Thirty-two
Coping with Failure
“I’m not a cry-baby or a whiner, but this is awful. I
don’t think I’m going to be able to make it. Even my
kids want me to quit. Tell me, Kent, you have been
through desperate times, how do you keep going?”
I wish I had the statistics on the attrition rate in the
pastoral ministry. I’ll bet it is high, maybe
staggeringly so. It’s no job for those who are afraid of
failure. Certainly “success” is not the goal, but coping
with failure is a skill to be learned.
Pastoral ministry is open ended and never ending.
I never have the sense that I have completed my work
and thereby can take my ease. Any sense of success is
a fleeting one at best. Often I have a sense of guilt
over the work left undone. At times I have even felt
overwhelmed by a sense of inadequacy and failure. For
instance, I can preach two or three good sermons and
feel extremely good then follow those up with sermons
I think are awful. I have been through dozens of
sequences like that.
Worse still is the following scenario. Someone will
inform me that one of our members is in the hospital
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and has been there a whole week. I respond, “I never
knew it,” only to hear, “But I left a message on your
machine.” Somehow I did not get the message, or if I
did, I forgot. One time I knew in advance someone
was going to be operated on, I knew the date, time,
and place. Still I let it get away from me. I wanted to
pray with and be present with the individual, and, oh,
does the guilt come flooding in.
It is not pleasant to preach bad sermons. I have
preached some awful sermons, real stinkers! There
have been more than a few Sunday evenings when the
notion of quitting crossed my mind. Most pastors feel
like they want to quit once in a while.
Though this may embarrass me later, but for the
sake of others who might be like me, I do admit to
having walked out of a couple of church council
meetings saying, “I am out of here.” I have done it. I
hate to admit it, but I have done it. It occurred at times
when I was very low, after having preached four or five
poor sermons in a row and had a person or two leave
the church. I felt like I was failing in my ministry. In
one instance, I had found out that so-and-so was going
to leave the church, and one of my closest partners in
the church had attacked me in public. Suddenly there
it was: “I am out of here! I am not subjecting my family
and myself to this anymore!”
However, a pastor can not easily walk off and leave
a church. Though there may be a certain number of
people in the congregation who are against a pastor,
there are others who are supportive and appreciative.
A pastor must be careful about declarations of
resignation, let me tell you. There will be times when
a sense of inadequacy is strong and there are prolonged
streaks where nothing seems to go well—do not be
surprised or easily shaken. I do not say these things to
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For Pastors
discourage, but to encourage. Pastors who feel unique
in their experience are the most vulnerable to
discouragement and error. It is better to know how it
really is. And, we must remember that we endure all
things in order to preach the free grace of Jesus Christ.
If the pastor has a family, there will be people who
will attack it. If the pastor has a dog, the dog may be
maligned. Who knows? Once there is a “dragon” in
the congregation, the whole family is open for attack. I
am amazed at what some of “God’s people” will do to
and say about the pastor’s family.
James Chuck, forty years the pastor of the First
Chinese Baptist Church of San Francisco, tells the story
of a young seminarian’s disappointment in the progress
of his first pastorate. He found many of the people in
the church to be less than faithful. Dr. Chuck’s
response—”We’ve known about this phenomenon for
some time.”
The very people we count on will suffer a lack of
faith, often at critical junctures in the life of the church.
And when one person’s faith slips, it is not unusual for
it to turn into a kind of epidemic. What a
disappointment it can be, especially in the small church
where a little ripple makes a large wave.
It is this sort of thing, maybe more than anything
else that has caused me pain and distress. Just when it
seems we are being blessed by some growth, a key
member or two will suddenly disappear. Week after
week will go by and it begins to appear that they have
left the church. And when I reach out to them, they
avoid me. This does not go unnoticed, of course, and
people began to ask, “Where is so and so?”
My tendency is to blame myself. If only I had kept
in better contact, or, If only I could make people more
excited about coming to church, or, If only I could
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preach better, or, If only, so on and so on. Usually the
problem is more akin to a personal faith crisis on the
part of the person or some kind of family or job problem
that causes a person to want to hunker down at home
on Sunday morning. But I tend to assume the worst.
Certainly, sometimes my fears are well grounded.
This, however, is the ordinary flow of ministry; I
am never very far away from it happening to me—a
couple of weeks or more, at best. Despite every effort,
I know now that it goes with the territory.
Probably the greatest sense of guilt comes from my
seeming failure to add numbers to the church.
Someone recently said to me, “Kent, how come the
church is getting smaller?” I had to spend a lengthy
period of time explaining, and before it was over we
began to see that, in fact, the church was growing a
little after all. However, it was a very unpleasant time.
It took forty-five minutes to present the reason for the
tact I was taking. Afterwards, tired and frustrated, my
feelings got the better of me and I felt low for several
days. It is at times such as this when I have to be clear
about whom I am serving and why.
Pastors are tempted to quit as I spoke of earlier,
and sometimes they actually do quit.
A pastor may be forced to resign. Pastors may realize
the church ministry is hazardous to their health, even
potentially deadly. If so, it may be time to get out. I
have seen a number of ministers literally lose their
health, their sanity, and almost lose their relationship
with God because of what they experienced in a local
church. It is not the end of the world to resign from a
church, but I would do it very carefully, not suddenly.
If necessary, take a week or two off. If that will not do
it, take a short sabbatical (if possible). Find an
experienced pastor to talk to; consult with someone
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from the denomination (if there is one). If leaving is
the only choice, so be it. But do it in such a manner
that a new pastor will not be sabotaged and the church
family will not be damaged. Strive for dignity and
calmness so that there is a fitting closure. Neither one
pastor nor one church does the kingdom of God make.
Yet, each pastor is precious in God’s sight and each
church belongs to the King.
Pastors who survive and flourish will learn to deal
with the temptation to succumb to guilt and a sense of
personal inadequacy. Ultimately our survival and health
are based upon our relationship with Jesus. He is our
righteousness, He is our strength, and we need not be
superstar pastors to earn His love and acceptance.
Never give up!
How do you react to failure?
Have you ever been an unfaithful church member?
Can you imagine a legitimate reason to resign from
a church?
Have you ever done so?