When Church Work Hurts: 4 Reminders for Hurting Pastors

Jamie, Todd, Zach, Jacob, Lisa, Samantha, Dave, Nic, Jonathan, Laney, and Peter. My list is too long—my list of pastor-and-church-staff friends who have been hurt by their work in the past few years. Some were demoted or laid off. Others were constantly critiqued or spiritually abused. Some worked for toxic leaders and had to quit to preserve their well-being.

Church work can hurt in many ways. We face disappointments, like when no one attends our new midweek Bible study. When the senior pastor makes a spiritually manipulative comment in a staff meeting, we can feel disillusioned, challenged in our assumptions about someone we trusted. On rarer occasions, ministry work can be devastating: getting let go due to restructuring or realizing it’s time to close the church.

The suffering, conflict, contention, and opposition we experience in the course of our work may make us want to crawl under our desks and hide or leave the ministry altogether. But these four reminders can bring us hope and encouragement when church work hurts.

(For more resources for dealing with ministry challenges, see this post on managing conflict and this one on managing "pastoral overwhelm.")

1. You Are Not Alone in Your Ministry Pain

When work hurts, it’s easy to feel like we’re all alone—as if no one on the planet has experienced what we have endured. The shame we feel, coupled with not wanting to gossip or malign the people who hurt us, drives us to silence. In keeping our suffering quiet, we cut ourselves off from the compassion and care of those who have walked through similar valleys.

Unfortunately, many pastors lead their congregations while nursing wounds sustained in the course of their work. While soliciting stories for my book, When Work Hurts: Building Resilience When You’re Beat Up or Burnt Out, I discovered that over half of those willing to share had worked for Christian organizations, including churches. I eventually had to tell a few people, “Thank you, but I don’t have room for more pastors’ stories.”

It’s a grim reality, but the sheer quantity of church work-hurt stories should remind us that we’re not alone.

(A support network can help you know you are not alone. See our article on the importance of peer support.)

2. Work Hurt is Normal: Why Ministry is No Exception

Work hurt shouldn’t surprise us. It is a normal part of living in a broken world.

God designed work to be a delight, but sometimes it’s anything but. That’s because God cursed our work after Adam and Eve sinned in the garden. In Genesis 3, we read of painful labor, painful toil, thorns, thistles, and sweaty brows. From that point on in the story, work would not be easy. It would be physically and emotionally challenging.

Being in ministry does not exempt us from work-related pain. In fact, it may make the pain worse because we expect better of the people, systems, and structures that cause our work hurt. When a Christian brother, sister, or organization wounds us, it can be difficult to reconcile their actions with the faith they profess. That cognitive dissonance only adds to our anguish.

Recognizing the ubiquity of work hurt can help us normalize our experiences, and seeing our pain as the result of broken people working in broken systems can help us remember that work hurt isn’t the end of the story. Hope, rooted in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, is. 

3. Work Hurt Cannot Erase Your Calling

Experiencing physical or emotional pain in our work lives does not negate our calling or imply that we discerned it poorly. Yes, work hurt may bounce us onto a different career path or into a season of vocational discernment. In seasons of searching and uncertainty, we can still pursue faithfulness to God by using the gifts and resources he’s given us to partner in his redemptive work in the world in small, quiet ways, even when we feel utterly broken inside. And, if our work hurt ultimately takes away from the people and places we have served, we have to remember that our calling doesn’t disappear just because our context changes. In those instances, we may have to learn to be faithful to our calling in new and creative ways.

4. God is With You in the Midst of Church Hurt

Work hurt can drive us to wonder if God has abandoned us, if he sees our suffering, if he will care for us in his mercy and administer justice. The Apostle Paul and his companions could endure being “hard pressed… perplexed… persecuted… and struck down” because of the courage they derived from their union with Christ (2 Corinthians 4:8-9). Like Paul, we can draw on Christ’s power when we face insults, hardships, persecutions, and difficulties (2 Corinthians 2:10). The Lord told Paul, “‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness’” (2 Corinthians 12:9a, ESV). That promise led Paul to proclaim, “When I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10).

Church work hurt may bring us to our knees in desperation. When we are tempted to feel alone, let us remember that God is with us, giving us supernatural strength to endure and remain steadfast.

(Looking for more ministry encouragement? See Bradley Long's "Ministry is Messy (or why I drank an energy drink at 7PM in the evening)" or Dan Baumgartner's "Faithfulness, Not Size: The Real Measures of Ministry Success.")