all the people that we encounter every day, you know, and it gives you a background on understanding people in a way that. That I think is more like Jesus, now that I've been through it, you know, and healed from it. You know, one of the things Jim Duke said that really helped me early on was, you know, he was quoting Henry now and who said famously about the wounded healer. You know, we are in the business as pastors of being the wounded healer. But what he said to me that was so profound was if we don't do our own work in our own grief, then we run the risk of becoming the unhealed wounders.
And, dude, I don't have to quote you all the stats or tell you the stories. We all know them. Right. And so, man, I'm grateful that God intervened in my life and to bring me through that grief process on that specifically, but. And a lot of other things along the way. But that's. We have to do that work of emotional healing. Yeah. As we go through this in order to stay long term. Sure.
[00:12:49] Speaker C: So, Ed, for you, what kind of things are out, but if you had just a minute to sit with a church member to explain some of the things you deal with as a pastor, they may not fully understand. What are one or two things you would pull out as well?
[00:13:01] Speaker D: One experience I've had several different times. And I think other pastors have had. Lay people do not understand is sometimes the very people that. That you invest the most time and energy and effort into then turn right around and leave.
And it's very hard not to take that personally because whether it's someone that's been terminally ill and you're there doing hospital visits and being with the family and all that, or counseling or other situations.
And part of what I have to tell myself is it's not about me, and it's not about even my church. But if I can continue to invest myself in people and care for them and help them to be in a healthier relationship with the Lord and walk with him, then even if they do go to another church, they're still involved in the kingdom. And it may not be the kingdom of Ed Plants, it may not be the kingdom of Gyre Road Baptist Church, but if I can help them be healthier, that helps me to continue to give of myself to say, God, I'll serve however. And you use it however you want to use it. And it's not me taking it so personally. But it was the first few times that happened, it was really hard. Emotionally, you're feeling very hurt and wounded. Man, I've invested all this time and now they go off and leave. And it can be frustrating.
[00:14:34] Speaker C: Sure. Yeah, that's the truth. I think all of us around the table have experienced that. Those are the most painful wounds that we deal with. You know, people that we've loved, we vacation with, we hang out with and do dinner and then they. They just leave and sometimes don't even tell us why. They're just gone. That's. That's difficult. Jimmy, what about you?
[00:14:50] Speaker E: Yeah, I think from a different kind of going from what Ed was saying is, man, anyone ever see that video from Chick fil a like 10 years ago about as a part of their employee training program where they, they did a video where they kind of like helicopter viewed in and everyone was frozen. People were taking orders and people was picking up TR and the people were outside with the drive through area. And the whole thing was, is that people are ordering a sandwich, but it's more than a sandwich. Like they're going through something and like there's like Chick Fil A stories about just the employees giving the kind of command to give away free sandwiches and free drinks and stuff like that to people that they feel like need it and you know, caring for people. And if you get yelled at, they're not mad at you. They're mad at something that's happened, you know, behind there, but, like, treat everyone with respect. And, you know, I think sometimes our church family lovingly forgets about pastors and what's going on in the behind the scenes. Obviously, we get put up to a pedestal of like, wow, they know a lot about the Bible. And wow, they have a lot of wisdom. And, you know, I want my kids to be like their kids and. But like, we're trying to portray a sense of responsibility, maturity, love. But, man, we need as much grace and we need as much care in our own marriages and our own parents.
A little bit about my story is my wife and I lost our first child back in 2013 after 24 hours of birth. And we had to make incredibly hard decisions for his life and for his health, for my wife's health.
It affected future pregnancies that we would have future children that we would have.
And for me, I.
For six years after that, talking about not realizing, I didn't. I didn't handle the grief. You know, I was. I was a youth pastor. The Lord allowed us to have another healthy baby girl, another healthy baby boy.
But I was. I was in tears every single day. I wasn't. I was not handling the things that was going through.
I just kept on trying to, again, trying to do the best that I could and just be that kind of practical, obedient, loving, you know, minister, you know, getting calls at 2am for a student in the youth ministry, try to commit suicide, you know, get up in the morning, you know, get up and go right to the hospital and help them. And having to do funerals, you know, along with my lead pastor, for not only the elderly, but for students who committed suicide, you know, and for children who died, which was almost a revolution, ripping off not just a band aid, but like the. The gunshot wound was still there.
[00:17:32] Speaker B: Right.
[00:17:33] Speaker E: And just not knowing how to handle it until two things happened. One was by the grace of God, my loving wife leaned in. She said, you need further help, and I can no longer help you. I cannot coddle you in your hurt and your grief anymore. We had a different experience with the loss of Ephraim, who was my son.
