The Christian Century: Pastors, Depression, and Suicide

A very important topic to have out in the open. This is why it's so important for every pastor--including youth workers who are on staff at a church (whether you are considered lay or clergy)--to have at least one person, if not a network of people, we can trust for counsel and friendship. We are not islands, and we are not above the struggles and trials everyone faces. If you are a pastor or in any kind of pastor-like position, please make sure you have a person you can trust when times get tough.

Being a pastor—a high-profile, high-stress job with nearly impossible expectations for success—can send one down the road to depression, according to pastoral counselors.

"We set the bar so high that most pastors can't achieve that," said H. B. Lon don, vice president for pastoral ministries at Focus on the Family, based in Colorado Springs, Colorado. "And because most pastors are people-pleasers, they get frustrated and feel they can't live up to that."

When pastors fail to live up to demands imposed by themselves or others, they often "turn their frustration back on themselves," leading to self-doubt and feelings of failure and hopelessness, said Fred Smoot, executive director of Emory Clergy Care in Duluth, Georgia, which provides pastoral care to 1,200 United Methodist ministers in Georgia.

A pastor is like "a 24-hour ER" who is supposed to be available to any congregant at any time, said Steve Scoggin, president of CareNet, a network of 21 pastoral counseling centers in North Carolina. "We create an environment that makes it hard to admit our humanity."

It's a job that breeds isolation and loneliness—the pastorate's "greatest occupational hazards," said Scoggin, who counsels many Baptist and other ministers. "These suicides are born out of a lack of those social supports that can intervene in times of personal crisis."

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