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The Pastor's Heart with Dominic Steele
Christian leaders join Dominic Steele for a deep end conversation about our hearts and different aspects of Christian ministry each Tuesday afternoon.
We share personally, pastorally and professionally about how we can best fulfill Jesus' mission to save the lost and serve the saints.
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The Pastor's Heart with Dominic Steele
A way back from disillusionment and disappointment in ministry - with Karl Deenick
Disillusionment is one of the great threats to the Christian life and to Christian ministry
A wise man said the worst thing in ministry was not a pastor who quits, but a pastor who doesn’t quit, but who keeps going when they’ve given up.
Sydney Missionary and Bible College Karl Deenick shares his own experience of hitting a major wall after seven years of pastoral work.
We unpack how ministry challenges can lead to a sense of disillusionment, especially among millennials, plus a way back.
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it's the pastor's heart and dominic steel here and those feelings, those problems with our hearts. Disillusionment is one of the greatest threats to the christian life and to christian ministry. Someone said a while ago that the worst thing in ministry is not the pastor who quits, but the pastor who doesn't quit but who keeps going when they've given up. Carl Dienick is a lecturer at Sydney Missionary and Bible College. He's here talking on disillusionment. But, Carl, it's not just abstract for you Help us into your pastor's heart on this topic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks, dominic. Yeah, I think, as you've said, disillusionment is a real issue in ministry and it's not something I think I'd thought about when I went into ministry. I guess I knew that disillusionment was a possibility theoretically, though I don't think I'd even thought in those concrete terms. A problem for other people, maybe?
Speaker 2:Yeah that's right, or just a general life issue or something like that. But yeah, I'd been in ministry for about seven years. Things had been going really well, I think. I'd been working very hard, I was pastoring a church, I'd managed to do a PhD part-time and, uh, and about seven years in things, just I hit a wall, yeah, and I sort of thought what am I doing? What's the point of this?
Speaker 1:I think take us to that moment, because I mean you were on holidays or something and it kind of all crashed in yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So, um, I'd taken a break because I felt burnt out. I sort of got to a point I was thinking what's going on?
Speaker 1:Were you solo pastoring at the time or leading a team? What was the situation?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I had for many years been on my own. So when I was doing, when I was working on my PhD as well, I was pastoring on my own and I was doing that. But about six years in, five or six years in, I sort of had an assistant come and join me, which was fabulous. But I think just all the sort of the accretion of all the challenges over those years just sort of came home to roost. I was feeling very tired. I guess the weight of ministry of just, I guess feeling as though it all depended on me, which was of course a wrong view I wouldn't have even, I don't think I would have even thought in my head that that's what I thought. But I think functionally that was my belief. If that makes a distinction, can I make a distinction between how I theorise ministry and actually what I was living out? I think functionally, I was living out. I think functionally I thought, and if I stop paddling it stops. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2:Just the ongoing challenges. I think of things like finding people to do X, y or Z, you know, to be on the rosters to serve in these ministries. The challenges of issues that arise in the church, pastoral issues that need to be dealt with. People not growing. You know you have. I think you go into ministry because you want to see people's lives changed, because you want to see the gospel go out in great power, and then over time you're not seeing that, maybe in the way that you thought you would. You have plans and the plans maybe don't achieve the outcomes that you had hoped for and you sort of live with this. I often think of it a bit like the death of a thousand cuts. It's often not one great catastrophe, although it might be that too but you sort of just day after day of not quite meeting the expectations.
Speaker 1:I think maybe that you've that you've imagined in your head for ministry a few years ago you gave a talk on these kind of issues yeah, an FIEC conference. I'm kind of guessing that after you've been kind of vulnerable in a public space like that, people might have come and shared their story with you more than may have happened in other circumstances. Has that happened?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Are you the disillusionment guy?
Speaker 2:I do feel a little bit sometimes like I'm the disillusionment guy and the challenge is a ministry guy. Certainly, that's happened. I've talked about these kinds of things in a number of different contexts and so I think, yes, I have uh spoken with a number of people about that, not like I wouldn't say floods or anything uh like that, but but it does come up, um in college.
Speaker 1:You talked about your own experience. Talk to me about some of the others who've come and shared their story with you yeah, uh, look, I, I think it's there.