And you. I need you to go get other help because I can no longer be that person for you. So in the past eight years, I've been in therapy, I've been on antidepressants, anti anxieties. I am 180°, a different man. And. But I could tell you early on that was a hard stigma to get over.
[00:18:15] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:18:16] Speaker E: You Know, am I not faithful enough? You know, is God, am I mad at God? Am I, you know, is this punishment what God had done to our family because I did some unrepentant sin and you know, but I was trying to handle that all on my own.
But you know, it was part of God's journey to humble me and be able to seek out help. And when I didn't realize too is after that every family that would leave was a sting to that wound. You know, every, everyone that you know, abandoned our church or said a harsh, you know, comment about my preaching or the music. I took it all personally. Personally. And through the eight years I've learned that it's got, that has nothing to do with me.
[00:18:59] Speaker A: Right.
[00:18:59] Speaker E: That has to do with, with them and kind of repelling from some of that ownership.
[00:19:07] Speaker B: Right.
[00:19:07] Speaker E: Of the criticisms.
And so it's taken years, but I think just church members can understand like, you know, their pastors, you know, are. They don't even know what their own, what they're dealing with themselves until someone lovingly comes alongside of them.
[00:19:20] Speaker C: Yeah, that's real, Jimmy. Thank you for sharing that. You know, we, we have this as pastors, this move on mentality, right. Because there's, you're dealing with this person in their bad situation. Whether you got another appointment in an hour or you've got to write a sermon for Sunday or you've got this meeting or this crisis or this thing. And we don't often stop long enough to process that, which sometimes can lead to hardness, it can lead to pushing down emotion, just ignoring it altogether and really not dealing with that. So let me, let me just kind of throw the grenade in the middle of the table and let you guys deal with it as you want to.
As, as individuals. How do you guys remain tender hearted without allowing the disappointments, the cynicism, the move on mentality of ministry to make you cynical. How do you remain tender hearted in the midst of all that? What, what do you do?
[00:20:20] Speaker E: Really short and sweet for me is that man, I have to be humble and remind myself this is God's church, this is not my church. If God gave me this mission to care for these people in, in such a way and I'm not able to handle their problems. I think that was kind of like I said earlier, right. Is like I am not the source of their healing. Realizing my job is to be a lamp on a lampstand, pointing them to Christ and reminding them of spiritual truths.
And you know, for me it's part of that learning aspect of our church is saying okay, you know, I was listening to one episode you guys were talking about. I don't know, it was last episode we were talking about spiritual habits on reading the Bible. Right. I'm so much different than probably Michael Bird or you. And like, you know, I don't have a study guy because like my brain's always going and I'm a problem solver. So one of the things is in my study time, in my reading time, I'm thinking about what's on my heart about a person in the church. So that way I can go to scripture and then learn about it. How do am I going to tackle it? What does God want me to do if he wants me to do anything and then be able to pray for that person.
And so just for me, it's just reminding myself that I've been given this responsibility.
But it's not about me.
[00:21:37] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:21:39] Speaker D: When you mentioned staying tender hearted and not becoming cynical, you know, it's not at all posse to say we are absolutely, it's necessary to spend a quiet time with the Lord daily and to search and to pour out our hearts and to even ask God. I don't understand why I'm going through this. I don't get this, but I still trust you. And part of one thing I've read recently is we've been going through a Bible study with our small group on how to study the Bible. And one of the basic things is the Bible is not about us, it's about God.
God is revealing himself. And a lot of people approach the Bible for what can I get out of it? How does this apply to me? And where we need to start is the Bible is about God. God is revealing himself.
And when I look for God and I see a bigger picture of who he is, which will never have a full complete picture because he's so awesome. But the more I see of who God is, then my response flows out of who God is and Jesus.
People walked away from him. His closest friends denied him, but he still, even knowing the big picture, he still cared when he went to Mary and Martha. When Lazarus died, Jesus wept. He knew the rest of the story. He knew what was going to happen, but he still cared for what they were going through. And the more I see a picture of who God is, it helps remove some of the layers of my self centeredness in my oh, it's all about me. Just help me to keep my eyes fixed on Jesus.
[00:23:31] Speaker C: That's good. It's funny how those two things, spiritual health and emotional Health are interrelated.
[00:23:35] Speaker E: Yes.
[00:23:36] Speaker C: They help each other.
[00:23:37] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:23:37] Speaker C: Jim, what have you got?
