Pastors who feel discouraged and depressed, even suicidal. Pastors leaving the ministry. Pastors who cannot understand why they have oppressive feelings of failure. Such reports two years ago from our board members were part of the stimuli that encouraged us to create LEADERSHIP. True, there are many happy, productive pastors, but there are also many going through deep struggles. Who could speak to such matters?
Fred Smith, subject of our first issue’s interview, told us with great enthusiasm about the work of Dr. Louis McBurney, a psychiatrist who has devoted his career to counseling ministers and missionaries in crisis.
Dr. McBurney was named Outstanding Student in Psychiatry upon completion of his M.D. from Baylor College of Medicine. After finishing his psychiatric specialty training at the Mayo Clinic, he was selected by Mayo and the American Psychiatric Association to receive a Faulk Fellowship-a program assigning psychiatrists in training to serve on committees of the APA and served on the Committee for Psychiatry and Religion.
While at Mayo, Dr. McBurney spent much of his time counseling with Christian ministers and their families, and it was there that he and wife Melissa first realized that God was leading them to establish a retreat and therapy center. That leading became Marble Retreat (Marble, Colorado, 81623), where pastors, missionaries, church staff members, and other church professionals come seeking new directions and new beginnings.
Editor Paul Robbins and publisher Harold Myra met with Dr. McBurney in San Antonio and taped a five-hour interview. Louis McBurney is, for all his credentials, as relaxed and unpretentious a man as you’ll find Yet his observations are compellingly relevant, set within his own very clear Christian commitment and sense of hope.
Dr. McBurney, what prompted you to specialize in counseling Christian leaders who have suffered a personal crisis or experienced a breakdown?
While pursuing my psychiatric training at the Mayo Clinic, I had several patients who were in some kind of religious work; they were pastors or missionaries or priests or nuns. In working up an evaluation of them, I was struck by the unique and
specific kinds of problems they faced. I was also impressed by their reluctance to get help. Nearly all of them would say something like, “I really don’t have any place to turn that is safe,” or “Everybody in my community expects me to be the helper; they don’t realize that I need help.” So, my wife and I began to investigate a way that we might meet these needs. Our goal was to establish a place where a person in a religious vocation could come, and within a relatively short period of time, get some spiritual and psychological insights for a reasonable price, while maintaining a degree of anonymity. We prayed about it, looked around; and ended up establishing Marble Retreat.
What are you learning as you work with troubled pastors?
Many people in the ministry find it very difficult to admit that they have any weaknesses or needs. One of the most difficult tasks I face is helping them admit this. For example, people are constantly calling and saying, “I have a friend who has these terrible problems and needs immediate help.” I always ask them to have their friend get in touch with me. More times than not, I never hear from the friend because he isn’t prepared to face the primary issue of having needs and asking for help.
That makes sense, but what are the deeper roots of these conflicts you’re counseling pastors and missionaries about?
Some learned in early childhood that they had more value if they didn’t have needs. Their parents didn’t mean to convey that, but they “discovered” that one is a “better person” if he can do it all by himself.
Can you expand on that?
It’s been helpful to pattern my thinking after Eric Erickson’s model of the stages of man, in which he deals with various periods of life that shape us. The first stage is trust and mistrust. Erickson says that as an infant comes into the world, he immediately begins to learn whether he can trust his environment to meet his needs. He either becomes trusting and sees his parents and other significant people meeting his needs, or he begins to learn that they’re not going to be met. Trust and mistrust continue for about two years. It’s a critical time that has a direct bearing on how a person will handle conflicts later in life. Buried deep within the person is either a feeling of trust toward people, or an attitude of mistrust. If mistrust prevails, the person tends to turn inward; he finds it difficult to get close to other people, and he’s frightened by revealing his dependency needs.
Many readers, when they hear you talking about today’s conflicts originating in toddler days will reject this. We’re sure you’ve heard such reactions: “Why do psychiatrists always talk about thumb-sucking and potty training? Talk about today’s problem. You guys have read too many hypothetical books.” Yet you’re saying that as you’ve worked with hurting ministers, as you’ve peeled back the surface, you’ve found these early experiences are important; that a person can be greatly limited by them and not know it, or not know what to do about it.
That’s right. Many people view psychiatry as just giving excuses for behavioral problems rather than dealing with a person’s responsibility for acting in a mature way right now. But to deal with causes rather than symptoms, it’s important to understand each part of the complex jigsaw puzzle that we all are, and discover how those parts interrelate to form a meaningful picture instead of a pile of pieces.
