While it may be very frustrating and stressful to be a pastor of a congregation, at least you have a congregation to relate to, a session to respond to, and some form of gathering of many of them once a week. As you enter the field of denominational staff, the context and accountability of your ministry becomes a lot more complex and cloudy. If you think being pastor of a church is a lonely position, and it is, try being part of a presbytery, synod, or GA staff. I have had some experience in being an interim General Presbyter but no experience with positions at synod and GA. I would think that being part of a synod staff might be the most difficult but as more staff is cut at the GA level and expectations continue to rise, that has got to be very stressful. What I will be discussing for the next several days will draw on my experience as a General Presbyter but hopefully apply to the other levels of denominational staff as well. I welcome feedback as to how to tweak this in ways that are helpful.
As before, I am drawing upon the 6 fold dimension of health that I have developed in the ToolBox at www.pastoralcarenetwork.org. When we think about caring for our health, we need to think about our physical, emotional, financial, family, spiritual, and vocational health. At a judicatory level, there needs to be some body to whom we relate that can contribute to the nurture of staff health. Like with clergy of churches, Healthy Clergy Make Health Churches, HCMHC) Too often boards and constituencies have expectations of those staff but do not step back to ask “How are you doing?” Even asking that question and sincerely wanting to know can contribute to the care of the staff that works for our greater church.
So the first question is who is it that asks that question and in what way and with what frequency does the question get asked?