Speaker 2:I haven't spoken to anyone, I don't think, who's had a major catastrophe, who's been in ministry for a long time and sort of had a major catastrophe and I've sort of helped to them to work through it. But I certainly have had lots of people, um, particularly in my college setting, where people have maybe come from like a ministry, apprenticeship or something like that, and where they've just been worn down, I think, by challenges. I think one of the things that people often see particularly those who are, say, coming into college, the kinds of experiences that I sometimes hear is people saying things like you know, I've given up so much. Things like you know I've given up so much. I look at, say, friends and family and you know they've got a house, or they're on their way to having a house. And here am I, I've only just finished in college, I'm only just starting ministry, and they're feeling a sense of disillusionment even just about that, just about where they are in life.
Speaker 1:I think, yeah, but I Do you feel it's more complex for the millennial, or how are the issues generationally different?
Speaker 2:Yeah, look, I suspect I don't know, I haven't done any kind of research on this but kind of my feeling, and maybe my fear, is that we're much more expectation driven, I think, even say I would say, maybe from my generation down, but maybe also above. So I'm in my mid forties. I think we're kind of we have very high expectations for life and success and so on, because that's the story of the world that we live in. You know, we've lived through a pretty a time, you know, without significant world wars, for example, life has gone pretty well, the economy's been going pretty well, and so we kind of expect that life goes well and we have a kind of a narrative for our life.
Speaker 2:And I think the mismatch between reality and our expectations then is much, much higher, often for those in that kind of sort of my age group and below, I think, because we haven't, I guess, been discipled through the challenges of life that perhaps other generations have faced to just realise that expectations and reality don't always match. I don't think we're good I see this in myself I don't think we're good at living with disappointment, yeah, and things not working out. So I have a vision of what my life will look like, even every day, that I'll finish work at five o'clock, that I'll come home, that I'll have a relaxing evening, that I'll read a book and that it will be wonderfully refreshing. But that doesn't happen because there's a catastrophe, you know, or there's an issue that arises, or whatever it might be, and I just am worn down by that.
Speaker 1:But that vision of life of expectation that you've got is so different to my grandfather where he went to work in a coal mine in the north of England. You know, yeah, he didn't come home and people didn't come home in Lancashire. You know, yes, Thinking like that, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think we're a bit shaped by very much so by the culture that we have. So I think you know I'm sure I've heard this from somebody else but we've moved kind of, I think, particularly in Christian circles, from self-denial to self-fulfillment. Now that doesn't say everything about our culture, but I think there is a kind of a sense in which my expectation of life is that I'll be fulfilled, that I'll be able to achieve this perfect balance between work and life, and that I'll achieve this and do that. But life is just not like that. I may have a job that doesn't satisfy me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and in fact that's why they pay you. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's right yeah for sure.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I think that's a really significant issue, and I think that leads to disillusionment. If I have a vision of my life that's continually not being met, then I'll be disillusioned. That's true of life. I think that's true, then, particularly also of Christian ministry.
Speaker 1:Yeah, now I was jumping in your book Gather Together here and you start with a glorious picture of the church, but then it's only page 14. You get into the struggle of the church and and you say, actually we start in acts chapter two, but it's not long after that we're in acts chapter five, where there are church leaders lying where, um, the significant disagreement about food distribution, yeah, and just it's a bun fight. And I think, oh yeah, yeah, that does sound like our church.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right, yeah, so I went through four and a half years of Bible college. You know which I loved. It was very helpful. The day after I did my last assessment, I met with Peter Adam, who was a pastor in Melbourne and the principal of a Bible college there, and I had such a great conversation with him I thought I'm going to listen to some talks that he did. I listened to these three talks.
Speaker 2:The Making of a man of God and those three talks has changed my life because he set this vision the kind of vision that I talk about in that book there as well of the church is wonderful, but it's also difficult. You know that suffering in ministry is on every page of the New Testament and it's not the small print but it's the large print and I think that was so helpful for me, even though I ended up in a place of disillusionment. It was so helpful for me, I think, for those first years to have expectations that ministry will be challenging, that I would suffer and that it would challenge me enormously. And I think so many people in ministry, I think so many people in church, don't have that kind of understanding. We read Acts 2 and we say why is the church not like this? Why is the church not meeting every day, sharing everything? But it's because we don't read on just a couple of chapters more to see the challenges as well as the glory.
