Navigating Pastoral Leadership Crises

I can't remember who gave me this advice, but it's held up to be true: “Every pastor will go through a leadership crisis. Just pray that it doesn't happen in your first ministry.”

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The following is a guest post by my friend Darryl Dash, Lead Pastor of Grace Fellowship Church East Toronto. You can find more of his writing and resources at DashHouse.com.

Every Pastor Will Go Through Crisis

Every pastor will go through a leadership crisis. In my experience, this is true. The Apostle Paul is a good example. You can mine his books for wisdom on pastoral ministry with great benefit, and yet two of the most underrated books by Paul related to pastoral ministry are also the most heartbreaking ones: 2nd Corinthians and 2nd Timothy.

In 2 Corinthians, Paul writes to a church that has rejected him. He pours out his heart and pleads with them to open their hearts to him. 2 Corinthians is a book that's full of suffering. Paul describes his suffering, including beatings and shipwrecks, but also includes “the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches” (2 Corinthians 11:28). Paul knew what it was like to suffer. He also relates how his personal suffering—his thorn in the flesh—was both a messenger from Satan and used by God to teach him dependence (2 Corinthians 12:7-9). Somehow, God is able to use even Satan's attacks against us for our own good.

2 Corinthians is a book about ministering from a position of weakness, which is where pastors will find themselves a great deal of the time. 2nd Corinthians should normalize weakness and suffering in pastoral ministry. We can't escape it. Not only will we feel personally weak, but the people we're trying to pastor will sometimes turn against us.

We discover the same thing in 2 Timothy. In 2 Timothy, Paul, near the end of his ministry, relates how he feels completely abandoned by almost everyone. At his first defence, he writes, “no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me… But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me” (2 Timothy 4:16-17). Paul names people who let him down. The relational pain that Paul experienced is palpable as you read his last letter.

The hardest part about ministry is the relational pain that eventually every pastor will go through. Relational pain is unavoidable in ministry. Not only will we face our own deep personal weakness, but we will inevitably face attacks and betrayal by others. Thankfully, this won’t characterize all of our ministry, but I don't know a pastor who's completely escaped this.

At some point, if you are a pastor, you will be misunderstood and attacked. People who you thought were friends will turn against you. You will feel alone.

Every pastor I know has, at one point or another, gone through a leadership crisis and has suffered because people turned against them.

Pray It Doesn’t Happen Early

But here's the second part of the statement: Just pray it doesn't happen in your first ministry, because if we are tested too soon in our ministries we might be tempted to quit. It can help though to have some joy and stability in our early years of ministry so that we can learn to appreciate ministry's many joys before we're exposed to too much of its hardship.

Looking back, I can see that the tests I endured in my first ministry were relatively easy. I did have one deacon who before quitting threatened to physically attack me. But other than that one brief moment my first seven years of ministry were relatively easy and joyful.

But I do know pastors who have gone through a crisis in their first ministry. It cost them but they've come out fine. It’s ideal if you don’t face crisis in your first ministry, but even if you do, you can, with God’s help, survive.

Generally speaking, the advice I was given before I began ministry is true: Pastor, you will go through a leadership crisis. You won't be able to escape it. We should prepare for it, and we should also pray for its timing. Pray that it comes at a time when you have the strength to endure the trial that you will go through.

If all this talk of going through a leadership crisis sounds depressing remember that God does some of His best work during crisis. Paul said he learned to depend on Christ's strength and not on himself during suffering. His suffering helped deliver him from the temptation of pride.

When we suffer we walk the same road that Jesus walked for our sakes. And of course, God brought much good out of Jesus' suffering. Paul Miller reminds us that every death is a prelude to new life. “You will often find dying in one area of your life matched by rising in another part,” he writes. “When I’m in a death, I watch for a resurrection.”

We can find hope even when we suffer as pastors. God hasn't abandoned us. This is just part of ministry and God is able to bring good out of our suffering.

Pastor don't be surprised when you suffer. Expect it. Pray that the timing doesn't wipe you out, and keep going. Find someone you trust who can walk with you through that period of trial and believe that God will bring good even out of the worst trial that you will one day face.

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