What a wonderful, hope-filled conversation with a very good friend of small church pastors! Pastor Mike Ferguson, aka Dr. Mike Ferguson, is truly a pastor to pastors, who also has the education and credentials of an experienced psychologist.
While Mike has been a part of the AOG (Assembly of God) Churches for so many years - his heart for pastors knows no denominational boundaries. His heart is to help pastors who are battling a mental health crisis. Because Mike's story is also about battling a mental health crisis. His passion is to remove the stigma, embarrassment, and shame from anyone who struggles with their mental health. Dr. Mike brings a message of hope and healing. His passion is not only to equip pastors, but church leaders and lay leaders at every level. He wants to help churches become places that are friendly to those who experience mental health challenges. My own wife has battled a huge mental health challenge - and by close association (one flesh!) so have I. I (Jeff) have watched her suffer, not knowing why her brain would not align with her heart, wondering when the worry, the anxiety, and the sleeplessness would go away. Years ago, in ignorance, I would encourage her to just "think positive". We both learned the hard way, but we learned. I wish we had a person like Dr. Mike Ferguson in our lives at the time. Well, starting today YOU have a person like Dr. Ferguson in your life - in fact, Dr. Ferguson himself! He is available to you, and you can find him at DrMikeFerguson.com. Mike is also a suicidologist - so if you are struggling to that extent, or know someone who is, then Dr. Ferguson can also help you. We hope you enjoy this longer, hope-filled episode! Find Mike on the web in the links below.
Last week I (Jeff) had an experience that reminded me that leadership is a team sport – not a solo sport. If you are a leader, I hope you’re on a team. Because when you start performing at too low of a level, you’ll need a teammate or teammates around you who can let you know, and help you to get better. My wife and I traveled from northwest Iowa to Vail, CO for a denominational gathering. Ostensibly, a retreat. Yeah. No. Not for me. It was a grueling grind. After arriving back home, and upon further research, I have discovered that experts on altitude sickness have no way of knowing who will get it and who won’t. A person’s fitness level or gender play no role in whether or not he or she gets altitude sickness.
The symptoms of altitude sickness which I developed to a severe extent were: headache, fatigue, sleeplessness, confusion, and, what one article on WebMD said “In severe cases, you do not have the energy to eat, dress yourself, or do anything.” Well I managed to eat and dress myself, but it took longer, like moving through a fog of indecisiveness. So yes, I had altitude sickness for a couple days at 8,400 feet. Traveling around we went as high as 11,400 feet. I love an adventure and I love the mountains, but they don’t love me! The crazy thing is this – I did not know why I was feeling so terribly. I knew that in the past I had not done well at high altitudes. I was nervous before we left that I would not feel well or sleep well. I even told Jonny where my life insurance papers were in my office, should I not return! Even after all that, when I was there, I thought I was handling the altitude well, but could not understand why I was completely exhausted. I thought I was just getting old. Really. I was blind to the cause of my weakness. I needed my wife to diagnose the problem. She told me. As we traveled east, and out of the mountains, she gave me some Ibuprofen and by the time we got back to 2,500 feet, I was a new man! I felt great! Sometimes as a leader, we get a little too high, and we get lightheaded. We’re short on oxygen and don’t make the best decisions. We think we’re doing okay, but we’re really not. We’re moving slower, interpreting reality differently, and not bringing an acceptable level of performance to the game. And the problem is, we don’t see it. We make excuses and defend our actions. We think it’s just a stage we’re going through. We blame failure on others. We’re blind to our weaknesses. We need someone else to step in and inform us that we’re just not getting enough oxygen, that we have altitude sickness. Who on your leadership team has the permission and authority to tell you that you have altitude sickness? Who is there around you who can tell you that you need to get to a lower altitude for a while to get better? Who has the gravitas to inform you that your performance is no longer acceptable? I am not referring to a demotion, but to getting some much needed help. My wife warned me before we went. I didn’t listen. She asked me when we were there. I didn’t hear her. I was like the proverbial frog in the kettle, as the water got to the boiling point, I didn’t know enough to jump out! Finally, she gave me a reality check and helped me understand. Now I see it! I could not see it in my fog of disorientation. All we need to do is one thing. Let’s not lead alone. Let’s give another or others the permission to help us lead. Then, when our kettle starts to warm up, someone is there to yank us out! Who’s on your team? It was the late summer of 1990. With two kids under three years old, and a husband who was working 70 hours a week, obviously my wife was going through “a tough stage”. She was having a hard time. I was working a lot, and not really completely tuned in to her struggles. This stage will pass as the baby gets easier to take care of, I thought. My memory is a bit foggy on the details, but I remember that her doctor couldn’t really help her and she ended up in a neurologist’s office. He suggested an MRI to rule out a brain tumor. What?! A neurologist wants to rule out a brain tumor?! It sounds pretty serious to me, now 24 years later. I knew then it would show nothing. She was fine. I knew my wife. She just needed to think more positively. Obviously, the results came back from her MRI – all was clear, no problems. I knew it.
