SOLA Network had the privilege of speaking to Harold Kim, pastor of Christ Central of Southern California and president of SOLA Network. Harold Kim talked about burned-out pastors and how to help them. Watch or listen to this important interview where they discuss:
- Why so many church leaders are discouraged during this season
- What to say to a church leader who is contemplating quitting ministry right now
Watch the interview on YouTube, listen on Podcasts, or read the transcript below. Please note the transcript has only been lightly edited and may contain spelling or grammatical errors.
SOLA Network: So we’re talking about discouragement. A lot of pastors are feeling very discouraged. Why? Why? The question why?
Harold Kim: Yeah, I just think there’s so many multiple factors. It is disheartening. And I think at the outset, we’d like to say I’ve lost count of how many people, the last two to three years have been more difficult, more heart-wrenching, more divisive, more attacked. They feel more alone in the previous 20 to 30 years. So I do think that is a reality.
And again, October 2021, Barna poll indicated 38%, of pastors have contemplated quitting. And of course, that begins with myself definitely contemplated, I thought I was walking away for sure, you know, here at this conference at AALC. Last night, to hear that 65% of the questions given to the panel, all had to do with the nature of how do I know when it’s time to leave this ministry or leave or go to another church?
So this is a reality, we can’t deny it, we cannot dismiss anymore. Before I get to maybe some of the things that the Lord may be doing which we can never discern perfectly. But why, you know, why is it happening? First, you know, lack of physical health, lack of like normal human being, like sharing today, you know, a proper diet, proper exercise, nutrition, exercise, connecting with nature. Jonathan Dotson, in the recent Christianity Today article was speaking of how getting away to the Colorado Rockies was so healing and restorative for him. That was after our first few weeks of lamenting and grieving again, this is what normal human beings ought to do. So I would say one of the first points is pay attention to your biology, your physical condition, don’t over spiritualize, your present, depression, don’t over spiritual, don’t oversimplify, please don’t just beat up yourself, guilt tripping, or shame crushing type of messages that you keep repeating to yourself.
Now, having said that, of course, there is plenty of room in the Psalms where it says, because of known sin, there is a sin that I am continually engaging in. And I am not repenting and coming clean and confessing that before God and getting help or accountability. Certainly, there is a miserable, debilitating effect of unrepentant sin, and only in repentance. Isaiah promises there’ll be peace and rest, salvation and revitalization.
So, yes, but apart from known sin that needs to be repented of. I’d begin by saying take a look at your diet, your exercise, are you sleeping properly? Then I will begin to look at you know, what I was mentioning is, I think, ungrieved griefs is a huge neglected topic, especially among Asian American struggles. And yeah, I think when there is a grief or a trauma that occurs in the past, and I didn’t take time to sit in it, and to feel its effects. It may seem so unproductive, it may even seem like a waste of time. But I have been learning that if I don’t grieve that grief, if I don’t hurt over that hurt adequately properly. That hurt is only just going to come out in different forms later. And I think more harmful, darker forms. So for instance, in my life, one trauma and grief was the abrupt death my dad was, you know, halfway through college. I remember going back to work on Monday morning after the funeral on Saturday, I take a semester off from college. And that’s just the way I was built or I actually thought that was spiritual or that was strong of me and my faith to be able to do that. But that has had lingering… an undercurrent of all kinds of complex emotions, and actually has been absorbed into my body already, I’ve been learning and it came out. In middle age, it all comes out, comes out. Yeah, it all comes out.
Yeah, irritability or impatience, or just certain things or rage that you can get into. It’s just, it’s like incomprehensible. And the rage I had was so much of it had to do with adequate best use of time, performing and working, etc, I can connect now why I was so triggered by other people or myself, it was like almost intolerable to me, that you want to do your best with the time that you’ve been given. And that’s really connected with me not grieving and healing from an abrupt death of my father who didn’t feel, you know, fulfill his.
SOLA Network: And you talk about all of these as like now in hindsight, see them as these red flags and these warning signs that hey, you’re getting discouraged. Yeah. I feel like a lot of pastors, you know, myself included when I was pastoring. Like, we don’t see it. We don’t see those red flags in the moments that are happening. How would you say you would encourage pastors and their friends and their even churches to be like, to bring up these warning signs to their pastors?
Harold Kim: Wow, that’s, that’s a great, great question. Well, I think we’ll start with that. How would How would encourage people, staff or friends to bring up the warning signs? Well, frankly, I think we’re underdeveloped and under educated, I don’t even know if we know what the warning signs are. So I think in a lot of Asian American churches, where achievement, you know, success, you know, high performance just it’s a high bar, it’s just be frank. Yeah. All our parents raised us up on the American dream, work hard, you should reach a certain goal. And I think that’s carried over course, you know, into the church.