Speaker 1:Now you talked about, if you like, that dark spot you were in on holidays seven years ago or something. Yeah, how did God minister to you? In that season, and I mean you're obviously in a better place now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Look, I think it was a scary time, that moment standing in the church and thinking what's the point of this? Everything just seemed so weak and that was a scary time, but God was faithful in that. I think it was a very long process and I think it's still a process that's ongoing, to be honest, of God repairing my heart. I think things like Psalm 73, reading about Asaph, who himself was a minister. He was a, he was a guy in temple ministry and he says you know, surely God is good to Israel after those who are pure in heart. But as for me, my feet had almost slipped because I envied the prosperity of the wicked. And he goes through, really.
Speaker 1:I mean let's just drill into those couple of verses at the start of Psalm 73, because you pointed me to them.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And as for me, my feet almost slipped, my steps nearly went astray. I envied the arrogant. I saw the prosperity of the wicked. Where are we in pastoral ministry likely to kind of need to hear this word from God?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think there are lots of places. I think for some of us it will be like Asaph, that is literally envying the prosperity of the wicked, looking at those who are not believers and thinking their life just seems so easy. But I think there can be.
Speaker 1:I mean, here we are in the affluent inner west of Sydney.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And just everywhere there are extraordinarily wealthy people.
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah. How will I afford a house? How will I live in retirement? I think those kinds of questions can surface. The underlying issue what am I doing this for? So I think that's one issue, just sort of the wealth issue.
Speaker 2:I do think weakness too although Asaph is not talking about this in that psalm in particular but the challenge of dealing with weakness in the church, our own weakness, the weakness of the church as an organization, the people in the church. I think that also raises disillusionment. That is, we end up asking a similar question to Asaph what's the point? And I think for a lot of people in ministry I suspect that's probably a bigger driving force, because weakness, the struggle of weakness, because I can't achieve the vision that I think you know I have a vision for what this church should be doing if we're in pastoral ministry.
Speaker 2:I have a vision for what this church should be doing if we're in pastoral ministry and it's not hitting it. So maybe I'm in a small church and I think I really want to make Sundays a great time of encouragement and rich. I want the music to work well, not just as an end in itself, but so that people can sing and give glory to God, I get there on Sunday and Aunt Gladys is playing the piano and she's fumbling through but she's the only musician that I've got and I think, and I, over time, I think what are we doing? How can God possibly be building us up through this kind of weakness? And then, I think, disillusionment can very easily follow from that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was talking to Matt Fuller a while ago. He was talking about another minister who preached a series through two Corinthians and he said it was dreadful. And then, years later, he's heard the same guy preach another series through 2 Corinthians and it was excellent, and he talked to him about what was the difference and in between he'd suffered, yeah, and he reflected on his earlier series and he said I've realised now, as I look back at what I said, I didn't want it to be true.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I didn't want 2 Corinthians to be true, that God's strength would be seen through my ineptitude my weakness and I thought ah, that is something worth reflecting on.
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah. So 2 Corinthians, I think, is my favourite book of the Bible. It was already my favourite, I think, before I went through challenges in ministry, but it's become more and more my favorite. And I think it's because of that vision, not just of strength, god's power and weakness, but particularly chapter four, where Paul talks about death in us but life in you. This is the model of christian ministry, uh, that you know, if you like, we die so that others can live, they, so they can find life.
Speaker 2:There's a kind of a sense in which in christian ministry, in the christian life, but particularly in christian ministry, we're following in the footsteps of jesus, not in it, not clearly, our death is, it does not have atoning value, but, uh, but we're following that model, the model that he died so that we can live. And Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4, we're given over to death so that you might live. Somehow, out of our suffering comes life. And I think that's not really the model that most of us go into ministry with. We think it'll be a nice job, we'll achieve wonderful things, but we don't think, oh, I'm going to be crucified.
Speaker 2:And I think that's a very challenging kind of vision of ministry, but I think it's an important one. It changes others. Paul also says it changes us. So at the end of chapter four he says outwardly we're wasting away, but inwardly we're being renewed day by day. So I think, also ironically, it's where we find our fulfillment and growth. We kind of want to hold back from struggle and suffering and dying, if you like, for the sake of others, but actually that's where God enriches us, it's where that inward nature is renewed. So there's this real, not just a death, you know, cross-shape to Christian ministry and the Christian life, but a cross and resurrection shape. As we are given over to death in our ministry others find life and we also are kind of changed and renewed as well.
