Emotional Health Affects Your Ministry
by Nancy Kauffmann
During the holiday season, one major health insurance provider advertised on TV saying “how you are doing emotionally affects how you are doing physically.” Listeners were encouraged to talk to their doctor about the status of their emotional health. That was the first time I had ever heard a major insurance provider mention the connection between the two. I agree with the statement, but would expand the connection of emotional health to other aspects of life including ministry. I believe how you are doing emotionally affects how you are doing in ministry.
Early in my ministry I witnessed one minster friend who destroyed his ministry when at an elder’s meeting, he became so enraged with an elder whose behavior was again causing division among the elders. In his rage, the pastor screamed and swore leaving everyone present in shock. Soon after that event, the pastor chose to resign and left the ministry for good. Unfortunately that wasn’t the only story I heard in my 37 years of ministry where a pastor sabotaged or destroyed his/her ministry. The story drove home to me the importance of one’s emotional health on one’s ministry. But fortunately I also heard stories of exceptional pastors who displayed the inner strength that comes from being emotionally healthy. While so much more can be said about the impact of one’s emotional health on ministry, I will share four basic thoughts about emotional health.
- Positive emotional health affects your outlook on life and can help you keep centered in ministry. It affects your self-esteem, your relationship with others, your ability to make good decisions, your ability to cope and to deal with crisis.
- “Clean out your closet.” To deny, keep secret, or ignore that one has any past or present unresolved issues most likely will interfere with ministry and in times of great stress or crisis leave the pastor vulnerable to being done in by those issues. Some pastors have been able to “cover” for years only to fall prey to the baggage and eventually harm their ministry.
- Be honest with yourself. What “pushes your buttons”? Find ways to deal with them so that you are not caught responding reactively or destructively when they get pushed.
- You can improve your emotional health in a number of ways including exercise, attending to your spiritual life, self care, continuing education, participation in a peer accountability group and professional counseling when needed.
An emotionally healthy pastor is more likely to have peace within and be able to truly be present with others in the congregation calling out the best in them and exhibiting God’s unconditional love for all.
Nancy Kauffmann from Goshen Indiana served for 19 years on a pastoral team, nine years as a conference minister and nine years as a denominational minister. More recently, she has served as president of Doves Nest, which can be found on Shepherd Heart’s Pastor’s Rolodex.