For example, people’s ideas about God frequently mirror their attitudes toward their parents, especially their fathers. This is true in almost 100 percent of the ministers I see. If the father was a stern disciplinarian who wanted to keep his children in line, the children’s view of God is the same. On the other hand, if the parent was loving, warm, and generous, then God is seen the same way. It is critically important for Christian fathers to realize that the way they relate to their sons and daughters early in life will greatly influence the child’s perceptions of God for life. Unfortunately, many parents don’t realize this. I see this over and over again. That’s why when I deal with a person who’s in a crisis situation, I peel back the surface and look at those childhood experiences that had so much to do with shaping attitudes and values.
You mention in your book Every Pastor Needs a Pastor (see review in Book Commentary) that ministers suffer from a very low level of self-esteem. Are you primarily talking about people who come to you in a crisis situation, or is this true for most ministers?
Ed Bratcher, a pastor in Manassas, Virginia, has done significant studies that indicate low selfesteem or self-image might be the number one problem that affects ministers.
Are you saying that ministers, who are in front of other people all the time, have lower self-esteem than others, or are you saying everyone suffers from low self-esteem?
I would tend to agree with the last part of your question; negative self-image is a common problem of mankind. Thomas Harris. in his book I’m OK, You’re OK, says that 95 percent of adults probably have a basic negative self-image. I’m not sure I’d put the figure quite that high, but it’s a very common problem. My experience has shown me that you can’t really tell by a person’s position, or how he seems to be functioning, what he might be feeling on the inside. I’ve become closely acquainted
with several very successful pastors who constantly struggle with a negative self-image. They live under the tyranny of having been told they have great potential, or a theology/philosophy that says, “You can do anything you want to.” So they live all of their lives under a cloud created early in their childhood that said, “You better shape up and get going if you want to amount to something.” While they’ve been “successful” on the outside, they never resolved the internal conflict of feeling that they have not done enough nor have they done the right things. This is especially true of a vast majority of pastors who lead small congregations.
That’s a devastating thing to handle. If all of their lives they’ve been told they should win the world, but after twenty or thirty years they find themselves in the hills of South Dakota with fifty people, they could feel that God has failed them, or they have failed God.
Usually they feel that they have failed God!
That’s especially sobering when you realize that more than one-half of our pastors serve congregations of under three hundred. You’re saying much of the guilt and negative self-image you see in Christian leaders relates to a poor perception of who God really is?
Oh, they know the proper answers. When I ask my patients, “Where do you get your self-worth?” most of the ministers say, “Well, from my relationship to God, of course. I’m created in his image. I’m special, for he gave his Son to redeem me.” But while these concepts are readily verbalized, most of them have not penetrated because of a negative model that was present during their childhood. When I probe into that child/parent relationship they often say things like, “I’m beginning to see what you mean now. I’ve been looking at God just as I’ve looked at my father.” They realize, at least to some degree, the fallacies of their perception.
Frankly, it’s very hard to untwist the emotional bent of a person who has had a negative experience with his parent. Some time ago I heard a Christian psychiatrist from the Midwest say that a person who had not experienced love in a meaningful human relationship could never quite accept or experience the love of God. I doubt I would put it that strongly, because I think God can supernaturally overcome the lack of a good parent/child relationship; but I would agree that a negative model is very difficult to overcome.
It sounds as though you’re saying that if a person has had a mistrust experience during the first stage of life, it’s like losing an arm or foot. He has to learn to live with that impoverishment and try to build a meaningful life and ministry despite his disability.
To some degree he is, in fact, handicapped.
Can relationships with others, like a spouse or significant friends, help to compensate for this emotional disability?
Yes, I think so. Most help comes through correctional experience. I don’t hold to the theory that one’s personality is totally formed in childhood and remains static. I certainly think there can be some deep trauma that’s hard to overcome, but man is a dynamic creature. A good relationship in marriage or with one’s pastor or Sunday school teacher can go a long way to make up part of the deficit.
In a way, all of us have an emotional bank account. If we’re fortunate, a lot of deposits are made while we’re young and growing up. We tend to enter adulthood with something to invest and spend. If we’re not so fortunate, if the deposits have been sparse, we lean toward insolvency and possible bankruptcy. This is a problem a lot of people face. They didn’t get those deposits and they’re really hurting. They go through life reaching out to everyone they can saying, “Give me something. Come on, I’m hurting. Give me.” These, of course, are the people none of us like. Usually they ask in abrasive ways because they’re not comfortable with their own shortages. Many times we don’t want to make deposits into their account because we feel we are short ourselves. Time and time again the central issue of conflict and crisis begins with the problem of self-image and self-worth.
