Pastors Struggle With Mental Health Too

by Josh Monda | Oct 2, 2023 | Christianity, Church, Mental Health, pastor

Pastors Struggle With Mental Health Too

September was national suicide prevention month. There is a reason that I am drawing attention to this; more on that in a moment.

This post has been a while in the making. I have thought about what to say and even how to say it for months. I know the risk that comes with a post like this. While pastoring, I would often hear people say they would never share some of the things that I have been willing to share openly. I guess in my life, I have never been one to hide things or pretend to be someone I am not. I often think when reading some of the Apostle Paul’s letters about how vulnerable and open he was to anyone who would read what he had written. I believe that to share what I want to share, I have to also share about the past. I have no desire to go over in detail every little thing about my past, but I do have a desire to share some things that perhaps will help others or give clarity to others.

I learned how to hide my emotions as a young child, being the youngest out of four boys by a pretty good margin. I learned not to cry, or at least not to allow others to see me cry. Therefore, hiding my emotions became a coping mechanism. I won’t say that my childhood was terrible, but it had its struggles. My father was an alcoholic who would get drunk and be abusive, never towards me but towards others. Eventually, my mother divorced him. We never had money; my mother was a single mom doing the best she could to support us. I had an incident where a family member molested me a single time. I started to steal from my family and others so that I could ditch school and do what I wanted. I learned early to tap into my emotions and make every emotion anger. When my mother finally rremarried,my life straightened oout,but not my emotions. Anger was still the emotion that ruled my life. Add that to the fact that I could not stand if I felt something was an iinjustice,and you had a bad combination.

I remember I was thrown in jail because I got caught breaking into a house, and the judge let me off because my mom was marrying my stepfather. We moved to Missouri, and one of the first things that happened was a bigger kid was picking on a smaller kid, and so I felt the need to fight him. Welcome to Missouri in the sixth grade. Everything was taken to the extreme in my life. Emotions were constantly bottled up and turned into anger. When my stepdad kicked be around the brush pile because I was not working hard enough, it turned into anger, and I decided I would never be called lazy again. This would be repeated throughout my life. I would rebel against common thought or authority, which would lead to something negative, which would lead to me justifying my anger.

I was in high school when I heard a sermon on “gentle Jesus.” The pastor said that if we were struggling with anger, we could give it to gentle Jesus, and he called us to be gentle like Jesus. I desired to be gentle. I thought I had surrendered my anger to Jesus to become more gentle, but I only learned to hide it better. My anger did not come out physically, but it came out in other ways. I could use my mind and tongue to dice you up very quickly. Nevertheless, I felt God calling me into ministry even though I did not know Christ as my savior.

I became a student pastor at 19 years old I had the opportunity to watch God do amazing things in my ministry. I could recall story after story of watching the Lord get a hold of teenagers lives and seeing their lives changed by the gospel. My life was also changed because, as a student pastor, I believe for the first time the gospel made sense to me and I gave my life to Christ. When I started ministry, I was also attending Bible College at Hannibal LaGrange University. As a young student pastor I did not know much and was an arrogant punk, but I can remember clearly one time someone went up to a person I had been witnessing to and proceeded to speak poorly about me. This man came and told me this and said he would never step foot in a church that treated one of their pastors that way. Early on I saw how ugly ministry could be. I never had the desire to go to seminary, so I knew that when I graduated, my desire would be to try to go straight into ministry. The Lord saw fit to bless me with that. My first exposure to full-time ministry was not terrible. I can remember when interviewing sitting down and picking out things for a modular home we were told was going to be built for us, but it never actually but it was not without major issues either.

I can remember sitting down and picking out things for a modular home we were told was going to be built for us. Needless to say we were surprised when we showed up and had to try to find a place. We were at the church for less than a year when the pastor resigned. From there, we had to navigate the challenges of finding a new pastor to lead our church, and this took roughly 3 years. My early years in ministry, I was putting in crazy hours between coaching basketball or volleyball, teaching Bible at the Christian school, and being the student pastor. There were weeks I had put in over 80 hours. This eventually took its toll on my body and landed me in the hospital. In our time in PA we saw the lord bless in many ways we had kids from all backgrounds in our student ministry, and we were reaching kids that I am sure many thought were never possible to reach. However, I let my guard down, and the enemy used the opportunity to sift me. During a long-drawn-out process, I had met with the elders of our church numerous times and was asked to read a statement that really was not entirely forthright nor completely true but I agreed to it in order to “keep the peace”. This was supposed to end in giving me a 5 week sabbatical. However, in the middle of a business meeting where I read my statement and was supposed to be given a sabbatical, an untrue accusation was made against me from the stage that I knew I would not be able to recover from. It became clear that the only way forward was to resign. I had people that I thought were my friends walk into elders meetings and say things about me that were not only untrue but cruel. I had letters read about me that were hit pieces that were untrue and cruel. I was accused of many things from making decisions that were only about drawing attention to myself (because I purchased items with money I made outside of ministry) to the one that stung the most: I didn’t love my own child. I would endure comments that were meant to hurt and not build up.