[00:23:38] Speaker B: Well, I was just going off of what brother said. I'm just thinking about Jesus in the upper room, right in John and he's washing the disciples feet, you know, and he said, you know, you'd heard it said to do this or that, whatever, you know, he's referring to like the golden rule, you know, love others, you know, that's universal throughout humanity. Every religion has the, some version of the golden rule. But he did one better. He said, do as I've done to you, not, not as, not as you would have others do to you, but do as I have done to you. So I gotta serve, you know, because Jesus is saying that's the standard man. It serve, serve and, and, and what a great example of love, you know, even loving those he who is gonna betray him. I mean, wow, he loved to the end, so. And then beyond. Right. But I thank God for that and that just spoke to my heart in the last few weeks. But yes, concur, we gotta be connected. I'm the vine, you're the branches. Jesus says right apart from me, you can do nothing. And the, the Father is the vine dresser, the gardener. And he prunes.
[00:24:49] Speaker C: Ow.
[00:24:50] Speaker B: Pruning is not comfortable, gentlemen.
Pruning is not. And sometimes he prunes perfectly good branches.
Yeah, man, that's hard though. That's hard to accept sometimes.
[00:25:05] Speaker C: Yeah, that, that's difficult. I, I know for me walking through some of these things and I've heard a lot of pastors say this, you know, when I was my youngest son's age, he's.
I don't want to say his age because he might listen to his podcast. I think he's 23, he might be about to be 24.
Just super extrovert, kind of the life of the party. Walks into a room, hey, Noah. Kind of a thing. I used to be that. Now I'm the guy that kind of hides in the corner and just watches the thing happen. And I love people, I love hanging out with you guys and doing that sort of thing.
What I've discovered is some of that grief and some probably poorly handled on my part has made me very lonely at times. You know, as a pastor I never felt like I had close friendships and close relationships because it would cost me something that I maybe wasn't willing to give up. Maybe what if they left or whatever. You know, the saying is you can be surrounded by people every Sunday and still be profoundly lonely. Yes, I think that's a pretty Common experience.
What makes genuine friendship so difficult for pastors?
[00:26:12] Speaker E: Yeah, I mean, I learned this and you know, I didn't go to seminary, but I got a bachelor's in Bible and when I wanted to get a master's degree, I thought about seminary with a focus in pastoral counseling with marriage and family. And that was like two classes. Or I could just get my whole master's in pastoral counseling, marriage and family, and all 36 hours, you know, all that I wanted. I've, I just finished, you know, in 2024, my master's degree. And so I've already been in ministry. So like, I actually kind of knew, I always kind of say this because it's, it's a good thing, is that if you get ministry experience first and then decide what kind of education you want, you'll get way more out of it because you'll have definitely, you'll have so much more hands on experience and be able to tie in stories. So I say that coming to this with the loneliness piece, I did not know what dual relationships were until I went through my master's degree counseling and realizing ministry is full of it. Full of it. And I didn't, it made, it made so much clearer to me of why some guys who I've been, you know, who came to church, their young families, our kids play together and they were going to my midweek services or coming on Sundays. And then all of a sudden I start getting real with them and opening my heart and confessing sin, they just blew me off. And it turns out they just took their families and they went to a different church. And I've always said this. I expect the world to act like the world.
The hardest things is when the church does not act very lovingly to one another.
And in that quiet, you know, hey, you're, you're, I'm blowing up your text messages over two months. You're not responding to me at all like, what's going on? We, you know, what's, what's happening, man? And, oh, we decided to go somewhere else. Thanks for your time. The Lord's calling us somewhere else. And, and I, I get really aggravated at that statement because sometimes it's not the Lord moving you, sometimes it's your
[00:28:09] Speaker B: own sin moving, you know, conviction.
[00:28:11] Speaker E: Yeah. And so, and then I realized what dual relationships were, was some people are uncomfortable for you being their pastor and then you being their friend.
[00:28:20] Speaker B: Yeah, right.
[00:28:21] Speaker E: And they can't, they can't coincide the two because they've lifted you up on this pedestal because they want to be like you. But when they realize you're as real as they are and struggling, they're like, oh, I can't learn from this guy because all his faults and failures, I didn't go find the next person. I need to elevate.
[00:28:34] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, that's so real.
I want to piggy on that. I know you guys have something to say about that, so I'm going to let you do that.
But let me piggyback onto that and say that's why I think pastoral relationships are super important.
Having friendships with other pastors and not just surface, where we compare churches and budgets and your church is bigger than mine and mine's small.
[00:28:59] Speaker A: You know what?
[00:28:59] Speaker C: We really get connected with each other here in Metro. We're trying to. Again, I have to say it every time because I don't want him to listen to this podcast and think I stole this thing. But that's Bob Bumgarner at First Coast Churches. He talks about don't pastor alone.
We've modified that here. Metro is. We want all of you guys listening, you guys around the table to say, no one pastors alone. We need each other in this. Paul says to carry one another's burdens and fulfill the law of Christ.