Then if a pastor, an elder, and a Sunday school teacher are all struggling with a problem, a disagreement over any issue, no matter how small, the stage may be set for a massive, three-way explosion because each may be out to prove his or her self-worth.
Unfortunately, true. The matter of control also enters in here. Consider Erickson’s second stage which deals with the relationship between autonomy and dependency. A toddler, developing motor skills and learning independence, curiously tests everything. He discovers he doesn’t have to do everything his environment wants him to do. He learns he has to say no before he can say yes. He must exercise his own will to differentiate from the will that surrounds him. If a toddler says yes, he’s just mirroring his parents’ will, even if it relates to something he wants. Thus he’ll tend to say no because of his need to find autonomy.
The manner in which the toddler stage is handled is critical to how the matter of control will be viewed later on in life. If the toddler doesn’t get the feeling he can do things, if he’s overprotected, then he’s going to feel smothered and incapable of independence. Conversely, if he’s given too much freedom he becomes frightened by his inability to handle it. There’s a delicate balance here of allowing the toddler some independence and yet not pushing him beyond a comfortable, realistic dependence for a two-year-old.
So how does this relate to the Christian leader?
Most of the power plays that happen within the church or the family boil down to the question, “Who’s in control?” The more comfortable a person is with himself, the less important this question becomes. The minister who is insecure about himself will tend to hold on for dear life to all the power he can muster.
It’s been interesting to observe young men coming out of seminary and taking their first church. Depending on their experience with autonomy/ dependency in that early phase of life, they either fit right in or have a bad experience. In a way, a first church is a kind of setup. A seminarian suddenly finds himself leading a group of parent figures even though he’s not that far removed from his own parents. He’s expected to be the authority. Now, if as a child he enjoyed a comfortable kind of dependency, then he probably will work out a way to share the power with the congregation. He’ll be able to accept the authority of the board, live comfortably with it, and still exercise his pastoral authority as the spiritual leader. If his dependency relationship was an uncomfortable experience, he may be threatened by any power that seems greater than his own, and feel the need to prove himself.
You’re saying that when lay persons call a brand-new pastor they should make a few allowances for some of the things he may be going through.
Precisely. I was talking with a group of pastors the other day about certain small, rural churches that constantly break in the seminarians. These churches have a tremendous ministry to the body of Christ. They often are a loving group of people who readily accept this new recruit, love him, and look up to him as their pastor. We ought to have an award day for all those small churches that give new pastors the freedom to be themselves.
Then again, we’ve heard of the other kind of small, rural church to whom the bishop always sends “the brand-new guy.” They sometimes feel it’s their God-given responsibility to show the pastor who’s boss.
Yes, that happens a lot too. I’ve dealt with pastors who have barely survived such experiences. They were bruised and bleeding. Often I’ve found that the church has beat up on a whole series of young pastors. What an unbelievable introduction into the ministry!
What other legacies of childhood do you find these troubled ministers carry?
Guilt, for one, which can grow from various roots. Consider what Erickson calls the third stage: initiative versus shame and guilt. This is known as the Oedipal period, and occurs sometime between the ages of three and five. The child develops a strong desire to be closer to the parent of the opposite sex. It’s interesting if you listen to three- or four-year-olds, for often they will talk in very sexual terms about being with the opposite parent. During this period of time, a very strong attraction for the parent is created, and expresses itself in a desire for physical closeness and affection.
And the child should be given that affection, right?
By all means. But he or she also needs to know that other primary relationships-like husband/ wife relationships-are not going to be affected because of it. If a child is able to sense that he has affected a primary relationship, even broken up one, it can cause tremendous problems later in life.
Like guilt?
Among other things, yes, a feeling of tremendous guilt. That’s a traumatic experience for a child. You see this sometimes in divorce situations. A child experiences these yearnings and desires, and expresses them to a parent of the opposite sex while a divorce is in process. Eventually he concludes that he had something to do with breaking up these two very important people. Improperly handled, the situation can become destructive, building a legacy of guilt that can affect and paralyze normal desires and urges for years. The child must know that the relationship between the parents is firm.
We can still hear the skeptics out there saying that all this childhood stuff is overdone. Can you give us specific examples of how this relates?