In order to save face, I was given a choice: either resign and not have any pay or insurance for my pregnant wife, who was due in a few weeks, or let them fire me and keep my insurance and get paid. I trusted in the Lrod, held my ground, and made it clear that I would be resigning. Again, to save face, the announcement was made that they “asked for my resignation”. This was my first taste of spiritual manipulation and abuse. For the first time, I felt the sting of those that I thought loved me, and it felt awful. I did not know what to do with these feelings, so I did what I always did: I bottled them up and said I “gave them to the Lord”, and secretly they became anger.

I had nowhere to go, no job, and did not know what to do. I loved in with my mother and our two children. For 3 years, I heard people doubt my call to the ministry, people telling me to just quit, others shocked. I had not quit, but I was convinced God had something in store.

During this time, I got involved in our church, started helping in the student ministry, and once again saw the Lord bless. I watched students confess sin to one another without prompting and witnessed them love one another in profound ways. One night I delivered a message and watched as kids again confessed sin and served one another for hours. God was doing work. I was not the student pastor; I was the intern student pastor, but had the joy of watching the Lord work. Once again, it would all come to an abrupt end. Our lead pastor left and came to illinis, our student pastor that we had eventually hired left and came to Illinois; and when it was time to hire a new lead pastor, it was clear I would not have the opportunity to be the student pastor. (I do not hold this against anyone; these were not my decisions to make.) I knew the Lord would lead, as he always had.

Sure enough, he did. I received a call from a church in Illinois asking if I would be interested in being their student pastor. After interviewing and meeting the church, I was brought in as their student pastor. I and my family have never been loved on like this church loved on us. They showed me so much grace; they consistently sought ways they could help. We were so blessed. Again, I watched God do some really amazing things in the lives of students and even adults. But again, it would not last. I began to receive calls from a church in central Illinois. I was asked to submit my resume numerous times, and eventually I reluctantly did so.

I knew the Lord was leading, but I did not want to go. I did my homework, which made me not want to go even more. I knew it was going to be hard ministry, and I struggled to find any positive reason to pack up my family and move them. I can still recall saying these words: “if you think I am going to pack up my family and leave a church that loves us greatly to come to a church that will not love us then I do not want to come.” Needless to say, the vote was overwhelming, and I ended up here. However, during that time, I had asked someone in leadership at my former church to keep it quiet until I could make the announcement, and I was very hurt when I found out they had already told the personnel committee. What did I do? Once again, I bottled it up.

From the beginning, I began to pray that God would send me the help I needed to get the job done. Before I even came to the church, I was pulled aside by a church member and told “You better watch those deacons; they run the church”. One of my first battles was when I was shown a pastoral agreement after I had already agreed to come. The agreement was repeatedly revised because I would not sign it. Eventually we got to the point where I stated something to the effect that I would sign it but that I would not be held to it nor should they expect to hold me to every part of it. I was here a week when someone walked into my office proud of a scathng letter they had sent to the Chamber of Commerce that only made our church ridiculous. I was not even the pastor a few months ago when I had to call someone into my office for gossip about their pastor in the hallway. I endured endless jabs that called into question my credibility, my faithfulness, and my ability as a pastor, over and over again, things would be said and played off as jokes. Countless times gossip would be heard directly or get back to me to the point where I had to ask my secretary to just start telling people she was going to share everything people were saying with the pastor. However, even in all of this, the Lord was faithful; he did send me encouragers. Though we were not growing by huge numbers, we did add members year after year and some of them became my strongest encouragers. It finally got to the point where others began to notice that something was wrong.

People would come to me about comments that were being made that were not biblical or encouraging; sometimes they would ask me questions that showed me they were searching the scriptures, like “Why don’t we have elders”, I had comments made from people that they had “learned more from me than any other pastor they have had I was greatly encouraged when I knew the people were searching the Scriptures. Through the years I got to see people come to faith in Christ, and I got to baptize people. I got to see amazing things, and unfortunately, I had to endure the attacks of the enemy. How did I handle this? I bottled it up. When people would ask, “Why don’t you defend yourself?” I always said the Lord is my defender. I would say that if I am faithful to preach His word, he will take care of the rest. He always did and that was easy to say but hard to live. As attacks were ramped up and as I began to catch people either talking about me, or my family, things began to get back to me that were outright lies and as a small minority began to plot for ways to get rid of me I began to reach my breaking point.

I called a meeting to address some of the issues and to call out sin. That meeting did not go well. I then watched a meeting get called without me being present, and I received a call from one of my deacons that he was resigning and leaving the church. This wasn’t because of me. I was told point blank, “Pastor, they are going to fire you and they will not stop until they do.” I was crushed. I sat in another meeting and watched someone say they had done nothing wrong and had nothing to repent of and I walked out of the meeting with another deacon, who then walked back in and resigned. I received emails and letters filled with false accusations and unfounded statements. Telling me that I was in a dark place of my own making. Accusations that I wanted elders so I could be in control when it was clear I wanted elders so I was no longer in control I experienced gas lighting for the first time in my life and I watched as one of our church members sat out front and gossiped about their pastor and how sometimes the best thing for the church is if they get rid of their pastor and that the church would grow if they only got rid of him. Despite my repeated warnings that people would leave, they pushed forward. I could write pages on pages of everything; these things only touch the surface to get me to the point of pastors struggling with mental health.

