As a young man—and even not so young—dark humor was a tool to compensate for a world we could not control. I served years as a Paratrooper, Infantryman, and Law Enforcement. In that world, we made jokes that civilians seldom understood. We did these things to protect our mental health the only way we knew how. Over the years, I have found other tools.

Pastors must protect their mental health. Our church and people will not do it, and our organizations or denominations can not do it. They may put things in place to help, but our mental health will only be a priority if we make it one. Plenty of people and situations are working to undermine it.

I am grateful there has been a push to encourage pastors to take their vacations and get away for their days off. My district leadership regularly asks us if we are taking regular sabbaths. This is all well and good. But often, the problem is our own choices. I’m reminded of a story about a pastor who boasted about never taking a day off because “The Devil doesn’t take a day off.” It’s said that a friend responded, “You need to find a better role model.” Pastors, if you are not taking your days off and getting away for vacations, you are hurting yourself, your family, and your church. And if your church will not survive a Sunday or two without you, you might want to ask, “Who is the Lord of my church?”

I realized years ago that each family in my church had several people filling specific roles. Most were couples with children—grown or growing. Each couple had a spouse to lean upon, and the children had parents they could count on. Then, there was the pastor. Each family knew they could lean on the pastor when needed. But if I sacrificed time with my family for the sake of the church, then my family loses spousal and parental support. They would have a pastor but no husband or father. If you, like me at one point, are not taking appropriate time off, it is time to repent.

Besides proper time off, regular physical exercise is essential. As I write this, I am reminded of some of my doctors over the years. I remember one giving me health advice with a pack of cigarettes in his pocket. Another one with an obvious weight problem scolded me about my weight. I say this because I am notorious for not getting exercise. I am the king of excuses. But I need it. I’ll make you a deal. If you start getting exercise, I will too. As we both work on that, I have a few more recommendations.

Handling Complaints:

As a pastor, you will receive complaints from people. This is part of the role. However, there is one particularly nefarious form of complaint—the anonymous letter. You walk into your office, and there is an envelope on your desk. It has no return address or sender name. When getting these, I grab my letter opener and walk over to stand above the shredder. I open the envelope, and if no name is given—it’s anonymous—I push it into the shredder without reading it. It is that simple.

Other issues arise from people complaining to you right before the Sunday Service. Then, the complaint weighs on you during the service. By the time you get up to preach, you are a wreck—or at least distracted. The only way to handle this is to train your people. Of course, you might have to be firm with them. You might have to correct them about this. Often, people will take a less direct approach, thinking they are doing it right. They will come to you before service and not complain but to ask, “Can I talk to you after service?” This can be innocent. However, what happens? The same thing. You wonder what complaint they are bringing. It’s best to ask directly, “Is it good or bad?” At least you have a 50:50 shot. If it’s good, you can relax. If it is bad, remind that person about the above. I don’t think any pastor would say, “No, you can’t talk to me now because you didn’t ask permission before the service.”

Rumors and Gossip:

Anyone who lives in a small town knows the power of rumors and gossip. But it is not only a problem for towns. It’s just as big of an issue for churches. But I thought we Christians never gossiped! We share intimate negative comments as prayer requests so others can lift the unfortunate soul before the Lord. As a pastor, refuse to participate or listen to gossip. An old proverb says, “He who gossips to you gossips about you.” One who gossips is not to be trusted—sorry if that seems harsh. Why trust your mental health to such a person? We’ve all had someone come and tell us, “Pastor, people are saying…” I can assure you the person claiming to tell you what people are saying is the person saying it. A good rule of thumb is, “If they didn’t say it to me, they didn’t say it.” Do not give credence to anonymous verbal complaints any more than you do anonymous written ones.

Social Media:

Social media has become a relational scourge these days, even in churches. Of course, I have my own social media presence. These days, it is an expected way to communicate. It used to be that you had to have a landline. Then it was a cell phone. These days, you must have a messaging app and a presence on one or more social media platforms. I have often heard the complaint, “Why wasn’t it on the church’s Facebook page.” Like all tools, social media can be helpful and abused.

The first thing to do is be careful what you post. I have learned this the hard way. In the early days, it felt like having a conversation, and I poured out what I wanted to say without much thought. Now, I try to wait overnight before responding to certain things. Few things are harder to take than to have things you posted thrown back in your face. Keep in mind that nothing on the internet ever truly goes away.

I am also careful with whom I make connections. Facebook may call them “friends,” but how many do you know? How many would you happily spend an afternoon with? To how many of them would you give keys to your house? Why not be just as careful about who gets access to your mental health? If a person, even a church member, chooses to attack or undermine you on social media, block them. Don’t feel bad about it. Block them! You can talk to them later and sort things out.

News and information:

Be careful where you get your news from and when. You must know what is happening in the world, but remember that not all sources are helpful, and there are times to listen or read but also times to disconnect. Mark Twain is commonly attributed (wrongly) as saying, “If you don’t read the newspapers, you are uninformed. If you read them, you are misinformed.” It is crucial to find trustworthy sources of information. If you swallow and regurgitate false information, you are deceiving your people. Doing it unintentionally does not make it any better. I know of several churches destroyed by leaders who uncritically accepted and shared conspiracies from the pulpit. All they managed to do was lose credibility. Credibility is one of the hardest things to get back once lost. Guard it carefully.

