Failure in Pastors

At the risk of being repetitious in regard to the subject of why pastors burnout, I want to write (yet another) post on the topic, this time based on remarks in a recent Pastors' Weekly Briefing.

H B London Jr notes three things that he's found over and over again have caused pastors to fail:


1. Limited time alone with the Lord
2. Unresolved issues at home
3. Inadequate accountability

I'm not at all surprised that he lists 'limited time alone with the Lord' first. One of the biggest problems with being a 'professional' minister is that you lose that room to have time with the Lord, whether by choice, or by circumstances, or for whatever other reason. Lay people have the same problem, but in a very general sense it may affect them somewhat less.

London adds a 'starter' list of other things that cause problems, particularly in the moral area:

• Carelessness
• Counselling too much
• Fatigue or burnout
• Spiritual defeat
• Unresolved issues from childhood
• Entitlement
• Sin

If these don't sound familiar, I'd be surprised. And if you're suffering in any of these areas, get someone to help. You can't do it on your own.

Steinke on congregational health

Peter Steinke is well-known as a writer who deals with issues in churches. One of his most widely read books is Healthy Congregations: A Systems Approach.

Whether you find lists of suggestions about problems helpful or not, the one he presents in an article entitled Twenty Observations about Troubled Congregations is worth a read.

The list covers quite a lot of ground, and on one reading you're unlikely to take it all in; quite apart from that, some of the points take a bit of unpacking. If you're having issues in your church, it's probably better to consider two or three of the points that seem particularly relevant, and begin from there.

Just for starters, here's point number one:

Most people are interested in relieving their own anxiety rather than managing the crisis or planning for a clear direction. Their primary goal is anxiety reduction, not congregational management.

You may or may not agree - it may depend on how easily you fall into anxiety or whether you're a person who stands up straight when everyone else is becoming anxious (!)

Check the twenty observations out. You're bound to find some of them useful.

To those growing older and soon to part

The Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa NZ publishes a monthly magazine called Candour. While it's available online, it's only accessible by a username and password, and obviously I'm not at liberty to pass those onto people reading this blog.

However, I am at liberty to let you know about a particular piece that appeared in the Sept 09 edition. It was written by Rev Jim Battersby, a retired minister living in Auckland.

The piece takes the form of a letter, and is entitled, To those growing older and soon to part.
The letter addresses the issue of how to come to terms with the fact that eventually any couple will be forced to face the issue that one of them will die before the other. This is especially pertinent for those who have been together for many years, and may be in their seventies or eighties or older.

Jim lost his own wife when he was 72 and has been on his own for 11 years. He knows the pain of separation, and the how it feels to cope after the loved one has gone. Suddenly all sorts of household responsibilities fall entirely on one pair of shoulders. Things that were shared have be done by one person alone. Domestic duties effectively double.

But there are other things that aren't so obvious, things that Jim says should be looked at before one or other partner dies. These include where to find important documents (often one person looks after these); how bills are paid, where family records are kept, the addresses of people on one side of the family who may not be so familiar to the other side.

For the wife there may suddenly be issues of maintenance. (In my house this would be no problem as my wife is the one who does most of the maintenance!) For men who have seldom cooked meals, there is the issue of dealing with daily food requirements. There may be a disability one or other spouse has: how will they deal with that when they're alone?

Some people may find it hard to deal with arrangements for a future funeral, but it certainly eases the burden when the day comes if some things are already in place. And then there are those issues that have never properly been resolved. They may still not get entirely cleared, but talking about them before a person dies is better than having them still hanging over you once they've died.

In the space of a couple of pages, Jim covers all these issues and more. I've been given permission by him to email or post copies of his article to anyone interested. Send me an email if you'd like a copy: email mcrowl@gmail.com. 

PS. Or you can now find it on my other blog.

Men's Sheds

I came across an Australian book yesterday called The Real Men's Toolbox: a DIY health manual for men, by Tammy Farrell. I haven't had a change to have a good look at it yet, (I saw it in passing at a local bookshop), but it has some good things to say about men's mental health, and what's more, it introduces the concept of Men's Sheds, a significant movement in Australia.

On the Men's Sheds site they state: Problems with men's health, isolation, loneliness and depression are looming as major health issues for men. Men's sheds can play a significant and practical role in addressing these and other men's issues. Men’s sheds can help connect men with their communities and mainstream society and at the same time act as a catalyst in stimulating their community's economic activities.

The sheds appear to be focused more at older men, if the pictures are anything to go by, but by no means exclusively. They talk about mentoring younger guys; not only youths, but blokes in their 30s and 40s. What they're doing, in effect, is rebuilding what was normal in the old days, when men would get together as a matter of course and work on rebuilding, renovating, helping each other put stuff together, chewing the fat and drinking no doubt. With society having focused to such a degree on every man for himself and every family separate from other families, this natural approach to life has withered away. And brought with it issues such as those mentioned in the earlier paragraph.

The Men's Sheds site has a good deal of info on it, and several slide shows (rather than videos). Spirituality is part of the approach, though this isn't discussed from any particular religious point of view. However I get the impression Men's Sheds are varied in their style, and no doubt there's plenty of room for discussing life and death and all the issues in between.

Photo by Jim Vance

Getting it off your chest

While the information in the report discusssed below pertains to Great Britain, most of it is very relevant to the New Zealand scene.
The report is called: Men and Mental Health – get it off your chest. It has some interesting and occasionally surprising things to say about men’s mental health.
One of its recommendations, for instance, is that health professionals should take gender into account when discussing treatment options with men. In other words, men have tended to be treated as less important in the mental health scene for a number of reasons which are discussed during the report.
Amongst these are a tendency for services are often ‘feminised.’
Many men ‘act out’ when having mental health issues, which often leads them to be criminalised because of their anti-social behaviour. The report reminds us that professionals need to recognise that ‘aggressive and violent behaviour is a potential indicator of mental distress.’
Men feel more comfortable discussing their issues in men-only groups, and if men are unemployed for too long they are likely candidates for depression. While partners or spouses may understand the man’s mental health, other family members often deride it.
There is also some discussion of mental health and gays, blacks and other minorities, and the elderly. Altogether this report makes essential reading.

For more information about men's groups, check out this article from the Sunday Star-Times, April 2009