When I knew there was no way forward and I had to resign, the only thoughts in my head were, “you are a failure. I watched as one of my close friends was called a liar in the middle of a business meeting. I could not help but think, is this what these people have learned after 10 years of your teaching? Over and over again, like a beating drum, “you are a failure; you are failure as a pastor, a failure as a husband, a failure as father. You moved your family here for what? To be abused for 10 years, then quit.” I was overcome with darkness. The harder I tried to escape, it seemed, the worse it got. To add to it my close friend was dead. I felt alone and abandoned. Even now, I ask myself, where are all those people who called you friends? No one calls; no one says anything; I am just invisible. You see Pastors are not supposed to think like this. They are not allowed to think like this and they for sure can’t admit it. Pastors are not allowed to have depression or bad thoughts. I know the risk of writing this I know someone is going to tell me “no one will ever hire you to be a pastor now”, I realize I probably have said some hard things and even some things that no one knew, but if I help one pastor or one person, is helped I don’t care.

Listen carefully. I allowed the opinions of men to dictate my worth. I allowed the opinion of those few people who did not even know their scripture anyway to send me to a dark place. I allowed their comments, their feelings, their words, and their hatred to cause me to not want to take another breath. I started experiencing dissociative behavior, and the hardest day for me as a husband and father was the day I had to go home and ask my wife to hide my gun from me. Why? Because I no longer wanted to live. I had never struggled with depression before. I was good at hiding those emotions, bottling them up and turning them to anger. However, in those moments, my will to die was outweighing my will to live. I began to experience things that I never experienced before. Hours would go by and I had no clue what I had done or accomplished. I had moments where I would be frozen in a thought and be unaware of my surroundings, and if I did not have a counselor that pushed me to be honest, who knows what would have happened?

You see, I know it’s not just pastors that play this game, but pastors bottle things up. No one knows their struggle, their pains, their heartaches. They are afraid that if they share those things, they will lose their job. If they confess their sin, they will no longer be pastoring. So they hide it. They put a smile on their faces, and they carry on. The problem is that they carry on until it’s to late, and there is nothing to carry on. They get to the point where they can no longer go on and they end their life. Sucidal thoughts are real and they are real dangerous. Thoughts of wanting to end it all should not be taken lightly. My counselor asked me “how far is to far, how do you know when you have reached the limit?” Unfortunately, we don’t know until it’s to late. That is why there are stories all the time of pastors taking their lives. Pastors struggle with mental health too. I write this so we would wake up. I write this so that we would stop and think about how we treat our pastors, that we would allow them the freedom to be who they are, and that instead of saying we would be there for them, we would actually be there for them. I write this so that maybe just maybe one pastor would read it or one person would read it and understand that there is a way out of the darkness, that you do not have to remain there, and that your worth is not determined by the parishioners in your church, who can be cruel, but by the Lord, who sent His own son to die for you.

Surrender To His Divine Placement

by Josh Monda | Dec 12, 2022 | Christianity, Church, pastor

A few years ago I was preaching through 1 Corinthians and one of my messages was titled “The Call to remain where planted”. If I am honest the sermon has been on my mind daily over the last few weeks, in fact, I have not been able to get it off my mind. We all have a plan for our lives, but sometimes it may not be God’s plan for us. It can be challenging to let go of what we’ve mapped out and accept His divine placement. Surrendering to His divine placement is an essential part of our spiritual journey, as it allows us to experience life in more meaningful ways and helps us grow closer to God.

In that message I talked about remaining where God has called you. God, in his infinite wisdom, has set you up in your current social circle and even in your current position. Now, this is not arguing that a person who was a prostitute or an adulterer, or a porn addict before conversion should continue in those roles afterward. The concept that sin is being tolerated or treated lightly in these verses is ludicrous, especially in light of Christ’s remarks to the adulterous woman at the well: “go and sin no more.”

I think what is difficult is when we go through a difficult circumstance in our life especially after we have felt God leading us to a certain place to understand that our place in this world is not just some matter of chance but rather it has been assigned to us by the Lord. In fact, Paul uses this word over and over again it is the word “called” and 1 Corinthians 7:17 he uses it like this “Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him. This is my rule in all the churches.” (1 Corinthians 7:17 ESV). The word called is not meaning like a vocation but rather this word calling is the Holy Spirit’s calling on the life of a person to enter into fellowship with Christ. So what Paul is saying here as plainly as I can tell is this “stay in the state you were in when you were converted when you were drawn by God remain in THAT spot. Because that is assigned to you by God. Remain where you are because God in his sovereignty has placed you there socially so stay there. I think on the ministry of Jesus and all of the times that Christ had people stay it is this same principle remember when he healed a demon-possessed man in Mark 5 the man wanted to go with Jesus and Jesus told him to stay back. The idea is that you are called at a particular time in your life in a particular culture and you have been placed there by God to uniquely prepare you for the ministry God has for you.

Now here is the thing I don’t like that. I am sure often you don’t like it either. We don’t like to think that God has planned the things that have come into our lives all for his purpose. We don’t like to think that God has planned things our before the foundations of the world because we want to think that we are somehow in control of everything that goes on. But the truth is that nothing comes into your life that has not first crossed the desk of the ruler of this universe. Now we can say well I don’t like that and that is fine God does not need you to like it but I want you to know I take great comfort in it.

