Jarrid Wilson took his own life only hours after he’d performed a funeral service for a woman who had also committed suicide. Wilson was a young pastor, one who spoke candidly on his struggle with depression. He was not the first megachurch leader to do so. Andrew Stoecklin, another young man, left this world a year before Wilson. Both had battled anxiety and thoughts of suicide, both were dynamic speakers, both carried a packed Sunday schedule. Both were in the paid ministry. Both ended it all.
I’ve been trying to understand American church my whole life. Part of this is because our culture is so independent-minded and, compared to the rest of the world, wealthy. Part of this has to do with my own heightened awareness of what it takes to fit in. I’ve tasted depression, I know its bitter cup, but there was enough hope to reel me in–I was never living my life on a stage, begging God for the curtains to come down.
I’ve always felt a bit uneasy when I hear people talk about being in the paid ministry. My dad was, for a bit, the pastor of a church. It about did him in, both physically and mentally. He resigned and took up a hammer and nails instead. He came home from a day’s work, sore knees and achy feet. Many weekends he still preached at one church or another, though his name didn’t grace the bulletin. He was (and is) rogue in the pulpit. On Saturday nights he’d pore over his Bible, jotting notes in his neat cursive, outlining a message with his typical alliteration-heavy word puzzles. His heart had been preparing all week as he built houses; the final touch came on Sunday mornings as he nervously scavenged the house for visual aids–the small details that made our whole family marvel at his creativity. He preached like no one I’ve ever known.
As a young teenager I remember bumping into other various ministers–usually through youth groups or church camps. They’d always be praising and praying for the youth that the Lord might call into “full time ministry,” even beckoning us pimply teenagers to come forward and commit our futures to God’s work. I felt this unfair, a sort of emotional trickery. Who didn’t want a divine calling on their life? I’d instinctively roll my eyes a little (because of my dad, I guess). I felt I knew of the drama and behind-the-scenes–the perceived supremacy of the post, the ultimate disappointment of people needed their lives fixed, the wear and tear of trying to help. I’d also been to tent revivals where lost soul-winners were on their knees, confessing to extramarital affairs. Mostly I was suspicious. I didn’t think it a higher calling–I thought a stiff old tradition riddled with potholes.
Full-time ministry, paid ministry, a seminary degree. All unnecessary badges on a puffed-out chest. Perhaps they are a ladder to fall off, adding insult to injury when temptation tips it over. Of course I wanted to be loved, needed, used by God. But why was it necessary for there to be a distinguishable difference, a holy Bible college stamp of approval on my life? What was so wrong with the layman, the fisherman, the tax-collector turned disciple? Didn’t Jesus hand-pick those guys? Why did it seem so guilt-inducing to not sense a Holy Spirit nudge in the direction of seminary? I was always wondering, how do articles made for special purposes and common use (2 Timothy 2:20) correlate with American Christian ministry–those who are useful and those who are not? Was it merely in my own mind, this metaphor for the useful and useless? Should the majority of us assume we are the useless, blinking our blind agreement at the shiny pots and pans in the spotlight?
I don’t think is so–it shouldn’t be this way. We each have assumed our roles quite naively within the church, even the men and women supposedly at the top.
It is obvious in nearly every church–there are shepherds, and there are sheep. Without a word we are supposed to know on which side of the fence we fall: shepherds are professionals paid to run the sheep, and sheep are needy savage little critters. This cripples both sides from the start, sorting out the useful from the useless, as if any one of us had more to offer. You might encourage your flock to show up for a free test to find out their spiritual gifts or love languages, but I can tell you no one, no matter how much they care about children, wants to teach preschool Sunday school every week until they die, as if Heaven itself were keeping tally. Why should they when their superiors are getting paid to do the same thing? On the other end, pastors tire from the emotional grind and posing as the face of the church.
The whole institution develops cracks when we hoist our heavy burdens onto one person and try to even it out by offering a salary. It turns church into a business, something even Jesus despised. No, we cannot commoditize faith or put a price tag on spirituality. We were meant to try and outdo one another in love (Romans 12:10), not greedily live forever in the land of free childcare and pep talks. We were meant to be Church, living stones, flesh and beating heart. We aren’t meant to resemble a Chik-fil-a–packed parking lot, fast food and my pleasure.
I don’t think it can keep going on this way. I consider these two young men, Jarrid and Andrew, and know there must be thousands more. It is said that for every successful suicide (if you can call it that), there are twenty-five attempts. Something is dreadfully wrong with the way we are running things. For one person, the pressure to be dynamic and wise. For the rest, a peanut gallery that isn’t invited to do anything else but agreeably fall in line.
If there seems to be increased pressure on the people in the pulpit, it is because we have placed them under increased stress. We urge them to go to Bible school or make a vow to the clergy. We pay them to inspire us and complain when they don’t. We depend on the man up front to assume our tithe, our responsibilities, our own spirituality. We’ve elevated their authority near deity levels.
