Pastors Quit on Mondays
Do you feel the Monday blues because you’re heading back to work?
Pastors feel the Monday blues because they did work. And it did not work so well, or so they think. Pastors are the worst Monday morning quarterbacks. “The Prince of Preachers,” Charles Spurgeon, arguably the greatest preacher of the past 300 years, once said:
“It is a long time since I preached a sermon that I was satisfied with.
I scarcely recollect ever having done so.”
Pastors are human, marred by sin, and saved by grace. It is easy for a Pastor to sit on the pity pot of discouragement, thinking Balaam’s donkey spoke more eloquently than he did on Sunday.
The time crunch is undeniable; a Pastor feels like Sunday comes every three days. Sometimes, he can hear the starter pistol go off after the last church service concludes. Boom! The race toward next Sunday begins.
Hey, no pressure, Pastor. All you must do is; explain what God said, articulate what God meant, get it 100% right 100% of the time, and oh yeah, make sure you do it extraordinarily to the same group of people who hear you every week. The crazy part is that some Pastors do it two, three, four, five even six times a weekend.
A Pastor faces three battlefronts when he preaches, a physical battle, a spiritual battle, and an emotional battle.
The physical battle is clear from studies that have shown one hour of preaching is the equivalent of 8 hours of manual labor on the body. The body turns up the stress hormone cortisol and the neurotransmitter dopamine. The adrenal glands go into high gear producing other hormones responsible for metabolism, mood, heart rate, blood pressure, blood sugar, immune, and the digestive system. It is a biological hurricane.
The spiritual battle is a clear and present danger. Paul wrote in Ephesians 6:12,
“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”
A Pastor knows an enemy hates him, hates what he is doing, and hates what he speaks from the pulpit. The body count is very high of Pastors and their families whom this cosmic spiritual battle has taken out.
Finally, the emotional battle. There are five common emotions that your Pastor may feel on a Monday:
1. REGRET
Like a VCR stuck on play, the sermon continually replays in his mind. He quickly develops a bad case of the shoulda, coulda, wouldas. He feels like he should write an apology note to each church attendee who listened to that sermon.
2. INADEQUATE
Nobody is harder on him than himself. He hears people say, “ You want to listen to great sermons every week you really should subscribe to Pastor RockStar Podcasts, the best preacher I have ever heard.”
3. CONCERNED
What was the congregation thinking as they looked so angry? Was it bad Mexican food the night before or, are they mad at him? And why did he not see the Johnson family? Oh, no.
4. DEPLETED
Someone pulled the plug on his emotional, physical, and mental tub, and everything has literally drained out of him. He is just flat; call it Pancake Mondays.
5. RESTLESS
Maybe it is time to move onto another church. Green grass is everywhere but here. He scans www.pastorjobs.com thinking a change will fix everything. A fresh group of sermon catchers will allow him to reinvent himself.
When you think of it, pray for your Pastor on Monday. He will be grateful you did.