Do you know why? Because it means that God is not taken by surprise with anything that comes into my life. God is not wringing his hands and saying “well I was going to bless Josh but I can’t now because he has ruined it.” It does not work that way. You say well how do you know? Well let me tell you how I know because His word is clear let’s read it Romans 8:28-38

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, (Romans 8:28–38 ESV)

Listen God has planned all things including all things surrounding the circumstances of my salvation and your salvation it does not happen by chance but by God’s plan. God is in control and there is never a time when he is not. That is why I love these words to Victory in Jesus “He sought me and He bought me” I did not seek him he sought me no man seeks him. I was dead in my sin and he breathed new life in me. I was at the bottom of the Ocean unable to take a breath and Jesus dove to the bottom and rescued this dead man. That is the very picture of Lazarus. It is a picture of salvation Lazarus was a dead man there was no mistaking it he was dead, dead and Jesus showed up and called dead Lazarus to life and Lazarus had no choice but to come forth out of the grave. That is us. We are dead, dead and when he calls our name we have no choice but to come forth.

We get confused because we want the Christian life to be a social revolution but it is a spiritual regeneration. Jesus had plenty of opportunity to change where people were socially he spoke with soldiers and poor people. rich people, slaves, taxpayers, and people from all walks of life and he could have said you need to leave this life but he didn’t. Christianity is not about social reform, I am not saying it does not have an effect on society as it most certainly does. However, a relationship with Christ can occur in any society and is not dependent on our social standing. You can be a man, woman, married, single, divorced, widowed, a Jew, a Gentile, a free person, a slave, a democrat, a republican, a libertarian, whatever. You can be in a democracy, an anarchy, or a dictatorship, you can be in China, Japan, Cuba, Iran, or America it does not matter you can be a Christian because it is not societal dependent it is internal. You should be the best Christian that you can be wherever you are no matter your social standing. Christianity is not about revolutionizing society. Now let me be clear as Christians we are to be active in society. We know how we are to treat the poor, the unborn, the widows, the hungry, the naked, and the wounded. As Christians, we have a social responsibility to always seek justice in society, and to speak the truth of God against injustice, and unrighteousness. However, society will never be transformed by a social gospel or social institution but only by the proclamation of the gospel that will lead to changed lives.

What Paul is getting at in 1 Corinthians 7 is that who we are is nothing, and God’s commands are everything, so don’t change anything. Stay where you are planted and be obedient to him until he moves you. Paul is showing that what matters the most is obedience to God’s commands and they are so much more important than the cultural distinctives. In other words, do not make a big stinking deal about the culture, but instead, make a big deal about obedience. Do not run around wringing your hands about the cultural distinctives thinking you must conform to them because they are of little importance to God but what is important is your obedience. What matters the most is the reality behind the ritual. Here is the danger we find ourselves in sometimes we are more committed to the outward appearance than we are to the inward reality. Then we end up having this false standard of spirituality, saying well really spiritual people will do such and such and we base it on what is external as opposed to really spiritual people will follow Christ and simply be obedient to him, therefore, experiencing the joy of Christ and therefore glorifying the father. Because regardless of what we think, it is always about him.

Our social standing or where we are even located is so inconsequential to God. When we follow Christ all of the externals are stripped away it does not matter your social standing it does not matter whether you are a doctor, a lawyer, or a sanitation worker none of it matters. It does not matter whether you are white, black, brown, red, purple etc, none of that matters, there are no class distinctions in Christ. What matter is that we all who are truly followers of Christ are slaves to Christ. You are now a part of the household of Christ. And this is why we can look at our social standing and say never mind it. We are under the Lordship of Christ he is our master we are his slaves and his Lordship over us is all that matters and it relativizes all other social statuses. How is it possible that everything comes into submission to Christ? How is it possible that we are free, but yet we are slaves of Christ?

Because we were bought with the blood of Christ therefore we shall not be slaves to men. The focus is not on us being bought but on the price that we are bought with. to bring us into Christ’s possession. We are saved by the blood of Jesus Christ that was the price that was paid for us. We are redeemed He paid for you with His life. His life was given for your life. Now you are God’s special possession, redeemed from slavery and bondage of sin. Now as his special possession what matters most is staying close to him and bringing him glory so we don’t go around saying poor me, or I am not high society or I am too low on the totem no! Stay close to God and be in His presence giving him glory. Because the temptation is to seek to please men.

How often do we become men-pleasers instead of God Pleasers? How often do we not say something, not do something, or how often do we say or do something only because we know it will please men and not because it will please God. How often do we stop and think in our lives if what we are about to say or do will glorify God or will it glorify someone else? Why would we seek the esteem of men or the praise of men by conforming to what they value the approval of God is your goal and not the esteem of men then you will seek to glorify him no matter the circumstance and no matter where he has placed you. You will not be consumed by your circumstances because you will understand there is a difference between joy and happiness and that happiness is fleeting and circumstantial but Joy is not and can come only when we are satisfied in him and he then is Glorified in us. Because it is in those moments that we realize it is not about us. That we were bought and our obedience to him is what matters.