Just this weekend I sat next to a man in church, a new fellow attending for his first or second time. After the service we shook hands and I welcomed him to the church. He pointed to the preacher and asked me, “Does this guy always speak? I mean, like, every week?” He simply wasn’t interested unless he was getting his money’s worth. He was scoping out the field, recruiting a quarterback. Such a man will not feel the need to go home and read his Bible; he will feel entertained and fed at church, substantial enough of a meal to hold him over until next Sunday. I’ve got to get home; the Broncos are on at two-thirty.
Now, it is terrific and exciting to listen to an inspiring, hard-hitting speaker, but have you considered them often as a fellow human? It is foolish to ever assume another human could feed another’s soul the exact diet they require. Still, we beg for a proper minister, one who won’t stammer, one who flawlessly skates in and out of funny, reverent, relatable. Someone who looks good on a big screen and has a clean record. Back in their day, the Israelites begged for a king when they had the very breath of God in their tabernacle, fire from heaven. We hold Bibles in our hands, the Word, the wonder, and then only crack them open on special occasions.
The apostle Paul said he spoke with a tremor in his voice, not eloquently. He said he didn’t even use big words to impress the crowd. He showed up shaking in his boots (1 Cor. 2:1-5). Who at a job interview hires a such a coward? In this day, it’s inconceivable. Especially not church-goers–we want power in the pulpit!
Is it any wonder a minister begins rolling this burden like a snowball that becomes too heavy to pick up, too massive to even articulate? Tack on culture’s standards of looking a certain way, living a certain lifestyle, maintaining their cool, making a million choices that have nothing to do with preaching, showing up for every little function as if they are the MVP, elevating their employment above their family, minimizing healthy boundaries.
We might push a man off the very precipice even with a paycheck in their hand. They might cease to function for the standard we hold to them. Could it be that one man wasn’t ever meant to assume a singular role of authority within the church? Could it be that–hear me out–a preacher could be a layman? Physical work might be the highest form of meditation, yet we don’t give it the credit it deserves. We don’t allow pastors to enter into this holy space–either because we deem them too “set apart” or because they themselves enjoy being seated at the head of the table. Most of the time we common utensils point to the silver platter and say, isn’t it grand! Isn’t it doing just exactly what it was made to do? But actually we were all made for functional living. We were all made to serve.
What if the teacher stammered his or her way through a message? Would we throw stones? I have a feeling we might–sticks, stones, words, and whatever other ammo we conceal in our heart of hearts. We’d fire them (graciously, like Christians do) and try to find someone else. Someone more suited to the job. Someone we think fits our mission better, someone worth our money and Sunday morning time.
Could not God wash and rinse all the dishes in his house and decide to use a paper towel holder instead of a silver platter? Shall the other dishes have any say in the matter? But the following verse says,
So if anyone purifies himself from anything dishonorable, he will be a special instrument, set apart, useful to the Master, prepared for every good work.
2 Tim. 2:21
There is no difference in the pots and pans, be they gold, silver, earthenware, wooden…There is only a difference in what they are used for, and all can be made clean and useful. All can be set apart.
Jarrid Wilson and Andrew Stoecklin both left beautiful families behind–single mothers who must raise their children on their own. These men, both known for their mental health advocacy, lost a battle to the whisperer of lies. It shouldn’t have happened–the Church should not have been their pressure cooker. The curtain should not have fallen on them–they should have never been in the spotlight in the first place.
Kay Warren, the wife of pastor Rick Warren (and no stranger to suicide in the family), wrote of her pastor-cousin who also took his life,
Who besides his family could he turn to for counsel? Who would provide a safe place to listen nonjudgmentally to his story? Who was there to hold his hand and reassure him that he would be okay?…Who would pastor the pastor? The same spiritual leader who had been there for thousands of church members over the decades now wrestled in secret, feeling despondent, hopeless and utterly defeated.
(Kay Warren, Washington Post, April 21, 2017. Who Pastors the Pastor?)
When we speak of removing the stigma around depression, mental health, suicide–we might seriously consider what we are trying to say. Stigma, after all, indicates an ugly mark, and there is no despair uglier than a clawing, nagging voice inside a person, telling them they’d be better off dead. Let it keep the stigma; we must beg God to renew our minds and clothe us in his full armor. We must not beg for a pastor to the pastors, but for more laborers in the harvest. We need God to rinse us all–cups, plates, platters–and put us to use.
Perhaps one way to begin is by reevaluating church leadership and our natural tendencies to elevate people within it. It begins with the kids we’re recruiting–are we pushing God’s “sovereign” plan when we really just want to see them play out the holiest version of the American dream? Do we hasten to put power in the hands of a few when we’ve all been called to the field?
Not one of us is useless, not one of us ought to be overused. What shall a man give in exchange for his soul? Jesus once asked. I dearly hope the answer isn’t the pulpit. Perhaps we should think about the way we do church and how we treat people. In the end, it’s all the same, and it’s all that matters.
