Why I Needed a Pastoral Retreat, and 6 Reasons You do Too.
I needed a retreat to recover from my rough sabbatical. I would love to spare you the bonus round, and encourage you to get the help you need, and get it soon!
As my family headed into 2022 we were licking our wounds from a very painful and contentious ministry experience in 2021, in which all the divisions discovered during Covid lockdown began to tear at our little beloved church plant. At that time, we really didn’t understand how all of this would impact us and other ministry leaders. Two experiences began to wake me up to the reality.
First, one of my family members expressed his feelings about some groups of people (newly labeled post-Covid) in terms that I had only heard from people recalling the events of the 1960’s. It dawned on me that we had gone through a period that would be that defining. In my lifetime, as similar flashpoint was 9/11. I remember thinking that everything would go back to normal after that, you know…things like security checks at the airport would be eventually phased out. I was wrong about 9/11 and I began to wonder if Covid was a similar flashpoint, leading to a new normal as opposed to the way it used to be. I now believe that we will look back on the year 2020 far into the future, and be reminded of it in subtle ways. As with the 60’s, we’ll refer to people using labels we made up or codified in 2020. As with 9/11, we’ll deal with years of distrust and anger toward specific types of people, and safety precautions to assuage our fears, that we would have never imagined beforehand.
Second, a friend in our church sent me a New York Times podcast about a pastor who’d hit a wall after 2020, and had to leave the ministry for a time. That pastor, Dan White Jr., and his wife Tonya ended up founding a retreat center to help other leaders process their journeys after seeking a period of respite in Puerto Rico. As Dan told his story to the reporter, I began to recognize numerous themes that I and friends in ministry were experiencing too. Though I didn’t manifest the same signs of trauma (a word I was hesitant to own) as Dan, I began to wonder if some of my other feelings and struggles were stemming from our experiences. I then listened to a podcast about the impact of technology on our society, and in it Jonathan Haidt pinned the year 2014 as the year academia began to shift as a result of technology. That was the same year we planted our church. I began to realize, that we are and had been ministering in a uniquely challenging time and that we were going to need more support than any of us had suspected.
As I moved toward my planned sabbatical, I hoped that I would be able to move into all of that and find healing. As I shared in a previous article, that didn’t go well, and I learned a lot of lessons from that experience. When my church elders asked how to help me in the wake of that experience, I recalled the podcast I’d heard, and began to explore the possibility of doing a retreat with Dan and Tonya. It was exactly what I needed, and I suspect you may need something like it too. Here are six of the many possible reasons why I think this is so.
We Need Pastoring Too
We do! Leadership is lonely, but pastoring can be especially perilous. I am so fortunate to have other pastors in my life, many who are older, and who know me well. I realize that many friends of mine in ministry do not have this built in for them, and this idea becomes even more crucial! Unique to ministry is the idea that the leaders are shepherds, but also sheep. We all have Jesus as our great shepherd, but some are called to under-shepherd others. Sometimes we under-shepherds forget that we also walk the same pathways, sometimes through rocky terrain, and even the valley of the shadow of death, as sheep. In those times, even in preparation for those times, we need shepherding too. A guided pastoral retreat is an opportunity to receive the shepherding of a fellow under-shepherd. When you can’t be on retreat, seek this out from another trusted pastor who isn’t functioning as your friend or from a spiritual director.
We Need to Get Away
Dan and Tonya knew they could find respite in Puerto Rico, because they’d been there before on a previous sabbatical. Puerto Rico is uniquely beautiful and accessible. You don’t need to have a passport or speak another language, but it’s also a completely different world from what they experienced as church planters in Syracuse. The culture is more slow, familial, and generous. The environment is teeming with new life and refreshment. You’re never far from the beautiful clear ocean waters or the lush picturesque rainforest. When they stumbled on an incredible historic inn and restaurant for sale in the rainforest, they knew the destination itself would serve weary leaders. When we are hurting and tired, we need to rest and encounter beauty. We need to get away. It doesn’t have to be across the ocean, but it needs to be a change of pace and scenery from your ministry context.
We Need to Be Understood
Dan and Tonya make space for weary leaders to come and just be in their jungle hideaway, but they also offer guided sessions for married couple relationships, or for leaders who have experienced loss and pain. I took the Pain and Possibilities track, which I would highly recommend! For me, the most important moment came early. Dan invited me to just “dump” everything that happened to myself, our family, and our church over the last three years. I had prepared to talk about the last decade, so I thought it would go fast. It felt fast, but took well over an hour. Dan looked me straight in the eye and acknowledged just how insane and overwhelming it all must have been. Honestly, I had felt bad about feeling bad. Nobody had died in the last three years, and there weren’t any scandals or lawsuits or anything like that. Dan’s acknowledgment though, was a game changer. I felt like my feelings mattered, and that the one listening to me got me. Ministry leaders are a unique breed, with a unique calling. We need to be understood, to move toward healing and health!
We Need to Process Pain
In ministry, you are often the one who needs to have it all together. The primary reason for calling you, is usually going to be to receive some form of support. When this is the case, it can feel as if there aren’t a lot of places for you to go to grieve, complain, fret, or just cry out in agony. Pain comes with the territory of ministry. It’s to be expected, and Jesus told us we’d be rejected and potentially even persecuted for his name’s sake. This fact though, doesn’t mean that we don’t get to feel and struggle like all other human beings. When people in our ministries struggle, we show compassion and help them process their pain with a loving God. We need to do the same, and we need the same kind of help!
We Need Ceremony
Many losses in life come with some form of conclusive ceremony. A death is usually ceremonialized in a funeral. You have a final hearing when you get a divorce. Even when you lose a job, you usually have a meeting in which you get formally fired. In ministry though, many of the relationships end or change without resolution. This is not always the case, but it’s not uncommon for a person to seemingly drift away or share a sharp critique and then disappear. This wears on a leader and their family especially. Often the effect sneaks up on you.
In my family, I’ve noticed a reticence to let people in and close to us since 2021. It’s not that we don’t want relationships. We want them very much! But we also remember the pain of the losses, and struggle to accept the possibility of that pain in the future. This was a cumulative impact, of numerous and significant losses, all left un-processed. Dan and Tonya helped me name the losses and prayerfully lay them to rest in the river that flows through their property. I have found that, as small as this may seem, it has become a point in time and space that I can look back to and acknowledge that something has died and that God is with us. I can’t emphasize the importance of this enough!
We Need Help in Transition
Traumatic times aren’t the only things that can wear upon a leader’s soul. The sheer weight of responsibility can have the same effect. On top of that, we age and we change as we move through life, and these changes can cause us to suffer under unexpected burdens. For me, this was also at play. When I went on my retreat, I had just turned 41 and had been sensing that I needed to shift my way of operating. I once functioned primarily out of my own bank of energy and level commitment, but I have been sensing a desire to see others take on the mantle of responsibility and myself to have more space and time to reflect and process. This was new for me! On my retreat, Dan and Tonya helped me process what comes next. The pain I’d experienced wasn’t simply a loss. Some of it was leading to lessons learned. Some of it was a byproduct of my own way of being in the world, and I needed to reflect and seek renewal myself. I needed insight and guidance for this, and I needed it from outside of my ministry context, where people were used to me operating in a certain way.
No story is the same, but I hope you will consider getting help and support through something like a pastoral retreat. You can always reach out to Dan and Tonya to see what times they have available down in their jungle hideaway! Wherever you go shepherds, don’t be too afraid or proud to let Jesus shepherd you through someone else who gets it!
Kineo Center is now offering a sabbatical pathway! I highly recommend considering it. https://www.thekineocenter.com/sabbatical-pathway