Sometimes I find myself questioning God. I say things like this “God why did you bring me here to waste eight years of my life? Did I really make any difference? I have nothing to show for coming here. I am lonely. Am I done? Is there ministry for me anymore?” these are just a few things that cross my mind on a consistent basis. All of those things have the same thing in common. They focus on my circumstance and not God. I can live for God no matter where I am at, I can serve him as long as he gives me the opportunity. I do not need my circumstances to change I need to draw close to him. Someone else’s circumstances will always be better or even worse. There will always be a pastor that has not had to walk through what I had to walk through and there will be those who have walked through far worse. I can either glorify God or not no matter my circumstance and so can you. You see our issue is not our circumstances our issue is with God.

However, what is also so great about surrendering to his divine placement is that it is not always absolute. By that I mean this god does sometimes change our circumstances. Tax collectors became preachers, fishermen became missionaries, and slaves have been set free. The Corinthians were questioning what they needed to leave behind when coming to Christ and Paul is responding with you do not need to abandon your job or where you are socially he is showing that God is concerned with being satisfied in him. We need to be satisfied in Christ not in social standing.

One of the hardest things for us to do at times is to trust in God’s sovereignty. We often wonder if we are where we are supposed to be but as long as you are there then it is where you are supposed to be. I am not talking of sin but I am speaking of Job, social standing, living place, etc. You are not where you are by accident the Lord directs your steps, his purposes will be established. His purpose will not be thwarted. You are where you are by God’s divine appointment and our job is to be satisfied in Him until he moves us. May we surrender to his divine placement.

In His Providence the Lord Gives and he takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord

by Josh Monda | Sep 22, 2022 | Christianity, Mental Health, pastor, Uncategorized

My struggles have been deep as of late. I am thankful they have not turned too dark but have been genuine and often sad. I have learned over this last year that one can hold two emotions simultaneously, so you can be sad yet have joy, and it is ok.

In his providence, God led us to leave Marion, Illinois, and move to Washington, Illinois. In his providence, he allowed me to pastor a church only to later take it away. In his providence, he brought some incredible men into my life only to take them away. I do not have to understand; I only know he gives and he takes away. The question is will I bless his name?

I don’t know why I have struggled so hard in these last few weeks focussing on all I have lost. Friends who are gone, a ministry left in shambles, feelings of being abandoned, wondering if I really have any friends (locally anyway), longing for something more in my relationships with others than what I have, the hurt is real. Still, the Lord gives, and he takes away.

I remember the day I met George. He walked in and sat in the back of the church on the right-hand side. He could not really hide; we were a small church, and he was a large man. My mind drifts back to that day, often to our conversation, to me asking if he had a family. I still remember him saying, “I listened to some of your sermons online, and I had to come to verify if this place was real.” I told him that I hoped he found what he was looking for, and he did. I do not know that I have ever grown so close to someone so fast. I would talk with him multiple times throughout the week, have his family into my home and share things I had not shared with others. I could sit down and have a deep theological conversation or sit down and talk about nothing at all; it did not matter. George was that kind of friend. I remember the joy in my heart and being so thankful that God would bring someone to me that was such an encouragement. But the Lord gives, and he takes away.

I will never forget that day. I can remember every detail of the day; sometimes, I can still smell that day and still feel the coldness of that morning. I remember the run I had that morning. I remember having some coffee with the guys; I remember being outside and the tree falling into the neighbor’s yard. The one memory I have never been able to shake is when George said, “hey Sean, where is your bathroom?” I think back to that moment over and over again. Often with tears in my eyes, and even though I know I would not have stopped what was about to happen, I wonder what if I would have at least said something. What if I had asked if he was ok? What if I had not waited so long to check on him? Did he know what was happening when he walked into that bathroom and collapsed? Was it fast? Did he know I love him? What were the thoughts in his mind? You see, I will never forget that day. It is etched in my mind. Me telling him I was coming in, and no response. Us breaking the door down and administering CPR. I can still hear the count in my head; I still remember the breaths that I gave; it was like it happened yesterday. Yet I come to this conclusion the Lord gives, and he takes away. I often ask God why he would take away a friend like George, and I have no answer. Will I bless the name of the Lord?

Bill Sexton walked into our church on a Wednesday in a suit. I was in shorts and a t-shirt. I introduced myself as the pastor. I remember his first words to me, “Do you preach on the sovereignty of God in this church” I remember thinking that is an odd question. My response? “Is it in the Bible,” to which he responded, “yes,” to which I replied, “then I preach on it?” He said he and his wife would be back on Sunday, but I did not believe it. Sure enough, there they were that Sunday. Then the Sunday after that, then the Sunday after that, and they just kept on coming.
To Bill, age did not mean anything. It did not matter that he was far older than I; he still would ask me how to handle something, and he still asked me what I thought. He was an intelligent man, constantly studying and reading. Bill never missed a chance to encourage me. Time and time again, he would encourage me sometimes on Sunday; after the message sometimes, he would call me midweek just to encourage me. Bill would tell me on the phone he loved me, and I had no problem saying it back. Often he would say it was his job to be an encouragement to me. I can remember Bill saying that he wanted to be like Aaron or Hurr, who held up the hands of Moses. He felt it was his job to hold up my hands even if I could not hold them up any longer. Every pastor needs a man like Bill. A man who will walk through the fire for you, a man who will stand and fight the battles everyone else is afraid of fighting. However, the Lord gives, and he takes away.