She was a good soldier. A ministry wife. She did what she needed to do to serve the Lord and support her husband and church. But the struggles continued. They eased considerably while she nursed each of our four children. That should have been a clue. But, what did we know? We just prayed more. Ten years later, in the summer of 2000, I fell asleep one night while she was reading next to me in bed. I woke up almost 8 hours later to find her still reading. “Did you…?” I asked. “No”, she replied. Sleeplessness. She had a woman in her Bible study who couldn’t sleep and ended up in the mental health ward of the hospital. She thought, “what if I can’t sleep?” Sure enough, she started to have trouble sleeping. When she experienced three sleepless nights in a row, we both knew we were in trouble. It was 2000. Pastoral families were supposed to have it together. Obviously this was a flaw. What was wrong with us? My wife had four children at home, and she was homeschooling three of them. She needed her sleep. She spent the next night praying, crying out to God, and reading her Bible, along with every note she’d ever written in it. “God, I’m not asking for a ‘want’, I have a need, a big need, I just need to sleep. I have four kids God!” But the sleep only came once ever second or third night. God was silent. We had been abandoned. And then the panic attacks became more frequent. We didn’t call them that then, we didn’t know. For no reason, in the middle of anything, my wife would begin to melt down. She needed to go home, to quit whatever she was doing. She needed to retreat. After some terrible times, and honestly, after much personal suffering that I’ll never truly appreciate on my wife’s part, we broke. We were devastated, exhausted, and out of options. I called one of our deacons, who was also our doctor. I called him at home on his day off, because to make it a big deal in the doctor’s office just didn’t seem right. And, we wanted confidentiality. Ministry couples shouldn’t have these kinds of problems. I explained to him what was happening. “Oh Jeff,” he said, “every single day I see people in my office for the same type of thing. The good news is, I can help your wife, the bad news is it’s going to take about two to four weeks.” Hey, that was ALL good news to me! I could feel the dread leaving my body, and for the first time in many months, I had HOPE. I had hope that my wife would get better. I knew she was fine. There was nothing wrong with her. She was a wonderful woman, godly wife and mother, my best friend, and a good ministry soldier. She just needed to think positive, I thought. The diagnosis? A chemical imbalance in her brain. Treatment? A pill. Wow. Within two weeks she was sleeping. Way fewer panic attacks. Much less anxiety. In several months we had figured out what she needed by way of a prescription, and soon she was 95% better, which was a miracle for us. Today it’s just called “mental health”. Some people have trauma or abuse, others have addictions. My wife’s only trauma was being married to me – but she simply had an imbalance in her brain chemicals – and when that was treated, she recovered. Today, fourteen years later, she still takes half a pill, every night. She understands her brain, her emotions, and how she feels. She knows how to manage average anxiety, and she knows when she may be in for a season of needing the whole pill every night. She’s prescribed the whole pill. But mostly, she’s good with just a half. I’ve given you a thumbnail sketch of what our struggle with mental illness was like. My wife could tell you story after story of her suffering from 1990-2000. Prozac was first prescribed in 1990. All these SRI drugs have been developed since the year my wife had an MRI of her brain. But today they are available for you, just like Diabetics and blood pressure patients have their own drugs. If you are struggling with mental illness of any sort, please get help. There is HOPE on the other side. All my wife needs is 5mg a night to have her life back. It’s way worth it. And, for us, none of it was spiritual. We prayed, cried out to God, for years. He was waiting for us to just go to the doctor. Oh, that. I know that’s not everyone’s ailment and diagnosis, but it was ours. And, maybe it’s yours. Get help. Call your doctor. Pastors and their spouses need to be cared for too. This Wednesday on episode 88, we talk with David Craig, Jonny’s dad. David has suffered with Depression for decades, all the while serving as a pastor, and he tells his story this week on the 200churches Podcast. Years ago I had a secret. A secret so shameful, that I could not tell anyone. At the time, it just wasn’t done. It was a secret that wasn’t spoken about at dinner parties, and a problem you were expected to solve on your own. I had carried the secret for years, and it was making me sick. DO YOU HAVE A SECRET?
