by Fred Lehr. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2006. ISBN 0-8006-3763-1. Pb., 147 pp. $18.
On a recent day, three committees of the presbytery I serve met at the same time. As meetings broke up, the young woman on the Committee on Representation and I headed down to my office to get information about college scholarships for her. On the way we were stopped at least five times by people who just wanted to say a word to the presbytery executive. Finally, when we were alone, as I apologized for the delay, she, a preacher’s daughter like me, said, “Oh, Paige, it’s fine, really. It was just like being with my dad after church. I know how it is. We have learned to wait ’til we get home if we need his attention for something.”
It was an instant bond between us, two women forty years apart in age who realized instantly that we had grown up to love the Presbyterian Church and our fathers, patiently waiting our turn while they served the flock.
Preacher’s kids learn early that ministry is a calling that demands a lot of a parent’s time and energy. Preachers learn that, too, and sometimes the learning is painful and filled with stress for the preacher and for everyone else affected by that preacher’s ministry. Like my colleagues around the country, I find myself in conversation at least once each month with pastors who wonder whether it is time to seek another call, pastors who wonder whether parish ministry is right for them after all, pastors whose experience of ministry is radically different from what they dreamed it would be when they entered seminary. And I also talk with parishioners whose disappointment in their pastor’s ministry means that they call me instead of him or her.
Fred Lehr’s book, Clergy Burnout: Recovering from the 70-Hour Work Week and Other Self Defeating Practices, offers help for every pastor struggling to find balance in response to God’s call. Lehr, an ELCA pastor, served for 24 years as a parish minister. Currently he is founder and manager of Renewal Ministries, which offers training and consulting about church systems. For eight years before beginning his present work, he was on the staff of the Church Renewal Center, a specialized treatment program in Allentown, Pa., designed exclusively for church professionals. He draws on his considerable experience and skill in his book.
In the first section, Lehr describes how a pastor’s personality, tendency toward codependence, and leadership styles in ministry relate to burnout. The second half of the book is devoted to steps toward the pastor’s recovery from codependence with the church and with other people. What sets this work apart from the shelves of self-help recovery books available in the market is that instead of being self centered, it is Christ centered. Lehr maintains that “when a clergyperson seeks to find his or her way to recovery for codependence, the beginning point is making the gospel the center of one’s life. This means endeavoring to live and give good news, hope, unconditional love, and an open future to oneself and to others” (p.66). In the recovery section of his book, he devotes chapters to growing toward spiritual maturity, stretching and developing one’s personality, and identifying and respecting appropriate relationship boundaries.
This brief and very readable book offers far more than descriptions of the problem and the solution. Using a variety of engaging tools, Lehr invites the reader to begin to evaluate his or her personality type, codependence style, spiritual life, and comfort with personal boundaries. A study guide provides a way for small groups of pastors to use the book as a basis for mutual support and shared growth in ministry. It is a rich resource for ministers in congregations and for all of us who value and support them in their ministry.
Paige M. McRight is executive presbyter of Central Florida Presbytery in Orlando, Fla.