Bill got sick and ended up in the hospital; he went from the hospital to a nursing home, where I was finally able t see him. He was not good, but he still encouraged me. he went from the nursing home back to the hospital. I tried every trick i Could think of to see him and could not get in due to covid restrictions. When Bill got covid, it was all downhill from there. They finally let me in to see him with his son, and they finally let his wife in to see him as well. I remember when I first walked in, he said to me, “I’m sorry.”

I could not think of anything this man would need to apologize for, but Bill always felt he could have done more. If you know him you, this is true. I will never forget the day they said if he were to go on a ventilator, he had about a 5 percent chance of coming off. I explained this to him and asked what he wanted to do. He decided to go on his own terms and in the strength of the Lord. I remember whispering in his ear that it was ok to go home. As the end drew close, I went to his bedside and held his hand. I held his hand a lot in those last days, and I was standing there holding his hand; he drew his last breath and stepped into glory. This man that told me he wanted to hold my arms up when I could not lay there as I held his hand. God gave me the privilege to know him, and the privilege to be there with him when he drew his final breath. His battle on earth was done. The Lord gives, and he takes away will I bless the name of the Lord?

I recent weeks, these thoughts have often entered my mind. I have moments of extreme loneliness where I can be surrounded by people and still feel alone. I am a highly social person, and I have often asked the Lord why he would give these men only to take them away. I have cried many times, praying for someone to come into my life like either of these men. Sometimes just wishing I had someone to hang out with or a guy to invite over with his family for a cookout sometime, just anything. Then I discovered I am unwilling to take a risk, that I am so afraid of losing that I will even make excuses for other people as to why I won’t ask them over or to do something.

You see, being a pastor, sometimes I think people feel like they kind of have to invite you over or ask you to do stuff with them, but what happens when you are no longer a pastor? What happens when you are just a regular guy, and no one really seems to notice you? No one seems to care, and no one is really vying to spend time with you. The invitations stop, you begin to wonder if you have the plague or something you do not even here from your own denomination; no one checks up on you even when they know what you are going through. These are things I have rarely, if ever, been faced with. Perhaps I feel alone because I am alone; perhaps I feel like I don’t belong because, at this moment, I don’t belong. Maybe that day will come when I do. Perhaps the Lord will one day grant me, someone, to step into my life once again. For now, In His providence, the Lord gives and takes away. May I fight to say blessed be the name of the Lord?

Where Is The Accountability For The Church?

by Josh Monda | May 22, 2022 | Christianity, Church, pastor, random thoughts, Uncategorized

In recent years there has been plenty of talk about holding the leadership of churches accountable, and rightfully so. The leader who abuses their power and who seeks to fleece the flock should always be held accountable for their sin. Even if that accountability does not take place on earth, we can take comfort in the fact that God will hold all leaders to a special kind of accountability; this is made clear in the book of James, where we read, “Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly” (James 3:1). Honestly, I do not know of any pastors who desire to be biblical who would make an argument for no accountability in leadership; in fact, most of them have made the opposite argument. In fact, this is one of the great benefits of a plurality of elders having a group of men qualified to be elders holding one another accountable. That is really not what I want to deal with here. I do not want to deal with what happens when the pastor is abusive, but what happens when the pastor is the one being abused? I read this tweet that was put out last year “For every horror story you tell me about a pastor who abused his leadership, I can tell you ten about leaders who abused their pastor.” There is an abundance of truth in that tweet.

Why is there so little written about this subject? It almost seems like this is the deep dark sin of the church that no one wants to talk about. I look around at many friends, acquaintances, and people I know who are no longer pastors; most of them will never return to the ministry, and granted, I am only hearing one side of the story, but from all intensive purposes, the problem was not their leadership it was not that they were abusive to their church, but often they were the ones being abused. They were not being abused by the church as a whole but being abused by a select group of power players in the church that had it out for them for one reason or another. In recent months I have read one story after another of pastors being abused; some of these stories are horrific; when I have read them, I could not help but think this is not how Christians are to act. Pastors coming back from sabbaticals to find out they are fired. Small groups of enraged members propagate disinformation and falsehoods to congregations to remove a pastor from any position of power or moral authority (in my case, it is still happening). Stories of pastors pouring their lives into person after person, only for those people to take the pastor’s services for free and then ghost the pastor for the tiniest reasons. What happens if for every story we have of a pastor abusing authority, there are ten pastors who are being abused. I see friends who are beaten, battered, and bruised by the sheep they were leading,, and it breaks my heart.

What happens to these churches? If the leader is abusive, he will often lose his job, resign in shame, and will never enter the ministry again, or they will just go somewhere else and do it all over again; when the church is abusive, guess what the same thing happens. The pastor often resigns in shame and leaves the ministry, never to return again. Where is the accountability? Apparently, there is not any. What is the recourse? Apparently, there is none. Perhaps my view is a bit jaded because I am one of those pastors, but this is why I set out to read as much as I could and talk to some people that had left their church. The story is almost always very close to being identical.

