‘Come away and rest a while’: The importance of clergy self-care
Photograph by Aaron Burden via Unsplash
Dr. Marvin A. McMickle
I served as a senior pastor for congregations in New York City and Cleveland, Ohio, from 1976-2011. During that time, I came to understand two things about pastoral care.
The first involves the ways in which a pastor provides care and comfort to people inside and beyond the congregation where they serve. That includes visiting the sick, providing comfort in times of death, and leadership in planning for and leading funeral and memorial services for families dealing with grief. Beyond the membership of the congregation, I have come to believe that good pastoral care also involves being mindful of traumatic events that have affected the community. Many of its members may benefit from a clergyperson’s prayers and “ministry of presence.”
Just as important as the work done solely by the pastor is the pastor’s work to “equip the saints for the work of ministry” (Ephesians 4:12). The pastor is not just a provider of direct services limited to members of a particular congregation. The pastor is also charged by Scripture to be a recruiter, an equipper, and a strategic deployer of the ministry gifts built up and embedded within the congregation that allows for members to care for one another, whether the senior pastor is present or not.
The gospel of John (chapter 11) records that when Lazarus died, many people went to the home of Mary and Martha to comfort them. This was long before Jesus showed up. They participated in a community custom known today as sitting shiva, that involves staying in service to a grieving family for seven days to relieve them of all household duties while the family focuses on grieving and recovery. Preparing members of congregations to care for each other like the people of Bethany cared for Mary and Martha is an essential part of providing pastoral care performed by the senior pastor (or, perhaps, collectively by the local ABCUSA ministers’ council on behalf of its member churches). This multilayered care helps provide focused care for children, youth, married and single persons, elderly members with limited mobility, and members deployed in the military or studying at college campuses across the country.
Be sure to balance pastoral care of others with pastoral self-care. Come away and rest awhile.
While the list of pastoral care tasks is longer than this brief essay can allow, this list allows me to turn to the flip side of this issue, which is the pastor caring for themselves. Clergy burnout is an increasing problem, as pastors are invited and sometimes required to take on more and more responsibilities, often with no additional compensation or regard for the pastor’s right to personal time for rest and renewal. Pastors need to be mindful of the daily stresses associated with their work and find ways to offset and compensate for those stresses by finding time and practices that allow for self-care. In Mark chapter 6, the twelve disciples had just returned from serving in ministry two by two. No sooner had they returned to Jesus to report on what they had done, crowds of people gathered around them in hopes of being healed or fed. Jesus then ordered them to get on a boat and sail to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. He did so because the disciples were not even getting time to eat themselves due to the crush of the crowds. Jesus said to them, “Come away…and rest a while” (Mark 6:31). Their work immediately continued when they reached the other side, but at least they had that time with Jesus on the leisurely boat ride.
Before the pace of ministry catches up with anyone engaged in pastoral ministry, be sure to balance pastoral care of others with pastoral self-care. Come away and rest awhile. I write this essay as someone who waited late into my own ministry to fully live into this tension between caring for others and properly caring for myself. Because I wanted to be with my own family with the same intentionality that I brought to the families I served in the congregation, I had to institute some fair boundaries in my work, so I would not fail as pastor or as husband and father. I always felt that tension, and I always tried to be fair in addressing it. I pray I was true and faithful in this two-dimensional approach to pastoral care in my more than fifty years as an assistant pastor, senior pastor, and three times as an interim pastor.
Marvin McMickle is pastor emeritus at Antioch Baptist Church in Cleveland, Ohio, professor emeritus at Ashland Theological Seminary, OH, and retired president of Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School in Rochester, NY.
The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of American Baptist Home Mission Societies.
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