James Osterhaus - Avoiding Pastoral Pitfalls: A Guide to Surviving and Thriving in Ministry

What You Didnt Learn in Seminary
and Why It Matters

In the September 2020 issue of Christianity Today , Kayla Stoecklein details how her husband, who had been the lead pastor of his church for five years, slowly burned out and fell into depression and anxiety. Finally, in an act of desperation, he took his own life. Kayla writes,

Many pastors and people serving in ministry positions struggle with their mental health. And sadly, they dont always feel like there is space for them to share their struggles with their peers or congregants. Fear of losing their job, fear of losing their platform, fear of losing their voice, fear of losing respect from their peers is all a very real reality.

More and more people who minister find themselves depressed. Their marriages are often in trouble. Their families are negatively affected. Often, they have few if any close friends. And, not surprisingly, a large percentage of those who enter the ministry leave it within five years. Every month, someone leaves the ministry due to moral failure, burnout, or divisiveness in their churches. Only a small percentage of pastors say they feel happy and content on a regular basis with who they are in their spiritual life, their church, or in their home.

Over the years, I have coached and counseled hundreds of ministers from various traditions on four continents. Ive sat or walked and talked with ministers who have been nearly crushed by the burdens they experienced in ministry. What I have come to learn is that the average training of ministers across the globe is woefully deficient in those very areas that would allow them to avoid many of the pitfalls (or at least keep them from exacerbating those pitfalls). This book is an attempt to fill some of those voids.

What I Didnt Learn in Seminary

Seminaries in every religious tradition have the stated objective to raise up men and women who can effectively move forward those respective traditions, while ministering to the needsspiritual, emotional, mental, and physicalof the audiences to whom they have been called.

Over the centuries, seminaries have crafted curricula that religious leaders have judged to contain the essential elements for effective ministry: theology, hermeneutics, and homiletics. More recently, courses in human psychology, counseling, culture, and organizational processes have crept into syllabi to round out a core preparation. Even more recently, seminaries have begun to offer courses in leadership.

And yet, as I coach ministers across this country and across the traditional spectrum, I hear again and again the complaint that these pastors are ill-prepared to face the realities of day-to-day ministering. This inadequacy often appears when the newly minted minister first sits down in the church board meeting (whether it be an elder meeting, session, vestry, council, or what have you). Often the fearful thought emerges, Im the leader. What do I do now? Whats important? What s not? The moment conflict begins to develop, these thoughts intensify and panic often ensues when that conflict devolves on the pastor.

David Gortner, the director of the doctor of ministry program at Virginia Theological Seminary, conducted a fifteen-year study of students transitioning from students to pastors. He writes,

I have found a consistent pattern among Episcopal clergy of what my colleagues and I call talented but tenuous: highly creative people nonetheless lacking in self-confidence and decisiveness, who can come up with wonderful ideas but have neither the skill nor the will (nor feel the permission) to help communities bring ideas to fruition. They are kind, dedicated, and full of ideal visions of what the church could be; but they are also conflict-averse, uncertain how to manage their own anxiety, and unclear about the nature of human systems and organizations.