Someone in the church gets upset for one reason or another; this person wields power for whatever reason in the church often because they are the main giver, or they have been there the longest, or they are the gossiper, or whoever it might be. Sometimes it is all of these people coming against the pastor. I wonder if we will ever launch a study on this? Probably not because that would mean a black eye. Anyway, the pastor resigns, the troublemaker in the church gets their way, the pastor loses what seems like his whole way of life, and the church just acts like nothing happened. Sometimes in my denomination, some people will sweep in and do all they can to rescue this church. This is probably because this is far easier than reprimanding the church; after all, the church gives money, and the pastor doesn’t. I am thankful that I initially received some help, but I know that is not the norm. Sure the church may be known as “the church who runs pastors through the meat grinder,” as one deacon said to me, but does that matter? Does it matter when sin is not addressed? Does it matter when they continue to go one like they always have? Does it matter when they get to blame their sin on others or pretend like sin was not the issue?

In the meantime, the pastor has lost his whole way of life. He does not get to be with those other pastors that he at least thought were his friends. His community is gone, and he is no longer using the gifts that God has given him to serve the kingdom, primarily the gift of preaching/teaching. The pastor feels isolated, lonely, and sometimes without hope. Days turn to weeks, weeks turn to months, months turn to years, and this calling that so gripped his soul is somehow gone. Maybe he wants to continue on, but he is afraid things will just turn out the same, and so it is easier to just give up. Here is my question? For these churches that are part of a denomination, why are they allowed to just keep doing the same thing over and over again? Why is there no accountability for the church? Why doesn’t anyone step in to the gap and address the issue? Why are they allowed to just blame it on the pastor and move on? Why do we indulge this kind of behavior? Do we really believe that they will not answer for this sin in the end? Do we really believe that the right way to handle it is to pretend like there is no problem and move on? Do we really believe that by aiding in their sinfulness, we won’t answer for it? Seemingly we do.

I can remember the day I told my children Iwas resigning one of my children innocently said “but dad who is going to tell them about Jesus” and on that day another one of my children checked out from church. Over the course of the next several days I could hear it in the questions they were asking. They could not understand why Christians would act this way “so these people now for whatever reason hate dad?” In some respects I appreciated the comment as it told me they saw me different than those making accusations. In another way though I knew they began to check out. I pray for them daily that they will be drawn back in.

I recently went on a pastors retreat and heard a message on pastoral perseverance where the message was speaking about the slow death that pastors are called to die and these things left me weeping and in tears as I thought of my own slow death that would eventually come.

From 2 Corinthains 4

1. Pastors die at a different rate based on circumstances

The harder the ministry context the quicker the death comes. Do not compare yourself to each other. Do not compare your death to someone else’s death. The body keeps the score.

2. Pastors have different capacities to die

We are all made differently. We all have different thresholds that we can endure. You can’t compare your capacity with another.

3. Pastors are given what we need to not lose heart as we die.

This will push us to the brink but it will not destroy us. V.1 He will not spare us from the death because it is part of his plan that we die but he will be with us to allow us to die well.

4. Pastors thrive in this death by embracing weakness

V . 7 Christ is most strong in us in our weakness it is our weakness that fuels the strength of Christ. Do not fight against the death but embrace it.

Brother pastor, if you have stumbled across this blog and you have rad this far you may be hurting I want you to remember the cross always precedes the crown. It is hard to suffer abuse of power, but the chief pastor willingly suffered the abuse of power on a hill called Calvary, and we are his undershepherds, and honestly, we should expect no less. There is a day coming when the injsutices against you will be made right. If you are not a pastor and you have read this and you know your pastor or of a pastor being abused I would beg of you do all you can to stop it. I was able to find a few articles on this subject they are linked below if you would like to read more.

Is Your Church Committing Pastor Abuse? 5 Warning Signs

https://www.christiancentury.org/review/books/how-dying-churches-abuse-pastors

If you are a pastor in an abusive church, please know that you are not alone

When It All Fades To Black

by Josh Monda | Mar 27, 2022 | Church, pastor, Uncategorized

When It All Fades To Black

I can remember the words clearly like they were yesterday “when are you going to tell your wife” my counselor asked. What had I done? Did I have some sort of secret sin that no one knew about? Perhaps I had committed adultery like so many other pastors? Did I have some sort of moral failure? I had none of those. So what was the problem? To get to that, I have to back up a little bit.

My last few years of ministry had been what seemed like hell if that was possible. I had lost one of my closes friends in the church. I had spent hours pouring into this man, and he had done the same to me; we would have deep theological discussions, his family would hang out with my family, and we just had become close friends. My world would be turned upside down on November 3, 2018. On that morning, I not only lost one of my closes friends, I had done CPR on him and then had to go tell his wife and family. I never truly grieved that loss and never really dealt with it. I did like I always do. I pushed it down and hoped it would get better.

I am not going to go into all of the detail of that day, maybe another time, but it was a wound that was not dealt with. However, problems had started long before this time. I am not going to get bogged down into all of the details of what went on in my church; some people lived it with me, and I don’t know that anyone really knows everything that transpired because, frankly, I have kept them from it. Oh, sure, out of spite, I could release recordings, documents, and emails that were sent to me and things that were said to me, but what does that accomplish? Very little. Even though I have continued to be slandered afterward, I will not do the same. However, I have to give a little detail to get to the purpose.

