Help For Hurting Pastors

Hurting Pastors

Hurting pastors are everywhere. You may not know it, but they are. My husband used to be a pastor. He was ousted from several churches because of controlling small boards not wanting their small churches to grow. He is not alone. So many of his friends from Bible College and those he gets e-mails from around the country that he has never met have also gone through this same thing.

So he decided to build a web site trying to help these hurting pastors. The web site is www.help-for-hurting-pastors.com.

If you know of a pastor who is hurting, let him or her know about this lens and my husband's web site. Or if you would like to see what well-intentioned "dragons" in the church do to pastors and their families, take a look. It is all true and so very sad. If you are one of these controlling, well-intentioned dragons, take a good look at yourself and ask God to forgive you and change your heart. Your pastor deserves better!

Well Intentioned Dragons

Troublemakers In The Church

Several years ago, when my husband and I were going through a lot of trouble in one of the churches that he pastored, someone told us about a book entitled, "Well-Intentioned Dragons" by Marshall Shelley. We bought it and read it and discovered that we were under attack by Satan. Satan uses troublemakers in the church to tear the church apart. That is exactly what was happening to us. We tried over and over to smooth things over and to appease our dragons so we could focus on the church staying together and growing, but the dragons did not want us there. They did not want church growth. They wanted to be in charge of their tiny social club. It was shocking for us to realize this.

Here is a newsflash for new pastors and people who are new to attending church. You expect church to be the one safe haven in the world, with everyone loving everyone else and spreading the love of Jesus, but in almost every church, there is at least one troublemaker, possibly more, who are there to criticize everything that everybody does...Especially the pastor and his family. If I had not experienced it firsthand, I would not have believed it. You can read about some of the dragons we encountered on my husband's site listed above. Yes, it really happened. And David does not even include the really horrible things. I think I need to write about a lot of them as some things were directed specifically at me, the pastor's wife.

The Dark Side Of Ministry

My husband is calling what he went through in the ministry as the dark side of ministry. What he went through, and what we all went through was rough, a sort of hell in the church, where there should have been love. Here is some of what he says on his homepage:

Being here in Kabul has happened so that I can write about my experience in order to help those who are suffering after leaving the ministry. Our only hope is to keep God first place in our lives. That is what matters. Help for hurting pastors is what I believe a lot of pastors need.

I have friends who graduated with me, who have been so deeply hurt that they do not even attend church at all.

The other reason for the delay in writing this was, "Who wants to write a site like this after they have failed?" Failure is embarrassing. Failure is humiliating. Failure means, "I am a loser." Who would want to read about my failure?

So after waiting for years for the big break, I have decided that God wants me, David, a humble servant of His who has no big name behind him or big success story behind him to develop this help for hurting pastors site to help others who are hurting and to warn newcomers to the field of ministry about the potential dangers of pastoring.

There are many who believe they have failed. There are many going through the humiliation and embarrassment of being thrown out of their churches. So this site will be about three things and they will not be in any particular order or arrangement-they may even be mixed at times. They are:

--Pastors who fought the good fight and lost.

--Pastors who are in the battle and about to lose the battle by getting what I call "The Right Boot of Fellowship."

--How pastors can survive what I call the "Dark Side of Ministry."

Help For Hurting Pastors is not about moral failures, although I may add a section about it down the road. If that occurred, you know what you did wrong and how you have to make it right. So we will not dwell there.

Bible College

Students Will Never Believe What I Have Been Through

Bible college students will never believe what we have been through in the ministry. They believe the church is so perfect and that God's people would never treat their pastor and his family like garbage. But it is true.

Several of my Bible college buddies have also gone through this. Most of them are now divorced and all of them are out of the ministry, just like me. When God calls you to ministry and laymen make sure you cannot minister, it is out of your hands. They will pay the price when they meet God. They do not consider this now. They want the church their way, not the way God has told the pastor it is to be, so they make trouble and get rid of the pastor. I would not want to be in their shoes. It is sad.

My husband writes:

If you are still in Bible College and have not pastored a church, you will probably think I am full of beans as you read my story. You are in school because you grew up in a church with members who were filled with the fruits of the Spirit. They exemplified what Christianity is all about. When you were called to preach, the pastor encouraged you. The congregation encouraged you. You were special, you were called out.

In order to best help the reader, I should tell my story. It is quite long and at times painful. In some cases, no matter what we do, there is no good decision. You will find that my life and that of my family's has been threatened. You will find that "kind" Christian people tossed us out with nowhere to go and no means to get there. But most of all, you will find that we were alone.

Perhaps you just graduated and you had a great Bible College experience. You are thinking that no matter what, all will be well as you minister.

Look at one simple fact. How many people were in your graduating class for your denomination? Multiply that times the number of colleges in your denomination graduating students each year to become pastors. How many? Do you think there are that many new churches opening each year or that there are that many pastors dying or retiring in your denomination?

Pastor Job Openings

When a pastor looks for a job, it can seem endless, especially if he has been tossed out of a church and will lose his home in a matter of weeks. Interviews take time, yet the denomination we were in gives us 30 days to get out when we have been fired. When you make $125 a week, there is no money saved up for an emergency, no cash to get an apartment or even to get a moving truck. You are at the mercy of the next church, hoping they will pay to move you. It is an awful way to live. It gives way too much control to the congregation and that power tends to go to their heads. They think they own you and can control you in every way. They will tell you about your hair, makeup, your cooking, your clothes, your housekeeping, even how you greet them...I was raised in the church my whole life, but I never knew that pastors and their wives were treated the way we were.

My husband picks up the story:

When searching for pastor openings and going through the interview process, I have learned that the pastor-to-be should be on the lookout for Red Flags. Red Flags are things that warn us to be aware that there are potential dangerous areas in the church. In other words, the church is not all it or the district leader is saying it is.

I did not invent this term. I read about it in a book. As soon as I figure out which one I will post it here.

The district leader called and said that a church had extended a call to us, but our dog would not be allowed in the house. Our dog was an indoor dog. We kept him well-groomed and he was free of fleas. I was later surprised to discover that everyone on the board but the Church Boss had one or two indoor dogs. I asked one of the ladies one day, while I was at her house, giving her dog a bath, why I could not have my dog in the house. She told me the board never said this. Come to find out the Church Boss had decided this on his own.

My poor indoor dog was forced to live outside in the mud because the grass would not grow like it should have in the backyard due to several large trees. I do not think he has forgiven me for this rough year and a half he had outside.

In thinking about pastor openings, it dawned on me that by giving into this demand, right off the bat, I set a precedent stating that we could be bossed around and controlled. Basically, we were finished at this church before we even started. When the church boss tried to control me in other areas, I would not stand for it. This led to a strenuous situation quickly.

Pastor Books

For the Hurting Pastor and Those Who Hurt Him

Great Books on Amazon

Great Books on Amazon

Help For Hurting Pastors Blog

Fetching RSS feed... please stand by

New Guestbook

submit

Reply

David David Apr 1, 2009 @ 9:13 pm

Thank you. Sorry it has taken me so long to get back to you.

Reply

David David Oct 3, 2008 @ 12:38 am

Hey,
I have been through this. Thanks to your husband for sharing and having the courage to tell his story.