[00:29:24] Speaker B: Amen.
[00:29:24] Speaker C: One another is a big deal. So kind of where I want to throw that out is you guys didn't get to speak into that first thing.
[00:29:31] Speaker E: Can.
[00:29:31] Speaker C: Can speak into it too, but talk a little bit too, about how pastors, number one, how you guys build relationships with other pastors and how you find that important, but just relationships in general, however you want to go with that.
[00:29:44] Speaker D: Like you say, I think it's difficult to have close friendships within the church, and other pastors know what you're going through. And as a younger pastor, there was a bit of that mentality of the competition, and you don't want to be too real because who knows?
What's been helpful to me is I have a group of core guys that we have had a friendship. Well, and really it's with the wives as well for like 40 years that are not even in Missouri. But I have maintained a relationship, and we get together at least once a year and sometimes more often. But we also. We have a text thread where we throw out prayer requests and say, hey, I'm going through this. And it's a group that I can be real with and I know has my back and I'll be there for them. They'll be there for me. And that has been invaluable for Elizabeth and I when we've gone through hardships to be there for each other. So to us, we didn't plan that. It kind of organically happened. And I'm so grateful that God in his grace, provided that. But I would just encourage other guys and I think also include wives, because ministry wives is a whole nother level of this, you know, a perceived need to have a mask on, to have everything pretend it's perfect when reality is we're all human. So include pastors wives with this. We need those types of friends outside the church, perhaps even outside the ministry area. I think obviously there's a need for ongoing relationships within our region, but for us, it was very helpful to be people. I could be totally objective and they don't have a vested interest in anything going on in St. Louis area, but they can be real and say, hey, have you thought about this? Or. Or they can just see things more objectively and just be there.
[00:31:42] Speaker C: Yeah, sometimes you just need to name names.
[00:31:44] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:31:45] Speaker E: And. And I just. I don't mean to cut you off, Jim, before you get started, but I do want to add to like, you're started organically. I would encourage other pastors to pray about having a meeting with someone that they are potentially wanting this type of deep, emotional, trusted, vulnerable relationship with where you could just word vomit and this person be able to handle, you know, praying for you and giving you suggestions, but ask for permission, because what you don't want is just expect another person to absorb that role, and then they just don't meet your expectations. Then you ruin a relationship because you didn't really get that kind of like, back and forth of, yeah, can you own this for me? Can you. Can you bear my sin and my anger and my upsetness? You know, would you be able to work that through with me? And I got. And I've had to ask certain pastors over the years, and one guy told me, like, I just can't handle that. You know, I appreciate you asking me, but, like. And I said, thank you for telling me the truth. And now I know I can go to somewhere else.
[00:32:42] Speaker B: That's good. Boundary.
It's absolutely vital for me to have a couple of friends. And I've. I have two in particular that are, you know, call in the middle of night. And these guys are army chaplains too. One of them just recently retired, one still on active duty.
And we've been there through the valleys, through the. Through the fights, through the. Through the wars, you know, and, but. And they're totally different theologically from me, but they love Jesus, right? And so that's the main thing. And then they, they can see beyond that. And they've done their own work too. So we all have these kind of shared trauma bonding experiences. Right. And that's the only other pastors are going to have. You know, I know therapy is great. I've been to therapy myself for a short time for some of my stuff, but mainly through the context of these kind of relationships. I've had the greatest healing.
And part of it was the blessing of being through the CPU residency. That was a year long process.
And then I went through another year and a half long process for marriage and family therapy.
And so those two guys that are my, my battle buddies, they really are, they came out of that family life program with me and they know my story. They know it ins and outs. They know the bad, they know where the skeletons are in Jim's closet, you know, so we have to have people that we can confess to. And I know, you know, we're not Catholic. Right. We don't go to the Father, but we do go. We go to the Father and we go to the Father who sometimes hears us through our brothers. Yeah. And that's important. Confess your sins one to another. Yeah. And we neglect that a lot.
[00:34:26] Speaker E: But you also have brothers who say, like, hey, you're telling me, have you told God this yet?
[00:34:30] Speaker B: Yeah. Right.
[00:34:30] Speaker E: You know, they've challenged me, or what,
[00:34:32] Speaker B: Where'd you get that at? Or what are you thinking that way, you know, they help bring me back to the scripture.
[00:34:37] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:34:37] Speaker B: You know, I think your scripture says, you know, we both read this so they can be real, they can be challenging to me. And I have a few others here, you know, when I've been developing. But part of that was a systemic thing. But we could still, even if the system is there, we can avoid it like a plague and we can, we can choose not to. And I think we need to choose to do it.
