Pastor John Gray hails benefits of therapy but most pastors don’t seek professional mental help
For embattled megachurch pastor John Gray and his wife, Aventer, it was God and therapy that helped save their marriage after a series of inappropriate relationships. But unlike Gray, data shows that most never seek professional help.
During a recent episode of Laterras R. Whitfield's podcast "Dear Future Wifey," recorded at his Love Story Church (formerly Relentless Church) in Greenville, South Carolina, Gray said he and his wife are now in counseling every week collectively and individually for hours as he fights to heal and grow from his struggles.
Therapy combined with his resilient faith, however, changed Gray's life. His only regret, he said, was not doing it sooner. He spoke about the impact his struggles with his mental health had on his marriage and ministry and how he got so despondent that he had thoughts of suicide.
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"I'm not only sorry for my actions. I'm sorry that I didn't understand how to get to counseling and therapy sooner. We were not taught that. When you go to church all the time, they lay hands and put oil [on you], but oil is not the same as a certified psychologist and a therapist. And I needed them. And I need it still, and I will continue to need it," Gray explained.
Like Gray, most pastors desire to improve their mental health, according to research from the Barna Group, but most do not. The data shows that nearly one in five U.S. pastors had contemplated self-harm or suicide in the past year, yet 65% of pastors do not utilize professional mental health support.
In a recent interview with The Christian Post, Joe Jensen, senior vice president at Barna Group and a former pastor, said he is not surprised by the research's findings showing most pastors don't utilize professional mental health services.
"Unfortunately, it's not surprising. I would say there are a number of different factors that we could kind of get into as to why that number is so high, but it's not really surprising," he said. "In my generation of pastors, we didn't talk about this," he said in agreement with Gray's initial response to his mental health struggles.
"We didn't talk about the need or the necessity [for mental health support]. As a result, like the accessibility or lack thereof of professional mental health help for pastors, it just wasn't emphasized. And so, and you know, that kind of lack of emphasis and value gets passed down from generation to generation," Jensen continued.
"I think we're starting to see with different trends that we're talking about this more, which I think is really great. But for generations, in ministry, this just wasn't a topic of conversation."
While Barna doesn't track pastor suicides, Jensen has seen concerning media reports of pastor suicides over the years, and many of them don't fit the profile of someone who would be deemed suicidal.
"I would encourage everyone to lean into [the research]," Jensen said.
"A lot of these pastors on the outside are projecting that they have everything together. In this Instagram culture, which has infiltrated how we do ministry, it's kind of made its way into the Church, where we show our highlight reels, not our behind-the-scenes, on social media."
That "cultural value," Jensen said, has "kind of carried forth in the Church."
"In fact, I would even say in many churches, it's amplified and exemplified where we expect our pastors to have the highlight reels. Who wants to follow a pastor who doesn't have their life altogether? I mean, what kind of credibility do they have to help me lead my life and help me have a flourishing life if their life doesn't appear to be flourishing?" he asked. "And what that is doing, that cultural value is actually undermining a pastor's ability and desire and motivation to actually be real and to be vulnerable."
Citing research showing that the more isolated pastors get, the lonelier they become, Jensen said it also undermines their ability to seek help. Pastors may also isolate because they "don't feel safe in the spaces that they lead."
But those aren't the only reasons a pastor might not seek professional mental health help.
"If they do come to be able to say, 'Hey, I do need help, I need to pursue it,' a lot of times, there's not the avenues and the pathways to get that help. ... They don't have the financial means to be able to go get counseling. They don't have the insurance coverage. There's no church budget," Jensen stressed.
He noted that bi-vocational pastors are more likely to be impacted by financial constraints when it comes to getting mental health care.
"We see a pretty big difference in those who are not in full-time paid ministry. … Forty-seven percent say that they have had these thoughts [of self-harm or suicide] at one point or another. That's a much greater extent than the 12% that are in full-time ministry that have these thoughts," Jensen said.
With growing data available on the mental health of pastors, Jensen is urging the Christian community to take the research seriously, saying it can't "keep turning a blind eye to this issue in our culture."
"This is an unacceptable reality. This is not OK. We need to take it seriously," he said of pastor suicides and suicidal ideation.
"When you look at this particular stat from Barna, we'll see that this is kind of broken down into those who sometimes or seldom have these thoughts and then those who more frequently do. And we'll see that 1% say that they have frequent and distressing thoughts. In the research world, and I would just say in the culture at large, a lot of times you look at 1%, and they'll say, 'Well, 1%'s not statistically relevant.' And I would just say, for this particular topic, even one person answering that question means that we need to lean into this topic because one pastor taking his or her own life is one too many."
Jensen suggested changes churches can make to support the mental health of their pastors, such as changing the culture of church success and growth as well as prioritizing self-care.
"Let's make sure that we're encouraging and maybe even making it mandatory, as it's appropriate to do so, to pair them up with a mentor in their life," Jensen said, noting that many pastors who struggle with suicidal ideation have close friends but don't have close mentors.
"Encourage them to actually be proactive, to start those relationships and maintain those types of relationships," he said.
Ensuring that pastors' spouses are equipped to support them in ministry, Jensen believes, can also offer them better mental health support.
"Let's not forget about the pastor's home and the pastor's spouse. And let's figure out how to pour into them and to equip them to walk alongside their husband or their wife as pastors," he explained. "A lot of times ... pastors are so lonely and isolated even in their own homes because that same kind of expectation that they feel, like, they have to fulfill within their congregations, sometimes they feel that same pressure at home. But here's the thing: at home, you can't hide."
While he believes various factors are driving moral failures and mental health struggles among pastors, Jensen contends that the approach to modern-day ministry plays a significant role.
"I'm not a sociologist, and I'm not a psychologist, so I'm not going to pretend to be. But I will say just in my experience leading people and pastoring … I think one of the contributing factors is … this brand of consumer Christianity," Jensen said.
If Christians today practice a brand of Early Church Christianity that focuses more on whole-life discipleship than the consumeristic culture, Jensen thinks it could improve conditions in Church culture.
"I really believe that the core of all of this. … Once we return to the old and ancient ways of discipleship, I really think we're going to start to see more and more positive fruit emerge," he said. "Both in our communities, within our churches, and in the lives, in the hearts of our pastors and our pastors' families."
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