Back in the mid-1990s, I began listening to talk radio. I started when I worked making deliveries all over Dallas, Texas, and it made driving less boring. Then I started listening in my office. An old saying is, “If it bleeds, it leads.” This means media and news outlets who have to build and keep an audience know the best way to do that is to repeat the most fear and hate-inducing things available. Rather than concentrating on what is going well, these focus on what is not good—or at least what they think is not good. They need to keep you listening or watching. That is how they get advertising revenue—how they line their pockets. They don’t care about your mental health. I dropped talk radio. I now find information instead of letting others funnel it into my heart indiscriminately. I have discovered trusted sources that I can go to for news.

Mail:

There used to be a time when the mail was filled with letters from family. When I served overseas in the 1980s, mail was the only way I could hear from home. Mail call was something we couldn’t wait for. These days, with email and social media, the mail is almost all advertisements or bills. Most of what comes in the mail is either unhelpful or downright harmful. Think about some of the bad news you might find. Suppose you didn’t know your next electric bill would be so high. Or suppose you receive an unexpected medical bill. We can all tell stories of things we have received in the mail.

When I receive my mail, I stop by the trashcan and throw away the ads and political flyers I don’t want—there are so many! Then I look at what is left. If any, the personal stuff is laid aside, and I consider the rest. If it appears to be a bill or a notification, I ask myself if I can take care of it today if it’s bad news. At this point, I don’t know if it is good or bad—it’s “Schroedinger’s mail.” But I don’t open it unless I know I can take care of it quickly. So, if it is Friday and I can’t do anything about it until Monday, I leave the mail unopened until Monday. That is the soonest I can do anything, so why spend the weekend worrying—especially since I have to preach on Sunday? It can wait if needed. I’m not saying to put off paying your bills. But I am saying that if the letter could be bad news, wait until their offices are open. You can do the same thing each evening. If you can’t call them until the morning, why open the notice before morning? I put such mail in my book bag and take it with me in the morning. I can then take a few minutes to handle it. At least I got a good night’s sleep.

Finances:

I’m not going to say much about finances. Others say it better than I do. But your financial health will impact your mental health. Keep up on your bills and stay in the black. Spend less than you make and save for a rainy day. One thing I have done, and that I recommend is setting up all your bills to be automatically paid by your bank. I set them all up to auto-pay, monthly, quarterly, or annual. You can also arrange budget payments with most utilities. They will calculate your yearly regular usage and charge you a set monthly amount.

Another area of financial health is taxes. Make sure you put aside something to cover your taxes if your church does not do it. The church I currently pastor does it for me. But for over twenty-five years, I paid quarterly taxes. Uncle Sam doesn’t have a lot of mercy. Few financial burdens will worry you more than being behind on your taxes.

Consider your medical needs:

I’m not a doctor, neither do I play one on the internet. However, as a pastor, I have run into too many Christians who refuse to consider the medical side of mental health. Too often, Christians respond to depression so poorly as to be useless. “Pray through! Here’s a Bible passage that will fix you. Are you sure you are saved? Christians don’t get depressed.” I hope no pastors are this way with their people—though I know some are. As a pastor, it can be challenging to admit we suffer from depression. We are supposed to be perfect. We are supposed to have all the answers. But admitting we have a problem is the first step in addressing it. If we try to knuckle through the depression, it just gets worse. Being depressed brings its own anxiety and feelings of failure. These pile on to drive us deeper and deeper. Don’t hesitate to get help. Who can you speak to about your fears, anxieties, etc? One of the biggest problems for pastors is loneliness. We all have things we can’t talk to anyone about. Our people may not understand. Admitting weaknesses may endanger our ministry. Confessing sins may get us censured. Exposing our addictions may make us anathema to many.

We all need someone we can talk to. One thing you can do is find a Christian counselor who understands the pressures of the ministry. At one church, I ended up so burnt out that I fell into deep despair. I had to act. I started taking my days off. I talked to my doctor about a small dose of medicine that helped. I learned about seasonal depression and took steps to alleviate it. I also found a licensed counselor who was a retired pastor. This helped beyond measure. I finally had someone who understood and with whom I could share anything because he was ethically and legally forbidden to share.

If you want to read a book that may surprise you, consider Spurgeon’s The Minister’s Fainting Fits. In it, C. H. Spurgeon talks about his battle with depression. You are not alone. You are not the only pastor who has these feelings. It is quite common when you consider what we go through. Recently, I’ve found some interesting articles on Compound PTSD. This results from being exposed to multiple traumatic events—something we pastors experience. We sit with a dying friend. We minister to loved ones victimized by crime. We are there after a suicide. We are called upon to help young people trapped in addictions. We are with people in their darkest experiences, and few ask how we are doing.

“Pastor, how are you doing?”