[00:35:01] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:35:01] Speaker B: And part of my, I don't remember, know if you still track. And I'm doing that ministry now on the side and Jim Ramsey Ministries, that's all about caring for pastors and their families. So anybody could hit, hit me up for that and I could, we'll put
[00:35:16] Speaker C: some contact info in the show notes so people can, can do that.
Let me bounce onto that. Because I think sometimes, and I know for me, I didn't realize until it was too late that I needed to be developing ministry friendships. You know, I, I had said all along, I'm a highly relational person.
Even in every church. I'VE been in, but it's been that situation. I find that guy in our church that I, I really relate to and I start to feel safe around them and really kind of start to, to the phrase we use here is a lot. I think I started to peel back the onion of Chad for them and then there reaches a point where they're like, whoa, I, I don't know that I want a pastor that's like that. You know, sorry, that that's who I am, you know, and they never said that or anything like that. But I know that carrying the pastor's burdens can be difficult and sometimes it was too late for me to realize so. And Jimmy, you've already talked about it. Kind of getting that group of guys to get friendships with. One of the reasons we do the pastors gatherings here is you can't have those relationships with guys you don't know. And you can't know them if we stay isolated in our own buildings. But what's one or two pieces of advice you would give the pastors listening to begin doing now? What would you tell guys out there to say? You need to start doing these one or two things now to start building friendships that you're going to need when ministry gets hard.
[00:36:34] Speaker E: So my, my mentor gave me this advice whenever I was struggling with connecting with people in our church. And I never forgot it. And what I would do is do an assessment. And you can do this every six months to a year with taking an assessment of your own relational health. And relational health is. It's like a three pillar or like a, they call like a three like a stool type of relationships. One is you need to have someone above you.
What pastors fail to do is have someone disciple them. They are not an asylum. They can't, they're not God where they're, you know, we're not overflowing with all of this knowledge and all of this, you know, self control and self emotion. And you know, we're human. And so we need someone above us to disciple us and to train us and to care for us as much as we're caring for others. So you need to be discipled. You have someone over you who is that right now in your life.
Second is who's beside you, who is a peer that you can go through life with? Who's someone that you can say, are you going through this with your church as well? Have you run into a transgender issue going on in your church? How did you handle it? Like these are pastors going through some of the Same issues in our culture that we're going through now. And then you, you know, who is that? And you know, we find that one minimum from above you to beside you and one below you, you know, and so one below you're discipling someone.
And then what we. When you do this assessment, you know, you have to be careful with your boundaries like we talked about with, you know, am I giving too much for the person below me that's really geared to someone beside me or above me. And so that way you can kind of gear towards. I'm not just going to word vomit or give too much to this individual who I'm discipling. Yeah. I can now spread this out evenly.
[00:38:15] Speaker C: Well, good.
[00:38:16] Speaker D: I've heard it said, you know, every Paul needs a Timothy. Every Timothy needs a Paul. Well, we also all need a Barnabas, you know, someone that come alongside and just be a ton of encouragement to us.
[00:38:27] Speaker C: Yeah. And let me just say this out loud, Ed, you're that guy for me. Just so you know, whenever you come into a room, you. You smile, you come and greet me, you hug me and. And I just always feel encouraged when I'm around you should just to give you that feedback. Just say, man, I appreciate that aspect from you in my life and we're super grateful for that.
[00:38:46] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:38:47] Speaker C: Anybody else? I got another question I want to roll into.
[00:38:51] Speaker B: Come up with an idea.
We really need to push into the reality that we are not so sure about ourselves as we think we are.
There's a lot of blindness for ourselves. You know, I think John Calvin said in his. One of the only things he said about self reflection early on in his institutes is, you know, there is no knowledge of God without knowledge of self.
And wow. There's a. There's a big. There's a lot of truth there. You know, and. And a lot of times where I've gotten in trouble is not being aware. Yeah.
[00:39:27] Speaker D: And.
[00:39:27] Speaker B: And learning a hard way. You know, after I did get too cynical or I did have an anger issue or did, you know, just had no idea why I was crying. You know, I mean, these kind of things sneak up on you and it can. And it can hijack you and it can. And it could derail your entire ministry and do. Do harm to the kingdom. So one is putting ourselves in a posture of not just humility, but examination.
We could learn something there from old Saint Ignatius there, the daily examine. You know, how are we really letting the Holy Spirit and the Word cut us open and reveal our hearts. Yeah. And that can be Scary. That may be why a lot of people don't do it.