A pastor came to see me just as he was being asked to leave his fifth church in seven years. As we talked about his childhood, it became apparent that his father was very authoritarian, very strict, unloving, and unaccepting. His father had made this statement to him: “You will never succeed at anything.” Later in life his pattern was to move into a new church situation and instantly make a positive impact. He had good pastoral skills, and was viewed by everyone as an effective, spiritual leader. However, in each instance, just as things really started to go and people would tout him as a success, he would fall into conflict with the board chairman or a strong, male authority figure in the church. And he always initiated the conflict I was amazed at the incredible things he would do. This pastor just couldn’t handle being a success, because deeply imprinted on his psyche was the prediction that he would not succeed, and that prediction was made by a very important figure-his father.
In psychiatry this phenomenon is called transference, where ideas, emotions, or attitudes that were originally connected to one important person are transferred to another person.
This happens in marriage. A lot of conflict I see in marriage is the result of the husband or wife expecting the spouse to be like Mommy or Daddy. This may sound extreme but it’s all too true. We had a couple in one of our retreat sessions who had been married forty years. In the course of the small-group process, it became apparent that he had been upset for four decades because his wife didn’t fold his clothes the way his mother had folded them. While he never told his wife how he felt, and she had no idea of his expectations, he harbored a knot in his stomach after every washday because his clothes weren’t folded “correctly.”
Some writers say that one of the biggest problems ministers face is their own sexuality. Many have lost their ministries because of indiscretion. Are pastors under greater sexual pressures than other people?
There are some psychological issues that may make them a little more vulnerable. I hear many a wife say over and over that she wants to feel more a part of her husband’s life, that she desires more emotional closeness and warmth. But most men are not that way. Basically, they’re interested in their vocations, and they tend to be less sensitive emotionally than most women. An exception to this rule might be the minister. He may not be more sensitive to his own wife, but in his professional role he’s probably more understanding and more caring than most men. And many needy women find a minister’s sensitivity very appealing.
Plus, he has the mystique of being the special messenger of God.
Right. You bet! While a very small minority of women might be interested in a sexual conquest, most women who get sexually involved with a minister do so because they see him as a fatherfigure with whom they want closeness.
But the greater danger is this: any time two adults of the opposite sex develop a close, emotional relationship, there’s a danger of sexual involvement. It’s just the nature of human beings. Emotional closeness inevitably raises the question of what’s happening sexually, because sex is a very vital part of our being and fulfillment.
In conservative Christian circles there are a lot of people, both men and women, who are sexually frustrated. This is a reflection of their restrictive kind of upbringing where sex was viewed as a negative, undesirable function. We’re just now beginning to see more of an openness in these circles about sex.
Some would say that all these sexual problems come from our culture’s obsession with sex, and that all this “openness” may do more harm than good.
When I first started in psychiatry I was convinced that our culture was responsible for most of these sexual problems and frustrations. I haven’t totally differentiated what part culture plays in sexual frustration, but I’ve discovered that sexual frustration is a universal concern.
You mean that people who are not exposed to all the sexual stimuli in media face most of the same sexual pressures as those who are?
They sure do. No matter where I speak, regardless of the type or age of the group, I find the audience is most interested in the things I have to say about sex.
It really shouldn’t be that surprising to me. In my own life, sex is a very real part of how I feel about myself. If I’m sexually satisfied and feeling good about my sexual relationship, I’m going to function more effectively. If I’m frustrated and not feeling satisfied, I’m going to be irritable, less selfassured, and entertain doubts about my manliness. This is true for women as well.
Once sexual frustration is acknowledged, what should be done about it?
Many problems of sexuality come from lack of education. All married couples, especially those in the ministry, should read a good book like Ed Wheats’ Intended for Pleasure. Tim and Beverly LaHaye’s book The Act of Marriage is also good. The tragedy is that so many pastors blindly try to minister to needy, sexually-frustrated people while they themselves fumble through an unhappy, unfulfilled, marital relationship.
Of the people who come to you seeking help, how many struggle with intense sexual frustration?
I would say about one-third are struggling with significant problems, and two-thirds are experiencing some problems. That shouldn’t be a difficult thing to believe given the kind of sexual education most of us brought to marriage. It’s not that uncommon among Christian leaders for a couple to be married fifteen years and the wife to very rarely experience orgasm. The husband may not know it, and if he does, he probably doesn’t have the foggiest notion about how to correct it. They both take what they think is the easiest way out: they ignore it. But that’s a high price to pay in light of what could be.
Wouldn’t this be less true of the younger generation?
Even though younger people have grown up in a time of more sexual awareness, many times they do not have good, solid, factual information upon which to build a good, marital relationship. That kind of relationship is the best way to protect oneself from getting involved with other people. The biblical admonition is to return to the bride of your youth. Drinking at your spring is the best way to keep from getting thirsty. That doesn’t completely remove vulnerability, but a person who is happy at home doesn’t seek happiness elsewhere.