Pastor, do you have a secret you wish you didn’t have? Is it one that you don’t want anyone else to ever discover? Are you getting tired of hiding this part of you, of masking over the pain and the shame? Is it a secret that only you and your husband or wife know about? Or, maybe, they don’t even know? Is your secret making you sick? One of the secret weapons against secrets is also one of the secret weapons against sin. That weapon is… the light of day! Your secret only has power because it’s a secret. As long as it’s a secret, it has control over you. Once you shine the light of day on it, it loses its power and hold on you. Once you tell your secret to another person, you share the burden of it, and it begins its descent into irrelevancy. God does not want us pastors to carry secrets. They lead to shame, guilt, lies, holding our cards close to our vest, etc. God doesn’t want us doing ministry alone, and he certainly doesn’t want us carrying our burdens, our secrets, alone. Maybe it’s time for you to come clean, to share your secret with a trusted friend or mentor. Maybe you need to share the burden of it with another, and to get help. When you tell your secret, it’s like a new car immediately after you drive it off the show room floor, it’s drops in value big time! A shared secret loses its teeth, and releases its bite on you. BACK TO MY SECRET... Back to that secret I had years ago. Dear God. I carried that thing around, with my wife’s help, for years. We sweat over it, prayed about it, tried our hardest to fix it, and did make some progress. In fact, we made a good deal of progress. But we bore it in silence, and in secret, hoping no one would find out. If they did, they would think less of us, perhaps consider us unworthy of ministry. When it was time for us to move to a new ministry, I decided I would open up and let our new church leaders know up front what my situation was. I was almost sick over it, no, I was sick over it! I wasn’t sure they would want me. I’ll never forget the call. It was a special call I made before I came to candidate. I was honest and open. I shared my secret. To my shock, and delight, it was a nonstarter. “Is that all you got?” they said. I was floored, and felt a ton of weight being lifted off my shoulders. “Has it been difficult?” they asked. “Yes” I said. “Then good, we want a pastor who has been through the ringer and knows what it’s like. We want a pastor who has crashed and knows what it means to get up and keep going. We’re on your side, we’re in this together.” After we hung up, I sat there in my van, staring at my cell phone, weeping. This is what grace is. I finally experienced it. Grace. Love. Acceptance. Jesus. This is the body of Christ. What was my secret, you ask? I’ll never tell! LOL. You see, you don’t have to tell everybody your secret for your burden to be lifted. You just have to tell the right person or persons. Paul said, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” James said, “confess your sins one to another, that you may be healed.” If I told you, you would say, “oh yeah, that” and move on to the next thing. No big deal. But it was huge to me, because I had no one to help me carry it. What secret are you carrying? Can I scream it? Here I go – FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE, BARE YOUR BURDEN! TELL SOMEONE! SHARE YOUR SECRET! And watch it lose its power, and feel the weight lifted off your shoulders. Then understand what Jesus meant about finding “rest for your soul.” OUR GIFT TO YOU This Wednesday, on the 200churches Podcast, episode 64, we talk with John Lynch about our pastoral health. We talk to him about what it’s like to be honest with someone else, nothing hidden. If you have secrets that are making you sick, don’t miss this episode. We love you Pastor, and we want to bring hope and encouragement to you this week. So, today, this one’s for you! For all the men and women out there pastoring small churches – we love you! You bear the burdens of others, carry the water for the ministry, and often go un-thanked and unnoticed. So from Jeff and Jonny today – THANK YOU! Hey, we noticed. We’re two of you! We know. It’s a new week. If you need Wednesday’s episode – we offer it to you as our gift of encouragement and support. Happy Monday. Now, go get ‘em! Do you know if there is such a thing as Pastor Porn Insurance? I mean, like stuff to protect you on the far off chance that you get addicted to pornography and have to quit the ministry – is there insurance for something like that? I've not heard of it, but then again, I (Jeff) wouldn't get it anyway. In fact, I decided to activate my faith and drop all of my insurance. I don’t believe that insurance allows us to live by faith. I dropped the insurance policy that protected everything I own in the parsonage I live in. If there is a fire, God will provide. I also dropped my life insurance policy. I believe that the church will care for my wife and family in the unfortunate instance of an early death. God provides through his people. We say that all the time, but do we really mean it? Activate your faith and drop your life insurance policy. Give the premium to missions and the credit to God.
