Shepherd Heart offers one-on-one Clergy Care to support and encourage pastors through the personal and professional challenges of their calling.
While offering Christian leadership within a congregation, it can sometimes be challenging for you as a pastor to find confidential and safe places of spiritual nurture, encouragement, and healthy accountability in the church community where you lead.
Why is that?
This may be because of dual relationships- wherein you find yourself to simultaneously have more than one role: for example, friend/pastor; employer/pastor; spouse/pastor; niece/pastor… church employee/pastor. You are allowed to have a safe place where you can share what’s on your very own “shepherd’s heart.”
It may be difficult for some clergy to receive care because of Power Dynamics or Differentials, requiring you to be especially sensitive to whom you “lean on” – what & how much you share of yourself with someone either under your care, or someone in apparent authority.
Still some pastors don’t know where to turn when in need of spiritual care due to complicated systems dilemmas within the church or denomination that may affect many people differently. Sadly, some clergy have mentioned that they are reticent even to share their personal or pastoral struggles with their own peers and colleagues in ministry – “for political reasons.” (Heard especially from pastors whose ministries are itinerant -or “circuit-riding”- in nature; where one’s ministry-peer of today may be called to be their district superintendent/ bishop/ministry-supervisor of tomorrow.) Such pastors sometimes have told me that they withhold their personal disclosures from peers so as not to create ministry conflicts for either party in the future.
Pastors are often “giving” people. Special care of your own soul is needed to protect yourself from ministerial burn-out that can end up having destructive – even devastating- effects on the individual pastor, the clergy family, and faith community.
One-on-One Clergy Care at Shepherd Heart may be one additional resource for spiritual nurture, support, and prayer for pastors- with a goal of shoring up a minister’s sense of well-being in her or his faith community & family system. Call Shepherd Heart or contact Melissa at info@shepherdheart.com to schedule one-on-one clergy care today.