Emotional Struggles and Pain in Pastoral Ministry

In this episode, Mark Clifton, Mark Hallock, and JimBo Stewart discuss an article from Chuck Lawless about why ministry can often hurt so much.

1. We mourn when marriages fall apart.
2. We hurt when young people make decisions that lead to trouble.
3. We occasionally beat ourselves up when our sermon wasn’t nearly as strong as we thought it would be.
4. We sometimes grieve the sin of others more than they do.
5. We ache when our church must carry out church discipline.
6. We struggle when the churches we lead aren’t growing.
7. We sometimes hurt when we see the loneliness and struggles of our families.
8. We quietly grieve funerals for persons who showed no evidence of Christian conversion.
9. We wrestle with loneliness when we don’t know how to develop strong friendships.
10. We often feel guilty even expressing any of these thoughts.

Resources related to this podcast:

“10 Heartaches of Being a Pastor” by Chuck Lawless