I also dropped other insurance that I can’t admit to publicly, because legally I am supposed to have it. But the state does not rule me, and to have those policies does not allow me to live by faith. God will provide – how many times do we preach that?! We need to start living by it. Want to join me? Want to be a faith-filled pastor who practices what he or she preaches?! Yeah, I didn't think so. But that’s good. Because it would be crazy and irresponsible of me to do those things, right? It would be simply reckless for me to drop all my insurance. Because my premiums not only guarantee I have coverage, but Lord willing I will never have to collect, and those premiums will pay for the calamity in others’ lives. For the record, I did not drop all of my insurance. I was "telling a story". :) I am properly insured, and still live by faith! If it is so crazy for us to not have life, auto, homeowner’s, and health insurance – then why in the world would you live as though porn would never affect you? Why do you think porn won’t come and visit you like a heart attack in the night, or cancer at an early age? Why do you think illicit images won’t come crashing on to your computer screen after a careless click? You need porn insurance! Go ahead, make our day, do something! It’s called a router, properly set up. It’s called Internet service that is filtered at the company (demand that your Internet Service Provider provide this!) before it ever gets to your home. It’s called accountability software and teen level smartphone data settings. For the sake of your soul, your church, and your family… and the reputation of Christ in your community – activate your porn insurance! Netgear Routers have filtering protection on them – they are the only kind I buy. (No, I am not an affiliate marketer - Jonny and I get nothing if you by one, except happiness!) Do others have it too? I don’t know, because I always buy Netgear. I found a good thing and I’m sticking with it. Here is the router I bought for our church and my home, and right now I found it at 43% off at Amazon! Again, we don't get anything for this, it just works well for us. I’m not Superman, so I need to guard against the kryptonite that is pornography. When us pastors look at porn, we are not in our right minds, as Nathan Stob suggested in this week’s podcast. He said that “when we are sane” we should be setting up filtering and protection, aka porn insurance, and thereby be proactive. As pastors of 200churches, we have to do everything we can to protect ourselves from the myriad ways that the world, the flesh, and the Devil can take us down. Our leadership, shepherding of the church, and influence in peoples' lives depends on it. My leadership and your leadership in our 200churches matters huge in God's Kingdom! Hey you pastors – you men and women who have zero accountability and 90% isolation – change that! Get some insurance coverage to protect you from the ravages of pornography. Do it TODAY. Finally, if you've never subscribed to the 200churches Podcast on iTunes, you can do it here, and leave us a rating & review! The third post this week is coming on Saturday, not the usual Friday. See that?! You did not even notice. But, we hope you notice the great encouragement/instruction in this post! This week we've talked about isolation. Now we want to share with you three things you can do to put a lot of distance between yourself and isolation in ministry. Here we go… Understand that you are in a deep rut. If you are isolated, it is because over time, you have decided to sequester yourself from others. Area by area, piece by piece, you have cordoned your life off from significant people who would otherwise give input to you on your decisions, actions, behaviors, etc.
This has happened over time, and probably almost imperceptibly to you. All of a sudden, you wake up one day, and read something, or listen to something, which causes you to realize that you are quite isolated. You are not connected in meaningful ways with others. You are, in effect, alone – alone with your worries, fears, cares, dreams, and needs. You are also alone with your secrets. You need to share your secrets with someone. Rick Warren has made the following phrase well known: “You are only as sick as your secrets.” You absolutely will never get out of your isolation if you do not share your secrets with someone. You need to find someone you can trust, or, who is legally obligated to keep your secrets. :) Find a counselor, therapist, or another pastor who will keep confidences. It is amazing how the headlock those secrets have on you is released when you share them. Yeah, I know, it's hard. Who can you find? There isn't anyone you can trust. You can't afford a counselor. I know, if it was easy, you would have already done it. How badly do you want to grow, to get better, to get away from isolation? Again, we can’t stress this enough – you HAVE TO share your secrets with another person! When you do, their power over you, and the isolation they force you into – is gone. Once you realize you are in a rut, in a prison of isolation, this is the first thing you must do, find someone with whom you can share your secrets. Change your habits, one at a time, by replacing them, one at a time. You have habits of isolation that you have formed over time. Habits that keep you at a distance from others, either physically, relationally, or emotionally. Take some time to identify those habits, and one by one, change them. You can’t change them by just getting rid of them; you must change them by replacing them with new habits. For example, you have a habit of not connecting with people by phone – so make a new habit of calling one person a week, just to talk personally with them. Not for ministry purposes, or to help them, but just to talk about how they are doing, and how you are doing. Make the call. Or, you may have developed the habit of not sharing certain information with your husband or wife. Maybe you have secrets about how you feel about what they just said, how you are handling the finances, or what you like or dislike around the house. Make a new habit of talking to your spouse! When those times come, when you would normally say nothing, and even hide something from them, begin to open up, talk with them – and stop keeping secrets. I think that’s enough for today. If you can realize and act on these three things, you will get a long way down the road from your isolation; a road that leads to relational health and wholeness. Next week, we are talking about our strengths and weaknesses, and how they are BOTH important in shaping our ministry. We have a great podcast for you next Wednesday on this subject that we think will really inspire and encourage you. |
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