By Rev. Melinda Contreras-Byrd, PhD, Contributing Writer
Over the years, the Lord has led me to minister in various settings and with various people. I have worked with bilingual preschoolers, intellectually gifted children, suicidal and violent teens, special education students, and adult populations struggling with addictions, homelessness, and a myriad of psychological differences and challenges.
Over the past ten or more years, I have become involved in ministering to those who minister.
After years of searching the literature on pastoral self-care, I realized there was no research on Black and Latinx pastors! So, in 2013, funded by the Louisville Institute, I undertook a study to define and address the needs of Black and Latinx pastors. As a result, In 2020, I published a book, Saving the Lives of Black and Latinx Pastors- A Self-care Study. My journey as a Christian psychologist has taught me some important truths I want to share with you today. Your response to these issues may very well, “…save the life of a Black or Latinx pastor”!
African Methodist Episcopal Church pastors carry a distinction among Black clergy. We require master’s level credentials for eligibility for ordination as an Itinerant Elder. If you compare the salaries of persons with a master’s degree to average clergy salaries—you will be disheartened by the disparity. A pastor’s salary is significantly less than others with master’s degrees. When you include “being Black” as a factor for comparison consideration—the picture is even more dismal. Many of our pastors take a second job so that they can continue to pastor. They pay bills and purchase gifts for their congregants and leadership out of their pockets. Let pastors know they are appreciated—beyond a set “Pastors Appreciation Sunday.”
The call to ministry typically begins early in the lives of pastors. Even as children, we stand out as being “a little weird.” We are not part of the in-crowd. Peers ostracize us for being “religious.” Pastors live on the margins, uninvited to social gatherings, soon becoming outsiders–except in the church. Once they become pastors, they spend most of their time engaged with their members. They know their members’ names and often the names of all of their extended family. They go to the hospital and take tearful calls late at night from the hospice, home or hospital. But they are blessed to be the ones who baptize, bury and marry. And when they answered their call to ministry, they agreed to a sacrificial life wherein they would lose close contact with friends; but are paradoxically prohibited from forming close friendships with those with whom they spent most of their time. They work hard, forming non-reciprocal relationships.
Everyone sighs at the end of the week and silently repeats the mantra, ”Thank God it’s Friday.” But for pastors’ Saturdays are not free days. Instead, having been unable to do so during a busy work week, most formalize the bulletin and select the music, scriptures, and service participants while struggling with God over a meaningful word to preach.
If the pastor is married and or has children, this raises likely guilt-producing and stressful family conflicts between balancing important church and family functions.
What might we do to support a pastor’s well-being? First, realize that there are stewards and class leaders to assist the pastor in meeting the congregational needs too numerous for one person alone. Second, avoid criticizing your pastor for not being at every important event or visiting every person who sick and shut-in.
You may not know that a majority of clergy leave the pastorate each year, convinced that they have not made a difference and are not doing a good enough job! So, as laity (and I encourage pastors to do this also for themselves) acknowledge pastors’ successes, pray for them in their failures, and give them the gift of guilt-free time to relax and de-stress.
In my study, I asked, “Should pastors be role models in all things?” Do you think most believed this to be true or false?
I asked, “ Do you take at least one week-long vacation each year?” Did most say yes or no?
What percentage do you think said they experienced loneliness or attended retreats?
The answers are in my book.
Encourage self-care in your pastor, and buy her or him these books on the self-care of pastors.
Kirk Byron Jones, Rest in the Storm. Judson Press, 2001.
G. Lloyd Rediger, The Clergy Killers. Westminster John Knox, 1997.
Melinda Contreras-Byrd, Saving the Lives of Black & Latinx Pastors: A Self-Care Study. Africa World Press Red Sea Press, 2020.
Paul David Trip, A Dangerous Calling. Reprint, Crossway, 2015.