All three of us rode airplanes to get here. We’re thankful that anyone who pilots a plane has to periodically go back to flight school for a refresher course. Yet within a marriage, one of the most awesome and vital relationships that exist’s, we refuse to even think about a check- up or a refresher course. We know one couple who recently experienced a marriage enrichment weekend. They determined to return at least every five years. They agreed it might make the difference between a dynamic, growing marriage and a divorce like so many of their Christian friends were going through.
Precisely. And if you really work at it you improve your skills, be they spiritual, emotional, social, physical, or whatever. My wife Melissa works with me in most of our small-group therapy sessions. Hardly a group passes but that we find our own relationship has been enriched. We get in touch with something that’s developed in our marriage that has destructive potential. It might be something we weren’t even aware of.
A marriage enrichment checkup every five years is a great idea. A marriage is not static. It isn’t the same now as it was five years ago, and it’s not going to be the same five years from now. Couples need a refresher course because they’re not both changing in the same direction. They may be dealing with issues like the children leaving home, the midlife crisis, the wife’s menopause, a possible change of profession, or whatever. These issues are going to affect both of them in different ways. Unless they continue to work together in communication, they will grow apart. Love, joy, and fulfillment may be replaced by anxiety, guilt, frustration, and depression.
It’s interesting that you mention both guilt and depression. Several Christian leaders have written to us and asked that future issues of LEADERSHIP carry major articles about the pastor and guilt or the minister and depression.
A few moments ago I said that negative self-concept is the greatest problem I see in most ministers. The second major problem is guilt which is usually expressed through depression. Depression takes many different forms. Emotionally, it appears as a feeling of sadness, not wanting to go on, hopelessness, and in extreme cases, self-destruction. Physically, it’s expressed through tension headaches, tiredness, bowel disturbances, and chest pain, even though a physician would be hardpressed to find anything physiologically wrong.
I’m pretty well convinced that guilt goes hand-in-glove with anger. I tend to feel guilty if someone catches me doing something wrong or if I catch myself not performing up to my own standards. I don’t like to get caught by others or myself, and whenever I’m caught by God, my wife, or my own conscience, I feel angry.
The Scripture says, “Be angry, and sin not.” We need to realize that anger is a part of our humanness. It is not necessarily destructive, but bottled up it’s like a time bomb waiting to go off. In the New English Bible, when equating anger with murder, it talks about nursing anger against your brother. The sin is not being angry but nursing anger-keeping it bottled up within, which is what most of us do. Most of us let anger fester and boil until it becomes rage and hostility. Or, we contain it so tightly that it turns into frustration and depression. Since most of us don’t go around killing one another, we tend to express our anger in depression.
If we’re fortunate in Erickson’s third stage of development-the initiative versus shame and guilt years-we learn that we can express anger without hurting others or ourselves, that it is possible to be angry and still maintain relationships. Perhaps we even strengthen them by verbalizing our anger in a simple statement such as, “I really feel angry.” It’s important how anger is expressed. “You made me mad” is an indictment. That expression is completely different from “I’m having trouble with my feelings of anger.”
Do you feel there’s a resistance to “feeling statements” within the church? Don’t we prefer “thinking statements” because feelings might gush out all over us with no biblical reference point?
Well, it’s true that feelings are subject to all kinds of variables, and they might get us into trouble from time to time. But feelings are a real part of us. They cannot be denied. They exist and they’re going to affect our lives whether we want them to or not. So if we get in touch with our feelings, begin to identify them and verbalize them, we have something we can deal with.
Isn’t it true that in most conflict situations we’re dealing with feelings rather than facts?
Yes. And genuine conflict-resolution will not take place until those feelings are dealt with. This is why it’s so critical for the Christian leader to deal with his feelings, because he is a model for everyone else the church.
Someone has said that eight out of ten pastors who lead their congregations through a building program resign within twelve months after the dedication. Building programs tend to bring more anger out of people than any other church experience.
And that anger often does not express the real, deep-seated feelings. The conflict may be about the color of the carpet in the new sanctuary; but on a less conscious level, the real struggle is “Who’s in control?” “Can I trust you?” Or, “You’re not living up to my expectations.” If I never work through my feelings about authority during childhood, then I’m going to be sensitive in those areas.
Many church members expect the pastor to be the perfect daddy. They want him to care for them and love them more than anyone else. Disillusionment, irritation, and anger set in when the church member realizes that the pastor isn’t always immediately available to him, that the pastor makes mistakes, and that he can’t preach like Billy Graham every time he steps into the pulpit.