Speaker 1:I would have said after I got sued in 2010. Yep, and I mean Two Corinthians for me, became my favourite book as well, and it was the first book I preached through coming back from stress leave back then and I still think actually Revelation and 2 Corinthians are my two favourite Bible books. But I do find that when things start to go well, I take my eyes off 2 Corinthians and I find myself slipping into forgetting that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I just is that your experience too? And then suddenly I get crushed, crashed back down to worth again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, absolutely so. I preached a series on 2 Corinthians a number of years ago. I've preached in various places on it. I've actually written a small commentary on it that hopefully will come out in the next year or so. And yet, even having done all that work, I find myself, for some reason, 2 Corinthians 4 comes up again. Someone mentions it. I read it and I think I've forgotten this. I've forgotten that that's the shape of the christian life. Uh, I'm living as though this is my best life now, and you know it is my best life now, but it's not the shape that I envisage for it. You know, my the shape I envisage most naturally, is a comfortable life, nice evenings, relaxing, you know, and there's nothing wrong with those things. But actually there's so much more that God is calling us to and it's hard. It's a hard call.
Speaker 1:I was talking to a senior Pentecostal leader a little while back and he was reflecting that the Reformed churches had come out of COVID basically better than the Pentecostal churches and I mean he thought it was because the emphasis on the word, the emphasis on teaching, rather than the emphasis on experience. I suspect it's also the emphasis on preparing people for suffering. Yeah, have you got a take on the Pentecostal and the experience and how they navigate some of this stuff?
Speaker 2:I don't know. I've thought about that per se. I think one of the things I have noticed in kind of the broader Christianity is that the gospel that we are proclaiming very often is more a gospel about how it will benefit me rather than a gospel of I'm out of sync with the God who made me and who should be ruling my life. I'm a sinner who needs to be forgiven and I need to take up my cross and follow Jesus. So I think very often the gospel that is preached is come to Jesus, you'll feel better about yourself, you won't be ashamed, you won't feel guilty, which may be true, but that's not the core of the gospel. Come to Jesus, you'll have a lot more joy. Again, it may be true, but it's not the core of the gospel.
Speaker 1:And it makes sense of life and all those kind of things. You're right, it's true. It and all those kind of things, you're right, it's true, it's true, but it's not the heart. But it's not the heart. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so I think if the gospel that you call people to is a gospel that come to Jesus, your life will be better, you know, it will be more enjoyable, and so on. As soon as that expectation is not met, you abandon the gospel. And whereas I think if the gospel message is count the cost, take up your cross and follow Jesus, I think that sets up, at the very beginning, a very different kind of mentality, and so I actually think that it's where we need to begin. If we're thinking about expectations and disillusionment and ministry, actually, the place that we need to begin, I think, is just with crystal clarity on the on the nature of the gospel and you said and then this might be hard to hear for somebody down in the depths, but there was actually a necessary call for you to repent.
Speaker 1:Dig into that with me, because I mean, if somebody's feeling, I mean they could be listening to us now and feeling down. Yeah, and is the word, though. Tell me, help me help them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's right. So I think it requires great wisdom to know what the response should be. So I think probably the first thing to say is this is not a journey you should probably travel on your own. It's good to have a wise counsellor with you who can help you discern things on your own. It's good to have a wise counsellor with you who can help you discern things.
Speaker 2:But I do think that very often there are sin issues, and disillusionment in particular is a sin issue. Asaph, in Psalm 73, recognises that and in hindsight, would you say that of you? Yeah, I think so. Yeah, so I think those issues were hard to disentangle, so there was a self-reliance. I think that led to, you know, led to burnout. There was an expectation of life that I think was not matched by reality. There's a wrong expectation that, functionally, I think, I probably in some ways had begun to live as though, you know, I want this style of life, you know, and that I had to repent of that. I think Asaph says you know, I was brutish and ignorant. If I'd spoken what I was thinking out loud, I would have betrayed you.
