Reverend Joe (his story is an amalgum of half-a-dozen from my files and my recent memory) was a boilermaker in a factory, but he had a gift with words. One of his elders said he should be a preacher, so he went to Bible College, and served a term as a cross-cultural missionary with an interdenominational organisation. His ministry in Papua New Guinea was ‘ordinary’ according to the mission-people, and his wife developed some health problems. The doctors suggested that a tropical climate would not be good for her, so the Mission Society asked him to do some ‘deputation’ – which he did very well. He had only three talks to offer, but that’s all he needed as he journeyed around Australia, preaching in evangelical churches every Sunday. The General Superintendent of one of the Baptist Unions heard him speak, and was impressed.

When Joe intimated that he was thinking about entering pastoral ministry, the G.S. said ‘I think we can find a place for you’ and Joe began the process of theological training with a view to ordination. He struggled to pass his exams, but eventually made it. He then served two rural churches, but both pastorates ended badly. In the first, he ‘fronted’ a couple of the powerful people, and they virtually drove him out. A second pastorate finished abruptly after a couple of years when he had a breakdown. There was no farewell from either church. When he felt a little better, he asked to be put on the Baptist Union ‘list’ for another pastorate. The meetings of the ‘settlement committee’ came and went and Joe’s name would come up each time. But there wasn’t a ‘suitable’ church. (One of the members of that committee said to me, ‘We have to be efficient, because there’s always a lot of business each month. But these names. they’re people! This is their vocation, their job, we’re talking about. We don’t pray for them, or even meet some of them. They’re mostly just names. I feel very uneasy about the whole process.’)

I met Joe when I preached at the Baptist church he attended. We made a time to talk – at the local McDonald’s. He got there early and was waiting for me, with a cup of coffee. (I learned later he found a used styrofoam cup, and asked for a ‘refill’, as he couldn’t admit to me that he was penniless). His wife was supporting them both with some ‘agency nursing’, but her health was still not good, and she could only do about two shifts a week. After mortgage payments, and other bills, they had about $50 a week for food. He couldn’t find a job – and his old trade wasn’t a possibility any more.

He told me, in an hour-and-a-half, the ‘headlines’ of his story. He had a brutal, alcoholic father, and a mother who suffered ‘nervous breakdowns’ regularly. His childhood was unhappy, and he was a lonely kid. School was always a bad experience, and he left at 15 to work in a factory. A Christian work-mate befriended him, took him to an evangelistic meeting, ‘and I was gloriously saved’. His life from then on was focussed on serving God and winning others to Christ.

After a while, I asked him to give me a rough assessment of his missionary and ministry careers. He did some things well, he said, but he couldn’t cope with people who ‘crossed’ him – either by making comments about his beliefs/preaching, or by challenging his leadership. ‘I got into trouble regularly because I would stand up to people. That’s the only way I survived as a kid. They’re not going to squash me. But I think I made a lot of enemies each placed I served.’

We then talked about ‘where to from here’. I summarized John Mark Ministries ‘ research into ex-pastors like him – and me. There are about 41responses to the question ‘Why did you leave parish/ pastoral ministry?’ [] Most leave in a context of conflict – with the powerful people in the church or denomination. But underneath all this there’s always a story of ‘unfinished family-of-origin’ business. His story was not unusual – indeed he’s a classic!

He told me he felt ‘the Union’ had washed its hands of him. He was in the ‘dead wood’ category that institutional people talk about. They didn’t want to know him. No one from headquarters had visited him – or asked him to come to their office. No one offered pastoral help. (They did, however, find the money for half-a-dozen sessions with a psychologist). He said: ‘I’m probably an embarrassment to them. The G.S. who encouraged me to enter ministry has gone, and no one there now knows me.’ The Baptist Union had recently developed a system to encourage the personal and professional growth of its pastors, who now were required to renew their accreditation regularly. Joe felt threatened by all this. ‘I’m not a reader,’ he said. ‘But I still think I could be useful somewhere in the church.’

Joe had fallen into the ‘black hole’ most ex-pastors feel they’re in. John Mark Ministries exists to help people like Joe. We have not yet found any denomination anywhere which has appointed someone to care for, or a group to pray for, their ‘Joes.’ We know only one denomination in Australia that keeps a list of ex-pastors (and that for legal purposes rather than for pastoral support). Amongst the Baptists, for example, you usually discover who they are by comparing successive years’ lists of accredited pastors.

In some of our older church buildings there’s an honour roll dedicated to the memory of those who fall in battle. But if you’re wounded in the pastorate, you’re left to die, sometimes all alone. Occasionally not even your comrades-in-ministry will contact you. We are supposed to go after lost sheep, but lost shepherds.???

Now, what should happen in Joe’s life if he’s to realise his potential and make it back into pastoral ministry again? Is he a hopeless case? I personally don’t think so, but it will certainly be uphill.

Rowland Croucher

April 2002