Right now I’m a part of a very interesting church. It’s composed of several families who wanted to start a Bible-believing church out in the mountains where we live. Our backgrounds are quite different, and it’s been very interesting to watch the growth and development of relationships and to experience an openness in sharing problems on a rather intimate level.
But we’re facing a most interesting situation right now. A few of our people who came from charismatic backgrounds are seeking more of an open, expressive kind of experience in our worship services. Others want a little more restraint in their form of worship. Naturally, some tension is developing between these two groups.
I anticipate that this conflict will be handled in the way we’ve dealt with other church problems. We’ll sit down with one another and talk about what we want and why. We’ll try to discover where people are coming from and why they feel the way they do. Again, I put the emphasis on finding out how people feel. The charismatics probably feel that if we don’t move in the direction of more expressive services, the church will become a stale, lifeless group of people who don’t demonstrate joy in their salvation. The traditionalists probably feel that if we don’t show some restraint, the church will drift into extreme forms of emotionalism.
We assume your church has a pastor, a board, and probably a weekly prayer service that a fifth of the congregation may attend. Where do you hold these dialogues? Is this something the pastor initiates? Is it an extension of the work of the board?
I think it’s very difficult to bring these kinds of issues up before the whole church body. When that happens the stage is set for a “fight night.” The best antidote for polarization is trust. And trust usually begins in a small group where people get to know one another and feel comfortable with one another.
I’m reminded that Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers.” I don’t know for sure whom he was talking about, but there must be someone in the church who is a peacemaker. This may sound like I’m passing the buck, but I think peacemaking is a gift, and it may not be the gift of the pastor. It takes a very unique person to love and accept and let everyone feel that they’re being heard. In the church, I think we need to identify the peacemakers and let them take over.
But don’t you think people usually expect the pastor to play this role?
I suppose. But it’s so difficult for many pastors to hear what people are saying without jumping to a defensive posture. It has to do with ministerial image. Maybe I’m wrong, but I get the feeling that I could walk into a roomful of people and pick out the minister. In an almost self-conscious way, he’s modeling the styles and mannerisms that project a ministerial image. I don’t know whether it has to do with the “man of the cloth” idea, or whether it’s something he picks up in seminary, but many ministers give me the feeling that it would be very difficult to find out who they really are.
In your book, you differentiate between the priestly function and the prophetic function of the minister. You say that the pastor is forced to rise above his own humanity in order to fill the expectations of the people.
Yes, I think the expectations of the people have something to do with the ministerial image, but I think that’s a relatively minor part of the problem. By and large, the Christian community can accept a lot more humanity from their pastor than most pastors are willing to give. There are certainly some groups where this isn’t true. They’re still looking for the perfect father, who doesn’t exist. But generally speaking, people will tolerate a lot more latitude in their minister than he can tolerate in himself. Again, I think that comes from his basic insecurities. Pastors are afraid that if they are themselves and express their feelings of anger or irritation, people will think they are terrible.
Assuming your premise is true, what steps would you suggest a minister take to test the waters and find out if the congregation will accept his humanity?
I’m glad you said test the waters, because whatever steps a minister takes, he should be very cautious. In other words, if I were in his position, I wouldn’t get in the pulpit next Sunday morning and let it all hang out. I think I would find one or two trusted people in the congregation with whom I felt some degree of closeness and rapport, and I would ask them to be my sounding board. Maybe I would give them a copy of this interview and ask them to read it and discuss it with me. When we met together I might say, “This article says you are willing to accept me as a human being, and I haven’t felt that way. I’ve always felt like I had to be super-human. How do you feel about this?” I think most ministers who use this approach would find acceptance and affirmation from their people.
What other problems are Christian leaders sharing with you?
My counseling experience suggests that some pastors enter the ministry to prove to themselves they can do it. The driving force is their sense of inferiority. By becoming respected public figures, they compensate for early childhood failures.
In pre-adolescence, the primary relationship is to the parent, even though it may seem that the youngster wants to spend more and more time with his or her peers. In many family situations, just at the time when the child is developing his skills, he’s required to do things that he can’t handle well, and then is given a lot of criticism. Because he can’t mow the lawn as well as Daddy can, or wash the dishes as well as Mommy can, combined with the competitive pressures at school, he quickly concludes that he’s inferior. He desperately wants someone, especially his mother or father with whom he has a primary relationship, to say, “We’re very proud of you. You really can do things well.”
