Every Pastor Needs a Pastor by Louis McBurney Word, Inc., $5.95 Reviewed by Dennis L. Gibson, Ph.D., a practicing psychologist.

You sigh deeply. Not just once, but several times in the course of an hour alone. You can't concentrate. You resist once again the fleeting thought of some other line of work. What is this weight on your chest?

Louis McBurney identifies such heaviness in the lives of pastors as "the burden of unrealistic expectations they have accepted." He eloquently describes the burden with anecdotes that prompt the reader to say, "Hey, that's me!" McBurney then shows how the burdens are unrealistic. With deft economy of language, he brings in the psychological concepts that have bearing on the choice of pastoral ministry as a career.

His key concept is that most pastors unconsciously cling to a plethora of expectations, spoken and implied, by persons to whom they have looked for approval over the years. McBurney cites five mistaken beliefs that chronically beset pastors:

I must ...