So over the last few years, there were what seemed to be attacks on my character and a lot of gossip and untruthful things being said. Some of this, of course, began to get back to me and to be honest, I should have addressed it immediately, but I chose not to. I can still remember my conversations with people that were calling me to do something. I kept saying, “the Lord will defend me.” Finally, it had reached its breaking point, and I addressed issues the only way I knew how head-on in a meeting. Two of my friends had shown up early for that meeting; they had faithfully spent time praying over me, and I knew going in it might very well be the last time we would be in a meeting together. That was the case for one of them. Needless to say, the meeting did not go as I had prayed it would. A short time later, one of my friends would resign and leave the church. I had talked with him before I knew it was coming and understood his desire to care for his family. Please understand I am trying to be as general as possible here.

Eventually, another meeting was called, and it was apparent I would be put on the defensive in that meeting. I was asked to answer two full pages of accusations, some of them fairly ridiculous. I have read this document multiple times. I still have it. I wanted to make sure I did not misread it, but there is no misreading it. I am directly implicated for “most” of the problems. This document has remained private even though others have asked to see it. At the end of this meeting, another friend of mine resigned and left the church. Even though I knew I still had support and knew I had people who still loved me greatly, I immediately felt isolated and alone, whether it was true or not. In that final meeting, these words were said, “is there something that you need to tell us” I immediately knew this was a reference to my mental health and that I had started seeing a counselor. I readily admitted I was in a dark place, and now I felt that dark place would be used against me. This is the very thing that so many pastors fear and the very reason why they never share anything about what they are going through or the struggles they have. This meeting would lead to my resignation.

I resigned as pastor, and everything I knew and held dear seemed to be gone. Eight years of ministry went up in flames. I was hurting and reeling; the darkness only seemed to get darker as it closed in on me. I had nowhere to escape; my depression only got deeper, my anxiety became worse, and I struggled immensely. What was I going to do, I will eventually have no way to support my family, and all I know is ministry I started at 19. I sat there in my counselor’s office, and he said, “so when are you going to tell your wife” my response “I will tell her when it gets bad enough,” “so when is that? How do you know when bad is enough has been reached?” “I don’t know,” so “when are going to tell your wife” “I guess I will tell her today.” I was a man that appeared strong and what I am sure as came across as prideful, often overconfident, but I had been reduced to a pile of rubble. I began to justify in my own mind that it was ok to check out. After all, I had a life insurance policy my family would be taken care of. I am a believer, and glory awaits me. I can go to heaven and finally rest. I would not have to worry about dealing with this stuff anymore. That day I left my counselor’s office, and I came home and told my wife and asked her to hide my gun. Darkness had gained a temporary victory. It all had faded to black. The dark clouds that were once over my head had descended into my life; they gripped me so tight I feel I could not breathe.

So many pastors struggle with mental health, and they will never admit it. They will never tell anyone of their anxiety, of their struggles to trust in God, of their hurt. The pastor does not just have his own pain to deal with, but often the pain of those in his congregation, so multiply the pain times 50, the problems times 50, the struggles times 50. As they are busy dealing with everyone else, they fail to deal with themselves, and for many more than we probably realize, it becomes to late. They give in to addictions, to the lust of the world, and yes, some just give in altogether. They feel they have no one who understands, nowhere to turn, and it will only be used against them if they do open up. Even as I write this, I am sure I people will wonder why I would write such a thing. Don’t I know that no church will hire me because I just admitted that I am a weak and flawed person? My comeback is always the same. Then that is a church I would not want to go to anyway. I am weak, and until I embrace my weakness, I will never thrive in ministry. Christ is made strong in my weakness; it is in my weakness where the strength of Christ is fueled. I will not fight against it, but I will embrace it. I know that Christ will lead me to where he wants me I will arrive there right on time, and if that is where I am for now, then I embrace it and trust he will care for me.

Pastors should not feel isolated. They should not be afraid to admit their weakness, struggles, hurts, and heartaches. You see, it only takes one brief moment of weakness for a pastor to end their life. We have seen it in high-profile pastors I wonder how many we never hear about? It does not have to be this way. It is ok to love your pastor; it is ok to meet with him and try to understand and guess what it is ok not to agree and be ok with that understanding that he is the one God has called to lead. You can even still support him.

For whatever reason, at some point and time, we have got it stuck in our mind that individuals are called to defend the church against the pastor because the pastor, after all, is just going to ruin everything. This was the job that Paul gave to Timothy, an elder, not to some random churchgoer because they had been in the church for 50 years. Paul urged Timothy to protect the church against false teaching and to guard the faith he had entrusted to him.

Instead, pastors have been faced with a church bully, and this had led many pastors down some very dark paths as they witness the underside of those who stand against them. I am thankful for a counselor who has pushed me, has not allowed me to get away with just feeling sorry for myself, and has asked me tough questions. Though I am doing far better than I was, I know I am not entirely where I want to be. I know the Lord has a plan and a place for me to use my gifts. What breaks my heart is the number of pastors who are in a similar situation, and they are trying to just push through it all. I am afraid the darkness may overtake them. I have had many pastors thank me, and many reach out to me. But what about all of those who will never reach out to anyone?

If you are a pastor or anyone for that matter reading this and your struggling, you are not alone; others have our struggles, and though I doubt anyone will ever reach out, I just want you to know that if you need it reach out to me. I am not a counselor or therapist but I can listen.