Erickson calls stage four industry versus inferiority. The school-age child tests his skills: athletic ability demonstrates motor skills and academic performance reflects intellectual abilities. These skills are all being tested in the context of primary relationships and the peer group. The child either begins to feel “Hey, I can do all right; I can color a picture and stay within the lines,” or he begins to develop feelings that he’s a terrible failure and inferior. He comes out with statements such as “I can’t do things as well as other kids can.”
If children with inferior feelings are given enough time by sensitive parents and teachers, they usually come out of it. Unfortunately, many children aren’t given enough time. They’re labeled as failures, troublemakers, and no-goods. Even then, if they’re fortunate to run across someone who will give them a second chance and work with them, they might mature into reasonably selfconfident, productive people. But that doesn’t often happen.
You’ve written about the importance of praise, how much you yourself need it, and how important it is for your wife to praise you and tell you you’re super.
I admit it. I love it.
Yet many Christians hesitate to compliment one another, praise one another, or encourage one another.
I agree. In a marriage, very often one mate, particularly the wife of a public figure, will have the attitude, “Well, my husband gets all the strokes he needs at the office or at the church. It’s my role to cut him down to size.”
We’ve heard that phrase.
The apostle Paul beautifully illustrated marriage as two becoming one body. He raised the question, “Who hates his own body?” When you cut down your mate, what have you accomplished? You have less of a mate. Do you want less of a mate or more of a mate?
Praise is valid; give it lavishly and sincerely. The truth is most of us do not get much praise outside of the home. Often our mates become the principal source of praise for us. But a lot of times people aren’t comfortable with that. They don’t recognize that needing and giving praise is all right.
Many Christian leaders who struggle with feelings of inferiority wonder what they really are good at. Would psychological self-testing devices help them get more of a handle on their skills, abilities, and potential for success?
Self-testing devices can be useful, but often I think their results are going to be ignored. We really have to go back and look at the period of development that caused the basic inferiority. If it’s imprinted on a child’s mind that he’s not okay, his mind filters everything through that grid. When a compliment comes, he passes it through his filter and says “No, that’s not legitimate, it couldn’t be. After all, my father said I’d never amount to anything.” If he takes a self-testing device that says he’s gifted, he will pass it through his filter and say, “No, it must be wrong. My mother said I couldn’t do such-and-such.” This process may not be happening on a conscious level, but it happens.
That seems like such a strong, irrevocable cause-and-effect. Are you convinced this is true?
I know it is. If I’m convinced about anything in psychology, it’s that those early messages we get about who we are and what we’re worth are with us through all of life’s experiences. And everything that happens to us passes through that censure. Either they line up with it or we reject them.
Just go to the grocery store and listen to the mothers and little kids. Or keep your ears open for the dialogues between parents and children at the church coat rack. Parents become kind of overwhelmed by the task of keeping kids in line or out of their hair. A lot of the communication from parent to child is negative: “Don’t do that. Straighten up your shirt. Didn’t you wash your face this morning? Comb your hair. Sit up straight. Don’t fidget like that in church.” And ad infinitum. If you listen carefully, I think you’ll conclude that the primary communication is overwhelmingly negative. When the kids look sharp, or they do something well, we figure everything’s okay, but we often fail to communicate that acceptance and praise.
Are there any other childhood stages that relate to your counseling of pastors?
Let’s talk about Erickson’s fifth stage of life which happens during adolescence. That stage is identity as contrasted with isolation. The most important thing that should happen during adolescence is for an individual to develop his own sense of being apart from his family, especially his parents. He needs to feel accepted for himself by his peer group, as opposed to feeling isolated and thus not knowing who he is. That’s expressed later in life in a number of ways. For ministers I think it’s expressed in what’s commonly known as “the call to the ministry.”
You talk about this at length in your book. Couldyou quickly review what you say?
Adolescence is a time of idealism. As a young person is looking for personal identity, he often seeks for the place where he can make his mark in the world. He tends to be very sensitive to the needs of mankind, to the mistakes his parents and their generation have made. His motives and desires tend to be very altruistic, and he’s extremely serious about slaying dragons.
Because we sometimes put a hierarchy of values on careers, with “full-time Christian service” equaling true commitment, young people are sometimes pressured toward this by adults when it’s really not appropriate. Our primary responsibility is to help the young person interpret his desire for Christian commitment in terms of his interests, gifts, and abilities. When a young person says he or she wants to give his or her life to Christ, we need to say, “Great. Where do you think Christ can best use your gifts and abilities? Are you interested in mathematics? Would you like to be a college math professor?” I’m not saying we shouldn’t recruit for full-time service; but we shouldn’t make young people feel that if they’re “really committed” they’ll automatically sign up for missionary or ministerial service.
