When Shepherds need support
Several of our National Fellowship staff phoned almost 300 of our pastors in the early months of the pandemic. Our desire was to discover how our pastors and churches were doing. We heard concerns, many overwhelmed with going online, but so many shared encouraging stories of mission advance. We prayed with our clergy and I shared your stories in eight of my weekly blogs. Six months later my team made another round of calls to our pastors. The tone was a little different. We debriefed, shared our concerns and prayed. Many more of our pastors communicated they were tired and dealing with more conflict. Our National staff have hosted zoom gatherings twice a week for our missionaries and once a month for our chaplains in an attempt to support one another.
It certainly feels like the effect of the virus will continue well into 2021. I’m hearing colleagues commonly refer to “COVID-fatigue”. I’ve been talking to some of our shepherds who have sought support through sick-leave and sabbaticals. This is real. And many of our shepherds need to reach out for help.
There is a ministry available to ministry workers associated with our Fellowship of which you should be aware. Our Fellowship National ministry pays a membership fee to make counselling ministry available for all our clergy families, including pastors, church staff, missionaries, chaplains, and their spouses and children. We are one of 10 Canadian church groups that partner to make this available.
The Clergy Care Network is a ministry of Focus on the Family Canada. The Fellowship partners with this ministry to make a toll-free phone line available (1-888-5-CLERGY) for ministry personnel to connect with Master’s level, professionally trained, Christian counsellors. This phone contact is free for Fellowship clergy and their families. Your call will be kept confidential. No one from your church or our National/Regional offices will know that you made a call. You can even choose to remain anonymous to the counsellor if you wish.
Christian counsellors will counsel, pray with you, provide resources, and give referrals to professionals in your area, among other things.
There are other resources available on the Clergy Care Network website, such as archival information for pastors, pastor’s spouses, pastor’s kids, and missionary kids, along with information on special retreats for clergy couples and families.
You might want to sign up for Focus on the Family’s monthly “Focus on Pastors” email newsletter. Go to their website to sign up.
I spoke with an assistant of one of the Clergy Care Network counsellors and asked a few questions. Keeping strict confidentially, she assured me Fellowship clergy and their spouses are currently using the toll-free line to seek counselling. Typical help offered during these calls has included: offering resources such as books, online resources, referrals to other organizations or counsellors; psycho-education on issues such as boundaries, addictions, abuse; developing safety plans when needed; exploring alternative ways of handling problems/issues; applying scripture; and prayer, which occurs with virtually every caller.
During this year of virus and vaccines and our need to protect ourselves, I hope we will also pace ourselves and be vigilant in our own “self-care”.
Call 1-888-5-CLERGY as a first step for support if you’re feeling too much stress or fatigue these days.