Still Love What I Do- Regardless!

Ecc 4:12 By yourself you're unprotected. With a friend you can face the worst. Can you round up a third? A three-stranded rope isn't easily snapped. TMB

According to several confirmed sources across denominational lines:

Pastors:
-Fifteen hundred pastors leave the ministry each month due to moral failure, spiritual burnout or contention in their churches.
-Four thousand new churches begin each year, but over seven thousand churches close.
-Seventy percent of pastors constantly fight depression.
-Fifty percent of pastors are so discouraged that they would leave the ministry if they could, but have no other way of making a living.
-Eighty percent of seminary and Bible school graduates who enter the ministry will leave the ministry within the first five years.
-Ninety percent said the hardest thing about ministry is dealing with uncooperative people.

Pastors’ Wives:
-Eighty percent of pastors’ spouses feel their spouse is overworked.
-Eighty percent of pastors’ spouses wish their spouse would choose another profession.
-The majority of pastor’s wives surveyed said that the most destructive event that has occurred in their marriage and family was the day they entered the ministry.

Pastors’ Marriages:
-Fifty percent of pastors’ marriages will end in divorce.

Pastors’ Children:
-Eighty percent of adult children of pastors surveyed have had to seek professional help for depression.

(These statistics came from across denomination lines, and have been gleaned from various reliable sources such as Pastor to Pastor, Focus on the Family, Ministries Today, Charisma Magazine, TNT Ministries, Campus Crusade for Christ and the Global Pastors Network.)

I just got off the phone with a dear Pastor friend (a son in the faith that I mentored). His heart was broken as an elder had died. This elder was a close friend and confidant. It was unforeseen and sudden. The pastor was trying to help the family with the funeral details, help his church deal with the grief, and doing all the right things. He is a great pastor- but he too was hurting! I have been there too so I knew how to encourage him and pray for him.

As Pastors, we juggle a lot of emotions- our own and those of others. We need one another when walking through those tough times!

Pastors, can you find a second and third?