Blog | Most Common Pastoral Care Challenges
Most Common Pastoral Care Challenges
Most pastors consider their job a great privilege and blessing. Having the opportunity to lead a congregation and grow their understanding of God’s word is an incredible joy. However, being a pastor isn’t without its challenges, and pastoral care can be an incredibly difficult job at times.
Most Common Pastoral Care Challenges
As a pastor, every day comes with unique blessings and challenges. Pastoral care is one of the most important jobs, but it can also be very demanding. While there are plenty of unique challenges you’ll face on a day-to-day basis through pastoral care, there are a few overarching patterns that most pastors will attest to.
Most of the everyday challenges of pastoral care don’t come from congregational members as much as they come from a lack of capacity to meet everyone’s need.
This is a short summary of some of the most common pastoral care challenges you may face in your ministry:
Time
That’s a no-brainer. Time is the most precious thing as a pastor. You need time for Sunday preparation, staff meetings, congregation members, and your family, and there’s never enough of it to get every aspect of your life to 100% completion. So when it comes to time management, it’s really not as much about efficiency as it is your ability to properly balance it.
Emotional Wear
Pastoral care is a heavy job. You are coming to better understand your congregational members along with their deepest struggles. You’re expected to respond to those situations with grace, gentleness, and empathy, and to invest in them. As much as we might all agree it’s an important role, there is no denying that it is emotionally fatiguing.
Expectations
It’s easy to be too hard on yourself sometimes as a pastor. The truth is, you’re not going to meet everyone’s expectations, and someone will always feel let down. The important thing is to try your best to care for each and every person and give them your full attention whenever you can. But at some point, it’s simply not realistic for every person’s expectations to be met.
Toxic Members
We hate to say it, but if you’re a pastor you know better than anyone that some people can be toxic. Their anger or frustration is haphazardly and harmfully projected at you and other members. Not only are you left trying to figure out how to address the issues they have with you – you’re also putting out fires between them and other members who have been inadvertently hurt by their words and actions.
Communication
This is probably the most obvious, “default” answer to the question. Miscommunication or communication failures are one of the biggest pastoral care challenges. You can’t be omniscient, nor can you approach every conversation from a standpoint of 100% wholistic understanding of the situation. Communication failures happen on both ends in pastoral care.
What to do with All Of This?
“So pastoral care must be a terrible job, huh?”
No! Not one bit. In fact, pastoral care can be one of the most rewarding activities. But it’s a big job, and when the stakes are high, challenges are bound to ensue. So how do you deal with these challenges?
Anyone who has worked in pastoral care will tell you that you need to have thick skin and decipher challenges as logically as you can. Assess whether claims are true or not through honest self-reflection and spend time carefully thinking through your responses so as not to escalate a situation that doesn’t need to be escalated.
And of course, the most important thing you can do when facing challenges in pastoral care is to pray. Ask for strength, ask for wisdom, ask for understanding, and ask for patience. Seek out counsel during difficult times and root yourself in wisdom and scripture. Pastoral care isn’t easy, but it is such a vital job for the health and growth of a church ministry.
About the Author
Chris Fleming is a professional musician from Minneapolis, MN who has played with artists such as Kari Jobe, TAYA, Aodhan King, and Jason Gray. He is actively involved with the CCM scene and has contributed as a drummer, music director, song writer, and producer for various worship artists and churches locally and nationally. Chris is the Motion Designer at Motion Worship, helping to create motion background collections and countdowns for our subscribers.