I know people who’ve felt a “call to the foreign field” and then experienced a lifetime of guilt because their call was never realized, or their attempts to be a missionary ended in failure.
In your book you say you were “called to be a preacher at fourteen years of age.” Do you ever feel guilty that you aren’t one?
Not a bit.
What brought you to a place of self-acceptance?
I grew up in a family and a church that allowed me a lot of latitude. I knew I was going to be accepted in whatever I chose to do. I didn’t have to choose a specific profession to get anyone’s approval or acceptance. I really felt loved. I was fortunate. I don’t know how else to put it. I guess you could say I chose the right grandparents.
Our church was very good in dealing with the issue of Christian commitment. Our youth director-I still remember his name, Ben Carter- became a spiritual father. I never experienced any pressure from him, but rather an openness to explore all of the options that were before me.
Initially I became interested in drama, and so my natural assumption was that I would become an actor in religious plays and films. When that didn’t work out, I pursued medicine with the intention of becoming a medical missionary. But during med school when I became very interested in psychiatry, I felt complete freedom to interpret my “call” within the context of my interests, gifts, and abilities.
The freedom to interpret and reinterpret one’s calling can be a beautiful thing, but for the minister it can be a trap. Some sincerely and correctly entered the ministry for all the right reasons, but once they were in, they eventually felt both psychologically and physically locked in. If they’re in one denomination they can’t jump into another one. To go into insurance or car sales they feel would demean themselves in their own eyes and the eyes of others. How should the church and pastors deal with this?
They need to explore where these notions came from in the first place, and what is right or wrong about them. I think we must broaden our concept of Christian commitment and ministry to include any walk of life. Pastors need to be free to evaluate; usually they’ll continue to choose the pastorate, but they shouldn’t have a psychological gun at their heads.
Should we encourage the kind of thinking that says pastors should occasionally take a year or two and do something else?
Yes, I think so. The sabbatical principle is an important one. The laity needs to realize that the pastor may need to move in and out of his function at different times. He needs to refresh and renew himself, and this can be best done in other areas of life.
Let’s get very practical. Our reader is coming to the end of this interview and saying, “I’m a leader in a church. I recognize that I’m struggling with low self-esteem and feelings of failure. I recognize that I’m not maximizing my gifts and abilities. How do I get a handle on what this man is saying and apply it to my life?”
I think this can be done in relationship. Perhaps a few can maximize themselves by pondering and meditating on the right books, but generally speaking, it will only happen in some sort of relationship. Hopefully, the reader will sit down with his or her spouse or a good friend and say, “Hey, I’ve been reading something that sounds a lot like me.” As they talk about it and begin to share their maturational experiences-and/or their marriage relationship-they will begin to get in touch with their feelings, hopes dreams, resentments and anger, and move toward correctional action. These are relational issues, and can best be handled in relationship.
Wouldn’t it also be helpful for a church leader or pastor to develop two or three very close, objective friends who would act as a support group?
Yes, that’s very important. People need to be able to share as they’re having trouble, for instance, with a teenage son or daughter. They need to be able to say, “I don’t know what on earth to do. I can’t handle it. Can you share with me what you would do, or what you have done?” My wife and I have had trouble from time to time with our kids. I don’t know what we would have done if we couldn’t have gone to some Christian brothers and sisters and said, “Help! What on earth should we do?” If I had kept on a mask and pretended everything was great and that we weren’t having any problems, I can’t imagine the consequences.
That brings us back to the subject of facing our own humanity-which is a very difficult thing to do, but a vital thing for us as Christians. We must recognize and confess that while we’re redeemed people, we’re still human, and our humanity is going to remain with us. God intended for the Christian community to be the most loving and supportive community in the world.
In early Methodism, there were small groups of people called “the bands” who shared their intimate thoughts, feelings, and failures with one another, and then prayed for one another. They didn’t simply play amateur psychologist with each other, but faced their sins, and then encouraged each other in a spirit of “Let’s forget those things that are behind, and move ahead.” This gave tremendous power to the church.
The overwhelming message of the gospel to me is the good news of acceptance and love, whether we deserve it or not. Loving one another is what the church is all about. But you can’t help someone who won’t acknowledge his need of help. You can’t reach out to someone who refuses to respond, and you can’t nurse someone back to health who refuses to admit that he is hurt.
Copyright © 1980 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
