If you were asked the question, “how do you think pastors feel right now,” I wonder how you would answer?
Last week, at the Baptist General Association of Virginia’s Mission Council meeting, results were shared from listening sessions that the BGAV conducted over the past eight months. Pastors were asked, with laity present in the room, “how are you feeling now about church?”
A word cloud was presented to summarize the findings, and those of us in attendance were asked two questions:
First, what surprises you?
Second, what do you learn from this?
Here are some words pastors used to describe how they are feeling:
The top five are: Hopeful…Tired…Excited…Challenged…Frustrated
Other words, not in the top five but that I noticed were: Concerned…Overwhelmed…Stressed…Frustrated…Challenged…Blessed…Panicked…Failure…Overextended…Thankful…Irrelevant…Determined.
We were given some time to reflect on this information with others at our table, and I’d like to share with you a few things that were spoken at my table and with the entire group.
First, I shared with my group, with other pastors in agreement, that not much surprised me, because I at some point have shared each of those feelings. Most of the time I do feel hopeful, I often feel excited about church. But yes, I do feel tired, and sometimes frustrated. Our culture has changed and church has changed. In the midst of all the change there is great potential, but there is also much stress.
Second, it was the laypeople in my group who were surprised. One woman in particular shared that she was surprised to think that her pastor felt anything other than thankful and hopeful. “Don’t you all think that our churches should know that pastors feel this way?” she asked. Her assumption was that churches just don’t know how their pastors are feeling.
Finally, one pastor, who was in another small group, he shared that he was skeptical of the positive responses that were most often named. He disagreed that the majority of pastors would name hopeful and excited in their top five, and he felt that those positive responses were spoken by pastors only because lay people were present when they were asked for their responses. He said that this goes along with a “positive front” that pastors maintain before their congregations. This pastor who shared this was an older gentleman who is close to retirement, and he said that in his conversations most pastors primarily feel tired, frustrated, and often they share that they feel like failures.
I generally like to conclude a sermon or a newsletter piece with a summary, a way to “wrap it all up,” but I’m not sure what a summary of all of this would be. I primarily share this with you so you know. As I continue to reflect on this over the next few weeks I will share with you common things that bring a sense of hope and excitement, and also those things over which pastors are concerned and frustrated.