Where the Hurting Pastors Go

It’s a beautiful summer evening in the Colorado Rockies, and a brilliantly moonlit sky hovers over a small clearing in a pine forest. There, about a dozen people are gathered around a brightly crackling campfire.

A man in a cowboy hat strums an acoustic guitar as the people sing favorite hymns and choruses.

Some close their eyes.

One or two raise their hands to the heavens, imitating the pine trees that circle them.

A few watch as sparks from the roaring fire rise on a column of smoke and hot air. And one or two look straight up, where more than a thousand points of light dot the dark firmament.

This is no youth group on retreat. It is a gathering of pastors and their wives in their thirties, forties, and fifties who have been meeting, talking, and praying together for a week.

But that does not preclude the childish screams of joy as marshmallows and skewers are brought out. In moments, big, gooey gobs of white are being scrunched between graham crackers and slabs of chocolate, making a snack that for decades has served as a kind of an outdoorsy feast.

Certainly, this is a glimpse of heaven. But when Bob Sewell—a warm and gentle Texas native who complements his cowboy hat with boots, Levi’s, and a bushy red beard—asks members of the group to share what they have learned during the past week, it becomes obvious that some of these dear, sweet, God-loving people have had their own taste of hell.

“I’ve learned to say no,” says one pastor, who has been so busy caring for his flock that it has been more than a decade since he spent a week just relating and praying with his wife.

“I’ve seen that God still has things for me to do,” says another pastor, who at age 50 has been wondering if his remaining years will yield anything of value.

When Wolves Strike The Shepherds

Bob Sewell and his wife, Sandy, recall seeing all the warning signs that something was wrong with one particular pastor: burnout, withdrawal from people, depression, a lack of spiritual vitality, and a proclivity for recycling old sermons instead of finding new lessons from God’s Word.

But in this particular instance, they did nothing to help.

Eventually, the senior pastor of a Texas church of 3,200 had an affair with a woman from his congregation.

The pastor? He was the Sewells’ best friend. The shock and pain of that experience is what spurred them to start SonScape Re-Creation Ministries in 1984 in scenic Pagosa Springs, Colorado.

They left their Texas home determined to find a way to minister to ministers and shepherd the shepherds. They opened SonScape after doing a two-year internship at Colorado’s Marble Retreat with psychiatrist Louis McBurney, who concentrates the work at his center on rebuilding pastors who have already suffered major setbacks.

“This ministry is a result of our woundedness,” says Bob. “It comes from what we came out of, and what we experienced.” Instead, SonScape focuses on ensuring pastors don’t have major setbacks like their former pastor did.

Apparently the Sewells are not alone in their pain. Increasing numbers of people are being wounded by the growing problem of clergy stress.

Figures from the Washington, D.C.-based Alban Institute indicate that as many as 20 percent of America’s 300,000-plus full-time clergy suffer from long-term stress. In 1989, the Southern Baptist Convention paid out $64 million in medical benefits for pastors. Maternity claims accounted for the biggest chunk of payments. Ranking second were claims for stress-related illness.

SonScape’s high-touch method, which reaches around 60 pastors and spouses a year, is designed to avoid burnout by helping people balance their lives and confront their deeper needs.

“When things got hectic, Jesus told his disciples, ‘Come away with me,’ ” says Bob, who has a generous smile and often indulges a tendency to give people bear hugs. “We’re trying to help people get off the insidious treadmill that everyone in America is on.”

At SonScape, Bob and others frequently paraphrase Richard Foster, who said, “Sometimes the most spiritual thing I can do is take a nap.” Or, as Sandy puts it, “We try to model a balanced lifestyle. We try to show that you can love life, have fun, and serve God. Many people have never seen that combination work before.”

During their week in the mountains of Colorado’s western slope, visitors to SonScape spend time resting, hiking, praying, and studying. They ride horseback, fish, swim, sit in a hot tub, exercise at an athletic center, bike, or just sit under a tree by a lake and think. They also do something that is impossible back home: they share their inner hurts and fears.

“We make it clear that this is a place where they can come and deal with the private issues and private hurts of life,” says Bob. “This is a place where it’s okay to say that, and it’s safe to do that.”

But guests at SonScape do more than let it all hang out. They also make resolutions so that their hard-learned lessons don’t vanish from them into the thin mountain air when they return home. They hope to nurture their relationships with God, guard their private time, and find brothers and sisters with whom they can share their hearts.

One pastor made a simple resolution to post his office hours. Another decided it would be good for his family and his flock if he left his office at 3 P.M. and picked up his children at school.

Comments from SonScape alumni indicate that the program is working. As one Methodist pastor put it, “My wife and I found physical refreshment, emotional healing, renewed intimacy, and spiritual renewal through the week at SonScape.”

Returning To Rough Pastures

The Sewells know that pastoring is an inherently difficult calling. They see increasing numbers of people who actually entered the pastorate as a way of healing their own hurts.

“We have seen many pastors who are coming out of backgrounds that have caused great pains in their lives,” says Bob. “They believed that if they went into the ministry, somehow or another their pain was going to be eased.”

When working at their Colorado retreat center, Bob and Sandy help pastors heal. And when they go on the road to lecture, they try to encourage laypeople to help care for their caregivers.

Says Bob, “Paul tells us to ‘respect those who work hard among you’ and to ‘hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work’ (1 Thess. 5:12). But I’m not sure how many of them know how to minister to their ministers.”

Sitting by the campfire, the wife of another pastor shares with her circle of newfound friends. “I’ve learned that I need to forgive the people in my church,” she says, her words spilling out along with her tears into the darkness. Parishioners demanded that her husband pay around-the-clock visits to them in the hospital. But these same people snubbed her when she had a miscarriage.

Then, wiping tears from her eyes, she opens her well-worn Bible and pulls out one of the hundreds of poems she has written and into which she has poured her sorrow:

The hurting ones often bleed alone,

fearing that their cries will go unheard.

Week by week they come with smiles,

while the pains on the inside remain.

After a few more songs, some prayers, and hugs all around, Bob smiles and bids everyone farewell. But his eyes reveal his concern: tomorrow, these people are heading back to the casualty-strewn battlefield of their own congregations.

But if Bob’s prayers are answered, the lessons learned during this week of fellowship, refreshment, and in-depth personal counseling will enable these people to serve God without losing their minds.

By Steve Rabey, religion editor for the Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph.

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