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AUSTIN—Pastors in a late night panel discussion at the SBTC Annual Meeting agreed that whether discouragement comes from within, or from the words and actions of others, it is an inherent part of the job of ministry.
“We all understand what it means to face discouragement. The truth is, as pastors we all experience discouragement. … In many ways, we cannot avoid it because of what we face on a regular basis,” said Kevin Ueckert, pastor of First Baptist Church in Georgetown and moderator of the Nov.14 panel discussion.
While wrestling recently with wounded relationships, panelist Matt Carter, pastor of The Austin Stone Community Church, learned to look to Jesus as his example in discouraging times.
“I think my knee-jerk reaction has been to want to push people away. The only thing that has gotten me through it is just to remember all the people that betrayed Jesus. We find ourselves in really good company when we’re discouraged in ministry,” Carter said. “God didn’t call me into the ministry to be loved, but he called me into the ministry to love, and that’s been kind of keeping me together.”
Carter urged pastors who don’t have a mentor figure, or a person to whom they can confide, to ask for those relationships.
“If you don’t have that, ask God specifically for that,” he said.
John Powell, associate pastor at Northeast Houston Baptist Church in Humble, said mentors and gospel-centered relationships with other ministers have proven vital in seasons of discouragement.
“Someone who has been there before you and can see it from the other end of the problem is pretty huge,” he said.
Powell also encouraged pastors with a word from Romans 5, which says “hope does not put us to shame.”
“You are not alone, and your sufferings are not an accident. They are there to produce something in you that the Holy Spirit will walk with you through,” Powell said.
To keep negativity and discouragement from spilling over into preaching, David Fleming, pastor of Champion Forest Baptist Church in Houston, said he tries to create space to focus on being a communicator of God’s Word.
“It’s important for me to separate everything from the preaching moment and from leadership,” he said.
Hurt and discouragement in ministry are not reserved only for pastors but also can trickle down to a minister’s wife. Sometimes a spouse can feel the discouragement even more than her husband, Fleming said.
“It’s really harder on my wife. I have the ministry, and I have the pulpit, and I have the leadership, and I’ve had all of that to balance the discouragement and difficulties. It’s lonely as a ministry spouse, typically,” he said.
In an effort to spare his wife from some of the discouragement, Fleming said he kept many hard things inside, instead of opening up, but has since learned to share more and lean on her as a prayer partner.
“There were lots of times where she just wanted to be part of my world, and my protecting her, at that point, became contrary to honoring her. It’s a fine balance,” he said.
Fleming encouraged pastors to love, encourage and walk with their wives through the challenges and to create opportunities for them to be filled in ministry.
Powell added that he’s found it helpful to sometimes wait for God’s resolution in hard situations before sharing them with his wife, so that he can “share with her from a position of victory instead of defeat.”
Ultimately, for the pastor or pastor’s wife walking through discouragement in their life and ministry, Carter gave a simple reminder: “Remember what got you into it in the first place. Go back in your mind and in your heart to the initial calling God placed on your life.”