Speaker 2:And so I think, yeah, sometimes if we're disillusioned, if we're asking the question what is the point of all this ministry? That is a thing to confess. We don't have to be afraid, I think. Sometimes I see this in myself. We want to justify our actions, don't we? We have these emotions and these feelings and we're afraid that if we acknowledge what they really are, that will be a catastrophe. But actually, the bible shows us again and again that just being profoundly honest with God is always the best thing. Lord, I shouldn't be thinking this way. I shouldn't be asking the question what's the point? I need to trust you. Please forgive me for that. So I think we should never be afraid of confessing those things. But there may also be other things that are going on. In burnout, for example, it may be that you are working too much, so I'm not saying these are only sin issues. Now, for example, it may be that you are working too much, so I'm not saying these are only sin issues.
Speaker 1:But often almost always sin is tied up because we're sinful people Just looking again at Psalm 73, and that moment when his feet almost slipped and his steps nearly went astray. And then, just a few verses later, down in verse 14, he said for I'm afflicted all day long, punished every morning.
Speaker 2:I'm having a rough time yeah.
Speaker 1:But then there's this line if I had decided to say these things aloud, I would have betrayed your people. Yeah, now there's something, an internal monologue going on in his head that he's saying I need to self-regulate and not say aloud and not really allow myself to think. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Do you want to just give me that? Yeah, so he seems to make a distinction. So he says if I'd said that, I would have betrayed you and been really unhelpful to the parishioners who were listening.
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah, would have completely undermined God and his work and the gospel, so to speak. But he can also articulate at the same time that his internal thoughts are still brutish and ignorant. So he's not saying it would only have been a sin if I'd said it. He's saying, actually there's sinful thoughts going on within my heart, but actually to say those out loud is an even greater catastrophe because it publicly undermines God's work.
Speaker 1:I'm just looking down. When I became embittered and my inmost being was wounded, I was stupid and didn't understand.
Speaker 2:I was an unthinking animal towards you yeah, so I think he's recognizing this and he's the pastor that's right, yeah us yeah.
Speaker 2:So I think he's recognizing there's a profound problem within him, but I think he's also recognizing that there's something, there's a as a. It would be a great catastrophe, I think, to voice those thoughts, and so I think you're right, we do have to self-regulate in the sense, you know, we clearly shouldn't get up and say those things out loud to our church, but we may, I think, in the process of dealing with these things, you know, perhaps say to a trusted friend these are the things that I'm thinking. I know that's right. Can you pray with me about this, can you? You know? So I think that's important. So I think, yeah, those thoughts, to have those thoughts, is not right about God, it's not. What's the point of it. To say it out loud is even worse, and I think you see that when people actually do give up on the gospel for ministry, that clearly is a great slander, if you like, against.
Speaker 1:God, I mean just as you say that, as we think about leaders who have renounced things that they previously declared to be true, we weep yeah that's right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I think it's helpful to make the distinction. It's not a sin to step back from ministry because we've come to the point where we realize that maybe we can't go on. It is a sin to give up on god and the gospel. So I think that's a really important distinction, because there are some people who are battling away in ministry and it may be that with um wise discussion, with wise and trusted colleagues, they might decide that actually they need to step back from ministry. So I think it's really important to say that that for some people, stepping back from ministry might be the right thing to do and go and get a job in a bookshop. Go and get a job in a bookshop, because I think some people in ministry can suffer under the burden of thinking I must continue to do this at all costs.
Speaker 2:But god has called us to be disciples of jesus. He hasn't necessarily called us to be ministers for the every day of our lives. You know like that's? There's no scripture passage that can take us to that point. So there's a difference, I think, between saying I need to step back from ministry and clearly saying I'm giving up on the gospel. That is the great tragedy, that's the great slander think.
Speaker 1:Final verse that has really spoken to you in this space.
Speaker 2:Yeah, look, I think it's hard to pick one in particular, but I do think 2 Corinthians 4 has been for me a really helpful passage because it holds those two things together. Outwardly we're wasting away, yet inwardly we're being renewed day by day. Death in us, you know, we're being given over to death daily so that others might live. I just think having those two things together death and resurrection is just so profoundly encouraging. Carl, thanks for coming in. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Carl Dienick has been my guest. He is a lecturer at Sydney Missionary and Bible College, author of a number of books, but this one gathered together the beauty of living as God's church. My name's Dominic Steele. You've been with us on the Pastor's Heart and we will look forward to your company next Tuesday afternoon.