[00:40:14] Speaker E: I truly agree with you because, you know, I tell my church and when I'm pastorally counseling, I'm not licensed, but pastorally counseling that, you know, emotions are not sinful. Jesus felt every emotion and did not sin. And so when we have, when we look at our self awareness, those emotions can become sinful. And so look, this is why we have failures in, in the pastorate right now is because the pastors don't have accountability in their emotions, whether it be lust or whether it be anger or gluttony or greed. You know, they just, they're not handling it well. They're not self aware. And so I was doing some reading, you know, to kind of prep for this. And you know, one of the qualifications for a pastor is self control, but within self control, I believe that there would be a terminology attached to that too, is self aware because you cannot control what I don't know.
[00:41:08] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:41:09] Speaker C: Yeah, that's the truth. You know, I think it's, it's Bob Ingle out at Waypoint Church. You know, he had a pretty significant health issue some years ago and wrote a book and did the whole thing. And I think one of the things that he's talked about is in the pastoral realm, we have to acknowledge that it's okay for us not to be okay, you know, that it's okay for us to acknowledge we're broken people and that asking for help is not a failure in your leadership.
Going to another brother or someone else and saying, I need help sometimes is the most spiritual thing that we can do.
Let me just push on because the temptation was, let's stop and we'll pause, we'll do a whole nother episode.
So if you're listening, we're going to be a little bit longer than 40 minutes. Because I think one of the key aspects here that we're dealing with is when grief comes and we don't deal with it properly, we don't have the friendships properly, this thing called ministry burnout comes into our life. I certainly have dealt with that in my past.
So in your estimation, because I think rest and Sabbath and vacation and exercise and family and friendships all play a role in our health and preventing that.
Let's talk about rest for a minute. What, what do you guys do to Sabbath to rest in ministry? And Jimmy, I know you still got young kids, so rest is hard to find.
[00:42:33] Speaker B: Give it a few years.
[00:42:34] Speaker C: Yeah, but even all my kids are adults and rest is hard to find. But what do you. What's the regular habit you guys have? Just to rest your body, to rest your spirit, to rest your mind. That works for you?
[00:42:49] Speaker B: Okay, so, yeah, I take one day in seven. Hello, Protected as much as possible. As you know, I'm not doing any ministry that day unless there's a crisis, unless there's a real pressing issue that would require pastor, I'm going to have that day off. And another thing I do is I like to work out, I like to run.
So I do that myself.
And so I usually have a long run on that day. And that just does something for me, getting out, especially love to run out in nature where there's trees and everything, you know, so I'm getting out there, I'm praying, I'm wrestling, I'm just communing with God in that process and, you know, practicing all the spiritual disciplines. Like you said. We, you know, I've been incorporating fasting a little more in my life, honestly. I know we're not supposed to talk about that.
We, we like to not talk about it, and then we don't do it, you know, but we need.
The scripture says when you fast, you know, just like when you pray.
So I'm not saying I'm a champ at it. I'm just saying I've been incorporating it and man, that really is good. Now, when we talk about burnout, though, I want to caution us because burnout is kind of like, what, Pretty serious.
[00:44:08] Speaker C: It's more than just being tired.
[00:44:10] Speaker B: Yeah, it's, it's, you know, you, you have some, some words we like to use in the profession is you have compassion fatigue first, which is where you're just tired and where. That's where a little bit of rest, a little respite, maybe a week away or two weeks of retreat, some kind of Sabbath or sabbatical might help. But when we're talking about like burnout, man, you might need months. You may be a year, two or three. And again, going back to awareness, when I was coming off active duty as army chaplain, running a thousand miles an hour, and then all of a sudden I'm retired. And then I went to Mercy, you know, working as a staff chaplain for a year, and that was a great downshift because I was like 40 hour work week only and I had time off and I'm like, whoa. And a year into that, I'm like, dude, I think I was burned out.
And it, you know, so it took some space and time. And that's been a couple years since I left Mercy. And As a chaplain and chaplain manager. But coming in. So I ended up having a whole year sabbatical where I was just driving a school bus. This past year, you know, before I got hired at Concord, I was driving a school bus. And, dude, it was like the best thing ever because I was still engaging with kids and being a good person, contributing to the community. But I had to take that break, and the Lord made me take that break. I didn't want to take that break, but the Lord made me take that break. And you know how much hard I was trying do to find where it is that the Lord was going to take me next.
[00:45:40] Speaker E: But you will make me lie down.
[00:45:43] Speaker B: Me lie down in the school bus and wait, you know, so, yeah, wait on the Lord. So. But there's also that thing called vicarious trauma where we, you know, we get too close and we need to carry one another's burdens, we need to carry other people's burdens. As a minister, that's what we're called to do. But sometimes that wears us down and it becomes too much. And so we're dealing with compassion fatigue, vicarious trauma. And then if we let that go too long, if we aren't managing the stuff of life, then we're going to end up in the burnout. And if we're not careful, it can take our lives. Gentlemen. Yeah. And I've known. I've got friends, pastor friends, unfortunately, who have even taken their lives.
