PASTORAL
MINISTRY: DEPENDENCE ON GOD; PASTORS: STRESS

Attention has recently been focused upon the fact that ministers suffer a disproportionately high number of nervous breakdowns compared with other men. The reasons are many, and for the most part they reflect credit on the men of God. Still I wonder if it is all necessary. I wonder whether we who claim to be sons of the new creation are not allowing ourselves to be cheated out of our heritage. Surely it should not be necessary to do spiritual work in the strength of our natural talents. God has provided supernatural energies for supernatural tasks. The attempt to do the work of the Spirit without the Spirit’s enabling may explain the propensity to nervous collapse on the part of Christian ministers.

John 15:1–7; 1 Corinthians 2:1–5; 2 Corinthians 4:5–7; 2 Corinthians 12:9–10

The Size of the Soul, 157, 158.