Music is doing "it" for me right now! I'm wearing my fantastic Bluetooth headphones my son gave me for Christmas, and I'm tuned into Radio 3. And it's beautiful. I'm wearing them to walk the dog, around the office, and in the kitchen whilst I cook. And it's helping. I've long gone off Classic FM because of the commercial breaks and frankly, I'm done with listening to adverts for Stannah Stairlifts, Funeral Plans, and Incontinence pads. Or wait, am I mixing this all up with ITV3 - aka "The Murder Channel"?
What is the "it"? It's the mental health. It's stress. It's partly the aftermath of lockdown, and how hard it's been on everyone. And speaking personally as a Pastor, its felt very hard. We've had to keep going whilst watching our church be destroyed by the enemy. . And it's partly other stuff. But clergy stress and mental health is well documented. Ours is "the highest calling" with few outside that we are able to share with and unload to, and few that understand. Why is that? I think it's because it's not just about what we do, it's also about what we carry! The call is a high and costly one and carrying it is often an impossible challenge.
So to mark Mental Health Week 2021, I thought I'd blog about Clergy Mental Health. And I wanted to write with this in mind: "It's not just what I do as a Minister" - after all, according to my brother - "I do only work one day of the week!" Actually, the truth is even when we are on a day off - a sabbath, we are still there "on call." In fact, the smartphone has partly eclipsed the easier boundaries of the last few decades because it's there and the coms are still on. The dumb phone is less than smart. And now coms take place rarely by phone (remember the days?), often by email, definitely by text, quite often by social media, and even that multiplies out into numerous strands of additional communication methods. And our homes are classed as our place of work too. All of that, is not just about doing stuff that is stressful. It's about the "call from God to be available" - this is what we carry. Yes, there are important points about taking sabbath, boundaries and limits, but even when all of that is dealt with and properly attended to, it's still the call, and it is what we carry, even when we are off. For most ministers, even when the phone is switched off (and mine goes off usually at 9pm), then the church landline is next to my left ear, all through the night. My mother tells me of my Grandfather who was a traditional local Doctor in Bournemouth, and who after service in WW1 began to practice medicine in Scotland, and then Yorkshire, before the days of the NHS. He was the typical well-respected family GP with a practice running from his own home and where he knew each patient by name, and was on call 24-7. According to my mother, he had a tube running from a pipe by his bed, which made its way down to the front door and which patients would speak to him in the middle of the night. I doubt that many GP's of today would provide such 24-7 service. Well, the phone is still next to my ear at night, and over the years some have made use of it, and I've grabbed on my clothes and headed out to either house or hospital to pray with the terminally ill and dying. It's what we carry, and being available is mentally, physically and spiritually exhausting. Today, in this mental health week, I stand with all Ministers of the Gospel and their mental exhaustion, and I pray, "Lord have mercy." Truth is that post-pandemic, there is a very high chance that many ministers will resign, or stand aside, or leave ministry completely because they are exhausted and they can't take any more of the stress and worry. It's because what we carry has become too much, and we can't cope. It's stress, its expectation, its exhaustion and it's also (to use a soldier term) "Friendly-fire" - though I can assure you that there is nothing friendly about it. Those who criticise, who undermine, and attack your character and complain about you. And that by the way is not always to your face, but believe you me, you always get to hear about it, and when you do it's like another arrow into your soul. And we are meant, apparently, to take it! To smile and always be in a great spiritual place. We Ministers are not perfect, and we make mistakes and our characters are also "work in progress", but there is nothing worse than another arrow fired at you and finding its target.
One of the most stressful parts of a Minister's job is in my view - living with the expectations of people. Show me a room of 50 people and I will show you a room of 50 different expectations. Double that to the average UK church size, and that's with one Minister because that's all they can afford, and you have 100 different expectations to live up to. Except that you can't. It's impossible. But these expectations are always in every local church. Sometimes we Ministers can satisfy some of those expectations, but a lot of the time we can't. Perhaps, and in truth, the only expectation we should try to satisfy is that of our loving Heavenly Father?! But living with these expectations is part of what I've so far called "the carrying." We certainly can't make them dissolve and disappear. Expectations can be even down to whether someone gets welcomed on a Sunday, or not as the case may be. But if it doesn't come from the Minister, then there's trouble! From the earliest age, as my Dad showed me around the Restaurant kitchen (two family-owned and run restaurants) on the Weymouth seafront, he always used to say "make sure you say hello to the staff!" And he was right. And we all as a family had the same training from Dad. My mum used to say when she was out the front of the restaurant amongst the tables and the customers - "make sure you give them a bright and positive welcome in!" And she was right, and it worked, and I've always tried to model the same in the church on the door, even though at times, I have been struggling within and feeling broken.
Have you ever wondered how much emotional and mental energy it takes to stand up the front each Sunday? Have you ever wondered how much emotional and mental energy it takes to preach or to lead worship? And to literally give of yourself passionately in preaching the Gospel? And then to feel drained at the end, and then to receive a word of criticism or email of disagreement - it breaks you and empties you. Again, it's not that we will hit the heights of quality preaching every Sunday - far from it! Poor congregation - it's going to be another lengthy depressing sermon. But it's what we have to carry quietly. Except that it's not quite as easy as that. We take it home and it affects our spouses and our family because "we're in a bad mood again because someone has said something or done something at church!
Another for me personally is facing up to discouragement. The church of God is not always an encouraging place, regretfully so. Yes, there are encouragements, and there are some wonderfully encouraging saints in most churches, but more often than not we end up measuring these with the not insignificant criticisms of the people of God. And sadly, when people say "this isn't personal" - it's more often than not totally personal. It is of course the brokenness of the world we all live in. We are all broken, and some are more wounded than others. Ministers do not minister in an unbroken world, otherwise, we'd be out of a job. Though apparently, Heaven looks a lot like that perfect world, and then hopefully we will indeed be out of a job! But I continually live with discouragement. It's like a "black dog" as Churchill used to say. Discouragement is what many Ministers carry!
Of course, the spiritual realities of ministry are that we "wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers" as Paul reminds us in Ephesians. This means that the climate in which ministry takes place is one of a constant battle. Dark powers and even Satan himself and his demonic powers seek to destabilise and damage and wear down the Ministers of the Gospel. It's what we carry!
So let me go right back to the start. To my beautiful music. In 1 Samuel 16: 14-23, the shepherd boy David is summoned to soothe the despairing soul of King Saul. So the shepherd musician David takes up his harp and plays for King Saul, and his soul becomes rested, peaceful and I guess his mental state becomes restored. It's a lovely picture. I love my music. I've always loved singing, from a young age as a Chorister, through to Opera as a slave boy in Verdi's Aidi, to the choral society I sang in, and through my years of experience in charismatic renewal of the 80's and 90's and church now! I love the music my daughter produces on the flute and guitar as she sings. I love the music my son produces on the Trumpet and French Horn, and I love the music my son plays on the drums. And as I listen to Radio 3, and sometimes to the Evensong on the station on Wednesdays, I let the music and liturgy lead me in worship. It soothes my mental state, it heals my soul. Right now, I need it more than at any other time, because the days we are living in are far from easy. You see, it's what we carry, not just what we do!
Pray for all Ministers everywhere please!