And it's just a sad, sad situation.
[00:46:36] Speaker D: There's a lot that could be said, obviously, the taking the breaks. And I've never had a sabbatical. I can recognize that would be very nice and very helpful. I'd love to do that at one point, but a lot of churches don't understand sabbatical.
[00:46:52] Speaker C: We don't get sabbatical.
[00:46:54] Speaker D: But anyway, one piece of advice that I heard early in my ministry that I really didn't apply fully, but might be helpful for some guys. My. My pastor, when I was a seminary student, he said, develop a hobby where you actually complete something and make something. He did woodworking. And he said, when you work with people, lots of times you don't see tangible results. You never see a finished product. And there's something emotionally fulfilling about seeing a completed project.
Unfortunately, my hobby is playing golf, and golf is not a satisfying completed project in my case, by any means. But it was good advice to have something that you can focus on that you can complete and devote yourself to that is perhaps totally unrelated to ministry. That just helps that mental health to Say, yes, I can complete something and I can see a finished product. Because in ministry, many times we don't see a finished product when we deal with people.
[00:47:56] Speaker C: Yeah, golf, the game I love to hate, it is a finished product. At the end of 18 holes, I still stink at this game, but it's been the most relaxing day I've had in weeks. Right.
[00:48:04] Speaker E: Yeah. I think too is the fact that, you know, having something that you don't have to really think about too hard, that you just enjoy doing. So what I've figured out about myself is I. I like, I love learning. I didn't really think that was who I was, but then I ended up having a knee surgery a couple years ago, and I was just kind of sitting at home, and my son was like, hey, can we get a fish tank? And I was like, okay. So we got the tank filled up with water, put a fish in there, died the next day. I'm like, what is going on here? So with my leg being propped up, we watched YouTube videos about the water quality and making sure it cycles. And, man, so we learned it and we got fish and we put them in there. And then over the course of seven months, we had 19 tanks in my basement.
[00:48:47] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:48:47] Speaker E: We had a fish room. And it was super exciting because I got so into it and I did some aquascaping, getting some sprites and doing some stuff in there, and it was super relaxing. It lowers blood flavor, man, it was so. It was so cool. And then we ended up moving. I had to get rid of all the tanks, and so I kept two.
Then I still got some fish. But, you know, then. Then it become. I kind of knew everything about this that I felt comfortable with. And then I had some church friends, some of our elders who were into DND Dungeons Dragons. They asked me to come to the game that with them. And I'm like, I have no clue about this. And so then I started learning all about the fear, the theater of the mind, and like, you know, campaigns and, you know, all the different strategies and stuff like that. And then so I started watching YouTube videos and taking notes and like, that just became so much fun for me. And you know, what I realized too was, you know, when it comes to rest there, it's not just rest in itself, but I think you. You all know this is like, you know, the. For the health and well being of a balanced life for a person, there's seven areas that we really need to focus on.
One, being physical. You talked about running around the woods, you know, being able to get outside, you know, getting some healthy exercise. You know, our mental health, having, being able to have, you know, a area where we can meditate on the scriptures, you know, practice mindfulness. You know, telling a young person today, go outside and just sit and touch grass means like, what? Why would I do that? Like, you know, just be mindful of what's around you. You know, emotional health, being able to practice gratitude and be able to recognize how am I feeling right now, you know, being able to maybe prayer journal WR God about how you're feeling and being able to be honest, you know, with how you're feeling with the spouse or with someone trusted. Relational health. We've been talking about that a lot already.
Spiritual health, you know, getting in the scripture reading, meditation, not memorization, you know, being able to say, hey, I'm doing this for my own health, not a task. You know, being able to fill us up with the spiritual cup and open for the sermon on site. Exactly. Yeah. And financial health, you know, we all have to think about, you know, our bank accounts and our, you know, how much that's coming in and, you know, by. As a bivocational pastor, you know, one of the things I've been very thankful of is the Lord has taken care of me financially through my main job and has alleviated most of the burden from my church.
But how do I still be fiscal responsible and tithe and be able to be a good operator of that, of my finances and then also just occupational health, I think too is we're all called to this ministry, whether you're bivocational or full time. But what are your goals? How do you set up that work life balance, how you know, when to turn off, you know, the, the job aspect of you and, and bring home and be present with your wife and kids and set up the goals that you want to learn about, Be able to, you know, say, okay, well, yeah, I got my sermon series prepared for the next three years.
