A few weeks ago on the Redeemer Network Podcast, I sat down with two pastors from our network, Jeremy Buck and Kyle Ogle, to talk about the weight of being a pastor.
Here’s what I want to say right up front: pastoral ministry is not necessarily harder than any other job. Being a single mom, running a small business, working the night shift, raising a special-needs kid — these are all very hard callings. But pastoral work is uniquely hard because it demands a person’s whole self—physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, relationally—all at once, every day. Barna’s research bears this out: more than half of pastors who’ve considered quitting ministry cite “the immense demand” as a top reason more than any other factor.
If you’ve never carried it, it’s worth understanding. And if you have, I want you to know you’re not alone.
The 24/7 Burden
According to Lifeway Research, 67% of pastors say they feel they must be on call 24 hours a day. A hospital visit doesn’t check your calendar. A marriage falling apart doesn’t wait for office hours. A family in crisis calls at 11 pm, and you go. Sundays are full workdays, which makes weekends blurry for your family. There is no real “off” in pastoral ministry, only quieter seasons and louder ones. Wise pastors will do their best to embrace their limits, silence their phones at times, and build a team of leaders to share the burden with — but many pastors lack the resources to do this.
Wearing Every Hat
A pastor is asked to function as a CEO, a marriage counselor, a public speaker, an event planner, a janitor, and a spiritual guide, sometimes all in the same afternoon. Recently I had a Wednesday where I dropped my kids off at school and headed into the church office. I spent my first hour working on Sunday’s sermon before shifting gears to lead a two-hour staff meeting. After the staff meeting, I had a lunch meeting with our missions committee, followed by an afternoon visit with a homebound church member. Before I went home for the day, I swung back by the church to meet with a pastoral intern to help him workshop an upcoming class he would be teaching. When I got home, I returned to sermon preparation until it was time to take my son to his baseball practice. All in one day, I was a preacher, a manager leading a team, a mission strategist, a chaplain, a leadership coach, and a dad. This was a very normal Wednesday. Please don’t misunderstand, I am not complaining about this; I love the work – but the multidisciplinary nature of pastoral ministry is unique. Most professions ask you to be excellent at one or two things. Pastoral ministry asks you to be competent at a dozen, and faithful in all of them, with far less margin than any of them deserve.
Under a Microscope
Because of the nature of the role, pastors are frequently targets of subjective critique. Churches are diverse, and people have a variety of opinions and passion projects. During the same week, I attended one meeting where a person complained that we fail to sufficiently feature women on our platform, while in another meeting, I received praise for the visibility and empowerment of our female leaders within the church. Pastors can regularly get critiques of their sermons, service length, a decision, or ministry programs. This is not a complaint; it’s just the reality of the terrain. But it’s terrain that can wear a person down over time. So, encourage your pastor! I promise your pastor isn’t struggling from over-encouragement; it’s almost certainly the opposite.
Alone in a Crowd
This might be the most surprising one. Despite being surrounded by people every single week, pastors report profound loneliness. Few people think to ask a pastor how he’s doing. Everyone assumes someone else is checking on him. The result is a strange, quiet isolation in the middle of a crowded room. One of my pastor friends once told me, “Hundreds of people know who I am, people recognize me all the time, but very few people truly know me.” A sign of a healthy church is a plurality of elders who truly know and care for one another. This is a tremendous blessing, but not every pastor has this.
The Numbers Are Real: 1 in 4 Want to Quit
In March 2022, Barna found that 42% of pastors had seriously considered quitting ministry within the past year. According to Barna’s most recent data, that number has dropped to 24%. Still nearly one in four, still far too high, but moving in the right direction. I believe that shift isn’t an accident. It’s happening because more churches, denominations, and networks are finally taking pastoral care seriously instead of treating burnout as an occupational hazard pastors should just learn to live with.
Why We Built Pastor Support Into the Redeemer Network
As a network, our mission is to spread the gospel through multiplying healthy churches. We organize our work around three priorities: training, funding, and support. Training and funding get most of the attention, but support might be the one I’m most grateful for. It looks like regular calls checking in on our pastors and their wives, an annual retreat built for rest and not more programming, a network conference that helps whole teams (not just the lead pastor) get equipped, and real counsel during the seasons that could otherwise sink a church or a marriage.
None of this is complicated. It’s just people showing up for pastors the way pastors show up for everyone else. I believe that healthy pastors lead healthy churches — therefore, we want to do everything we can to help pastors thrive.
If You’re a Pastor Reading This
Don’t wait until you’re in crisis to reach out. If you’re in our churches, call someone on our support team today, not after things fall apart. If you’re a pastor somewhere else, find your version of that – a fellow pastor, a denominational leader, a counselor, someone who can carry a little of this with you. You were never meant to do this alone, and needing help isn’t a sign you’re failing; it’s a sign you’re human.
If You’re Not a Pastor Reading This
Ask your pastor how he’s doing, not how the church is doing, not how the sermon series is going, but how he is doing. Then actually listen. Send your pastor an email, asking how you can pray for him and his family. Do everything you can to make sure your pastor and his family are healthy, supported, and able to sustain in ministry.
You can listen to the full episode here. Stress and quitting statistics come from Barna Group’s research on pastors considering quitting and their most recent trend data; the on-call statistic comes from Lifeway Research.
