Welcome back to another edition of our podcast, Struggling Well. It's good to have you back here this week and It's good for me to have my wife back this week.
Well, thank you, babe. we want to especially thank those of you that have been regular listeners. it means a lot to us when we get comments on what we're doing and encouragement and we've even had one sweet friend who has asked us to make it an hour long, which would be a snoozefest as far as I'm concerned, but because she is a marathon runner and our 10-minute 11 minute podcast doesn't take her through her run. So, what we're going to do is we're going to do our podcast, then the rest of you all sign off and we're going to go blah for another 40 minutes.
Yeah, maybe not. But that's all right. But it is has been encouraging to know that there are those who are listening and a number of you have fired in questions that we could talk about and we're going to do some of that this morning as we go through the day, as we go through the podcast. one of those came from our producer Tim Briggs. who also was our standin for you the last couple weeks.
I know. I heard he didn't do well.
He did okay. He really did good. but it comes out of a survey that Bara did on pastoral ministry and compared job satisfaction and confidence in the job for pastors from 2015 to 20 to today. And it is a steady decline and an alarming decline of the number of men that are less satisfied, less confident and particular ally with younger pastors. This is true. And that's a question. What do you do with that? Because the survey really doesn't go into what the reasons were for that. just the fact that's a reality.
Can I just interrupt for one second? when you're listening to our podcast, you may hear various insundry noises. For instance, I'm doing a load of wash right now, which Jimmy would love for me to do it another time, but I'm doing a load of wash. I mean, this is just mom and pop stuff here. Then we have this 90 lb dog that is a heavy breather. It is not Jimmy, myself, or Tim that is doing the heavy breathing, but it's him. So, since we are at our kitchen table, we're not in a padded studio, which would be lovely, but we're not.
Please just ignore those sounds and enjoy them.
Oh my goodness.
Did you miss me? It's good to have you back, isn't it? I know it.
So, can we get back on to the idea?
Absolutely. Young pastors are losing their energy. Well, I think there's a lot of factors and I think sometimes we blame everything on the current issues of the day. but I think it goes deeper than that. I think it's hard. We want to avoid pain at all costs. We want to avoid difficulty at all costs. And so, can we come up with something that will take us around those situations or not have us to have to go through those situations?
You me mentioned something about we were talking about COVID in relationship to this and you said something which I think is true that we have blamed a lot on co and I think that's probably become the catchall for all sorts of things. However, I do think that time caused a lot of damage in a particular a fairly large segment of the population and you think of guys that were starting up churches and then COVID hit and there goes their I mean people weren't coming out. They were so afraid of getting sick because we had been sold all of that. but You and I both believe that what it really did was it exposed the fault lines in all of us.
Yeah. And all and I really do think that's it. And in the Old Testament in Isaiah, God's speaking to his people and he says this to them. When you pass through the waters, I'll be with you and through the rivers they shall not overwhelm you. And when you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned and the flames will not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. And he makes it really clear that you're going to go through those things. He doesn't say, "I'll make it so you don't have to pass through those things. I'll make it so those life is smooth. Life is easy." And no, he simply says, "You will go through them." But I'm your God and I'm your savior. And in that passage, he talks several times that says, "I'm with you." And I think sometimes we in our culture, in our country, have gotten to the place where we just think that life should go well for us. I've heard a phrase recently from a dear woman who uses the words easy belieism and I think that is some of what we experience as believers. We want to be saved. We want we say we love Jesus but it's conditional on our side because of the fact that we don't want to pass through all that stuff. We sort of believe he'll be with us but in our minds him being with us means he's going to take us out. So
yeah, again I think we often talk about the way that culture has impacted the church in bad ways. And we can all look at the things in our culture today that we think are clearly contrary to what God would want. But I also think culture has impacted us in ways that are less noticeable but just as damaging, which is this idea that we have the right to and we can demand of God. his blessings. And usually those blessings mean material or physical blessings. And if I'm living right with the Lord, I'll have those blessings. If I'm not living right, I won't have those blessings. And that just to me is not a biblical way of looking at life.
So if we go back to the pastors and the alarming data right now, what do you think is some of the underlying factors that are causing such dissatisfaction and lack of contentment?
I believe there's probably several things. One of them being it's not what they expected.
They expected that it would go smoothly or easily. there's a disappointment of expectations. There's a disappointment of what it meant to follow the call that God had placed on their lives.
again, it's an Old Testament reference, but I think it's a fair one. because this person was a spokesperson for God, and that's Jeremiah. And he did it for 40 years, and nobody There was no convert. There was no one no one who changed because of Jeremiah's 40-year ministry. I can't imagine the disappointment that comes with that. And so when you get little feedback in a positive way as a pastor, it takes its toll on you. so th those are just some thoughts about that I'm sure there are other reasons too. you know, you do have to remain sustainable as a church
and there's the pressure to remain sustainable. able and at the same time made true to who you're called to be by God.
And I think there's a lot of literature out there and a lot of resources that tell you how to grow your church numerically. I don't know anymore, but is there information out there on how to grow your church deep?
I think it's there. I don't I just don't believe it's the more popular of the messages that is available to people. I think there's a growing sense and maybe this is a greater place of reality that younger pastors realize it's not all about big numbers. and yet that's hard and that makes it a difficult thing. So, that which leads to another question that was given to us about this, which is what do you miss most in no longer actively pastoring a local church.
Well, that's your question and then I'll talk about not being an actively participating pastor's wife.
Well, no, why don't you start there?
Okay. Well, here we go. Never at a loss for words here. I have found in the last few years that who I am is the type of pastor's wife that I was. So, I really love to engage people and I don't think that's just being a pastor's wife because my personality is different than other women that are married to men in ministry. I think what I missed the most to begin with was walking down the halls of the church and seeing people that I may not know their the ins and outs of their story, but I might know something about them, about their family, if their mother was ill or something, and there was always somebody walking down the halls of church to greet and say hello to. And I'm pretty naive, but I always felt like people were glad to see me and I was glad to see them. And I missed that when we were no longer in pastoral ministry, especially in the beginning. It was just you and me here at the house and it wasn't the same as being on a thriving active campus.
Yeah. And I think it's the same thing for me. I miss the camaraderie of the staff I had
and the interactions that would take place on a daily regular basis. it was a team of people that I had grown close to and I had affection for and I don't have that team any longer.
But oddly enough, I don't think things have changed. that much for us. While you don't have a church building and you don't have a staff, I guess I am your staff and I want to raise by the way. that setting is no longer there. I feel like we're still doing what we did before.
Yeah. I think it has been always been about engaging with people. do I miss preaching? I do. I still get God's gracious to give me opportunities every now and then to do that. but it is the one thing that hasn't changed is engaging with people
and that's just the way we saw ministry for years and way in some ways the way we still see it but there's just not a central location like there was when we were actively pastoring a church.
The other thing that just hit me is being at a church as long as we were we had history with people and when you are no longer a part of that and you're meeting new people or you're trying to find a new community they come in and you've used this illustration so many times. They come in at maybe like chapter 25, but they know nothing of chapters 1 through 24. And so they don't know who you are. They don't know what God has done through you. They don't know what your abilities are, what your disabilities are. They know nothing. And so it was it still is a little bit exhausting trying to know new people and figure out what parts of myself to tell them. so that's been different.
Yeah, definitely change. So, thanks for those questions and if you continue to ask them, we'll find time to get to them as well. And thank you again for listening today.