[00:51:32] Speaker C: But like, what other goals do you
[00:51:33] Speaker E: want to shoot for? And so when we think about rest, you know, you may be focused on one too much of one area and, and you're depleted in another area. And so that way you use rest as a. Be able to, you know, I'm going to tone down this, this area. Maybe I'm spending too much time with friends, I'm abandoning my wife and you know, being able to need to pick up my, you know, self and, and spend more time with my wife, go on dinner dates with her, you know, be able to do different things like that so it's taking an assessment and just kind of resting and. And leveling out these pillars all at once.
[00:52:04] Speaker C: Yeah, that's good. I want to go ahead and land the plane here because this is such a big topic, we're going to have to circle back to it at some point.
But I will say, Jimmy, come. One of the things you said, the next episode we're recording here in a couple of weeks is on the pastor's physical health.
We're going to be talking about marital health in another episode. We're going to be talking about occupational health in another episode. So all of those things are part of this series that we're going to be working through, which is one of the reasons I feel somewhat comfortable go ahead and land on the plane here and not trying to stretch it off. Here's what I'd like. And Ed, I'm going to start with you this time.
10, 15 seconds. The pastors listening to this podcast on emotional health. What's one.
One thing that Ed Plants would say to them on this subject that you haven't had a chance to say yet? Maybe you just want them to hear from you.
[00:52:57] Speaker D: One of the life verses for Elizabeth and I is 2nd Corinthians 1:4, which was gives praise to the God of compassion, the God of all comfort, who comforts us in our troubles so that we can comfort others in their troubles at the comfort we've received and in our lives when we've been through some valley experiences, God has always been faithful and provided. And it seems like immediately God will bring other people into our lives that are experiencing something similar. And again, it's not anything we come up with our manufacturer. But God has shown us in that moment, here's why you went through this, so you can help somebody. And it always goes back to what God does, not what we do.
[00:53:49] Speaker C: That's good, Jim.
[00:53:50] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, he redeems everything.
Nothing is wasted in God's economy.
And whatever pain, struggles, challenge we're facing at the end, it will come together in for the good. And he may you give you some insight on that now that that will inform as well as empower your ministry with others who are going through very difficult things.
[00:54:16] Speaker C: Sure, Jimmy.
[00:54:17] Speaker E: Yeah. I just want to close with, you know, the Father loves you.
He. He doesn't want you to do anything.
Like one of the things that we get caught up with. And when I say we, I'm mainly speaking about myself and is that, you know, he. He doesn't want you to do anything in order to please him. He wants you to be in Him. He wants you to abide in him so. And rest in him and trust Him. And so it's one of the things that at the Missouri Baptist Convention, as the president of the pastors conference, that's our theme this year. And so I hope anyone who's listening, who's going to St. Charles to go come to the Missouri Baptist Convention. You know that Monday is the pastor conference. We're going to be talking a lot about abiding in Jesus, abiding in his word and trusting him in that.
Remove the ministry aspect of the goals and the number of members you need this year, number of baptisms, all that is all in his hands anyway. But he just wants you to be in Him. Yeah, that's so good.
[00:55:18] Speaker C: You know, we talk about emotional health, and I think one of the things to remember is when we talk about emotional health, it's not about becoming strong enough that ministry doesn't hurt anymore. It's not about becoming so spiritually mature that criticism doesn't hurt anymore.
It's learning to bring the hurts, the burdens, the disappointments, the grief, the loneliness, the exhaustion of ministry to Christ and into healthy relationships with other people.
It's about humbling ourselves and doing all of that. So as we wrap this up, let me, let me just leave with this. A healthy pastor isn't a pastor who never carries a burden.
He's a pastor who knows he was never meant to carry it alone.
And that's why we say, no one pastors alone. Obviously, we know Jesus said at the end of the Great Commission, lo, I'm with you always, even to the end of the age and even in the Old Testament. How many times do we hear God say to Jeremiah, I'm with you wherever you're going to go.
But also, guys listening, we want you to know the guys around this table, our team here at Metro, we want you to know you're not alone in this game.
We're so glad you're here and we want to come alongside you, support you, care for you, pray for you in any way that we can.
So thanks for joining us today, guys. Thank you for being here. Taking time out on among the Lampstands again, I'm Chad Hodges. Thank you guys again. Until next time, keep shepherding faithfully, keep your eyes on Christ, and remember, you don't have to do this alone.
[00:56:49] Speaker A: This has been among the lampstands. Let's stay connected, keep developing leaders, and keep pursuing the mission. Because lostness is the greatest problem in our city and the greatest hope is Christmas.
