After the presbytery meeting where you have raised the issue of the emotional drain in the ministry, your communication with the sessions can suggest how they can offer support to their pastor and staff. They should be reminded that an occasional thank you can be very important. In addition to that, you might suggest an exercise such as the following:
At least once a quarter ask the pastor to reflect on two to three satisfying movements in the congregation and/or in his or her pastorate. Then ask him or her to also identify at least one area that is troubling. This is not a time for debate but simply of listening to the satisfactions and concerns of your spiritual leader.
Once the concern and satisfactions have been shared, the session might expand the discussion in the following manner. Without debating whether the described experience looks the same from someone else’s perspective, explore what effect it might have on the life of the church if either the positive or negative movement would increase at least ten fold. What you are doing is exaggerating the trend before it has happened in order to look at its implications. If, for example, s/he were disturbed by some of the negative comments heard about some youth activities, what would the message be if the comments grew ten-fold? How would that impact the youth? What is the message to the larger community?
What you are doing for the pastor is allowing him or her to share the beginnings of movements within the congregation that affect his or her emotional satisfaction within their ministry. If this happened quarterly, the church would have a sense of the pulse of the leadership of their church and maybe be able to address both the positive and negative before they became too large to handle
