Nicholas Davis thanks God he’s still alive.
That wasn’t his plan.
He was a young man serving as senior pastor at a Presbyterian church in Southern California. And he was drowning in anxiety, depression, and thoughts of suicide. What started as a mundane case of overwork or maybe burnout became something much more dangerous.
“It was a very busy season,” Davis told Christianity Today, “kind of taking on too much and not realizing that I was in the midst of too much.”
He had never struggled with mental health growing up. In 2015, though, it just felt as if his mind was shutting down and his body was overwhelmed with an impossible weight. He barely slept for weeks. But it eventually subsided.
Then, in 2019, life at the Presbyterian Church in America was very busy, and it happened again.
“I bit off way too much and kind of hit a wall,” he said. “I had never had a panic attack before, so I thought it was a heart attack.”
Still, he didn’t seek help from a psychiatrist. He has his wife, Gina, to thank for eventually getting him help. She was, at first, just hoping that he could be prescribed something to help him sleep and that a little regular rest would alleviate the anxiety. So she made an appointment and made him go. While talking to the doctor, Davis mentioned he had had thoughts about ending his life.
Following protocol, the psychiatrist admitted Davis for care. Today, Davis is glad he did.
Davis went through various forms of treatment and is thankful to now be in a healthy place. He has since left ministry and is teaching, but he has a heart for those who are in ministry and struggling.
Nearly one out of five senior pastors at Protestant churches report that they have contemplated self-harm or suicide in the past year, according to a 2024 Barna study. Most downplay it, saying the thoughts are fleeting (8%) or not especially severe (9%), but nonetheless acknowledge the thoughts are there.
Many American pastors are quietly grappling with mental health struggles. Nearly half—47 percent—report feeling lonely or isolated. A majority self-report feelings of depression. And 65 percent say they’re not talking to a therapist, counselor, spiritual advisor, or mentor.
“Pastoring can feel like you are responsible for everything and control nothing,” said Barna CEO David Kinnaman. “It’s a particularly challenging kind of job description. … They’re constantly trying to push a rock up a hill, in some ways.”
Barna’s research indicates that pastors’ mental health has gotten worse in recent years. The COVID-19 pandemic was one obvious cause of stress and isolation. People in ministry also talk about the struggle of seeing political polarization come into their churches. Growing awareness of abuse also leads to increased suspicion of people in leadership, which can make the job of being a leader that much more difficult.
Being a pastor is also just a hard job. Anxieties amp up. Stresses build. Emergencies accumulate.
Michael Chiles, founder of Abide Leader Care, said most pastors don’t talk about the pressures of the job and don’t seek help “until they get to a place where everything is crumbling.”
Early red flags include overwhelming stress, feelings of isolation, and marriage problems. But many deftly ignore them.
When Chiles started Abide Leader Care about a decade ago in Austin, Texas, he wanted to figure out how to make it easier for ministers to seek help. He is a pastor himself, so the ministers who come to him don’t have to explain the dynamics of ministry. And the first consultation doesn’t cost anything, so concerns about cost can be deferred to a later date.
“We want to remove the most common barriers,” Chiles said. “Once they start sharing what’s going on and bringing it into the open and bringing it to the light, they start to feel the healing start.”
Abide Leader Care now has counselors in 21 states. Online counseling is also available and can be a good option for many people, Chiles said.
Care for Pastors, located in Florida, works with ministers across the US. Ron and Rodetta Cook are former church planters who founded the practice in 2004 after “multiple painful situations causing hurts so deep” that they considered quitting.
Ron Cook said he realized through his own experience the acute need for pastors to be able to be vulnerable.
He has noticed that many pastors come in unsure whether they really need counseling. But then they also describe feeling hopeless.
“They just give and give and give until there’s nothing left to give,” he told CT. “Pastors put unrealistic expectations on themselves and allow church leaders to quite often put those unrealistic expectations on them.”
Many are dealing with burnout, compassion fatigue, and decision fatigue. Church divisions have made things worse. He encourages churches to send their ministers to counseling for preventative care instead of waiting until their mental health is bad.
Too many churches, he said, ignore all the warning signs until their pastors leave the churches or leave ministry altogether.
Mary Hulst, Calvin University chaplain, tries to teach future ministers to work on their mental health and spiritual well-being before there is a problem. She talks to students about navigating conflict, managing expectations, and taking practical steps to take care of themselves. Regular exercise is too often ignored. Pastors often imagine they should be able to go long stretches without moving their bodies, getting adequate sleep, or eating healthy meals.
She emphasizes the need for good spiritual practices and recommends regular spiritual retreats and sabbaths.
“We need rest. We need renewal. And we’re only as good as our own health,” Hulst said. “In the ideal world, you build these rhythms into your life so that you don’t get to the point of crisis.”
Getting ministers to take of themselves can be a real challenge, though. And getting them to recognize that they’re having mental health crises can be incredibly difficult too.
Sometimes even pastors having panic attacks and thinking about suicide still believe it might be better just not to tell anyone.
“It’s not an admission of weakness. It’s an admission of strength to say, ‘I know myself well enough to know I’m not as well as I can be, and I want to get healthy,’” Hulst said. “That’s a beautiful thing to acknowledge.”