But yeah, some of those warning signs definitely ought to be, I think, an uncontrolled rage or temper. I think abuse of staff or the leaders or servants. That’s a clear sign of an usually an ungrieved grief. In addition to of course, an idol or expectation that needs to be fulfilled in certain way. So on itself, anxiety, anger, I think numbness, boredom is another like that malaise, fatigue. That’s also partly because of COVID. It also could be this discouragement is, you know, we like to numb ourselves to escape the pain. Carl Jung, which, again, I don’t endorse all of his theology. But he says neurosis is the avoidance of legitimate pain and suffering. We develop neurotic coping behaviors, to mask hide or run away from- try to alleviate in the most superficial way, the real pain that is down there. So I think everyone has a deep, deep grief or pain. Some of it might be from sin, but it might be something else. There’s just too much in the world that’s going on, especially in the last two or three years. That I think it’s impossible to escape or remain unscathed. And of course, Jesus doesn’t call us to do that anyways.
SOLA Network: In terms of then that discouragement in dealing with it, you know, I feel like in the past, there was this thing called a sabbatical. Right, a lot of pastors. And what I’ve noticed is less and less pastors get it, less pastors take it, more and more pastors when they do feel this pressure that like your sabbatical supposed to be full of stuff. I gotta learn more stuff, and I gotta get be a better pastor. When I come back. Yeah. Are you sure that there’ll be like, Oh, I’m gonna come back. And my hope is, I’m a better pastor. Yeah. How would you say like, restructuring kind of the rhythms of church work for a lot of people? How would you do that to help them have a healthier life?
Harold Kim: I would say two answers to that first, speaking of the sabbatical, how long it should be what’s the nature of the sabbatical? I like what Cory Ishida said yesterday, were at certain church environments, and they’re threatening or harming your family. It gets into well in the way of healthy pacing and development and boundary life for your family. He was suggesting try two to three years to bring about persuasion, education. Speak about it respectfully, honorably, I would say present some materials articles. I will say this recent one by Christianity today in April, entitled “our pulpits are full of empty preachers”. And there I think there are at least two good anecdotes where a sabbatical really needs to be a little longer than we may expect it or feel like we need it to be. Personally in my opinion, either to sabbaticals now and the second one and my 14-15 year old I was the one that made a huge difference because I think in my first sabbatical, there were strings attached. I felt like I was still doing some strategic planning, I still held my email, I still kept in contact with church ministry news. I think these things now looking back at those peripheral, they’re huge. They’re crucial.
So in the second sabbatical, when I was burnt out, hit the wall, shared with my elders and my staff, and they just really loved on me and supported me. No strings attached, no agenda, no work to report, Pastor just take this time. And I took five months. You see, it took two to three months, though, just for me to begin to feel like I can relax. It took two to three months for mentally and my heart to give myself permission that I could, that I not deserve, but that I really needed a sabbatical and you’d really enjoy it. It took that long just to unwind, just to unwind. So yeah, I would try education, persuasion, good discussions with the powers to be or the leadership that I think sabbaticals really need to be a little longer and need to be a little more freer.
Now second. Carey Neuhoff says, It doesn’t matter how many sabbaticals you take how long your vacations can be. It’s the nature of the job you returned to that’s killing people. And that is the case with me. And for so many other people. It’s the nature of the job. So is the nature of your job where its demands, responsibilities, expectations, is just wiping you out every day, your schedule is bringing you to the point of utter exhaustion on a daily basis. I would say that is unsustainable. That’s harmful. If you’re married, and with kids, that’s actually sinful, irresponsible. Because when I come home with nothing left to give, for my wife, or my children, as a father or husband, I am not loving my family, first and foremost, and I love this theme being brought out at this conference. So it’s the nature of the job, you returned to more than the sabbatical.
And I’d say the pacing, boundaries, limitations, scheduling, having wisdom, do you have any margins? Are there margins, if you’re married, and with family or their margins for personal health, and if you are the creative type, your lead teacher or pastor or preacher, there is no substitute for uninterrupted, unhindered extended hours, your creative juices don’t get flowing until that’s when you get your best work done. So I need uninterrupted four to five hours. I mean, three, four times a week to get my sermon prepared in a way that I find is speaking to me and inspiring me and I, you know, I sense the move of God.
SOLA Network: How do you feel like, you know, COVID, I think definitely showed how a lot of pastors were not having that healthy lifestyle, but at the same time, kind of forced them to learn tools. You know, I know a lot of pastors that are like, I didn’t know, I could do so many counseling sessions on Zoom. Don’t have to drive right now. What’s kind of your hope for this season of coming out of COVID? Like, hey, I think that this could help change pastors lifestyle and their rhythms.
Harold Kim: Hopefully one of the benefits coming out of the pandemic, which is shown in the great resignation across the board for all jobs, people are now opting and wanting they’re valuing: “Are you gonna give me flexibility to my job? Can I work more remote?” And I actually think that is a healthy reset. For pastors as well. A healthy reset may be coming out the pandemic is that we were all running at a frenetic pace. We were working beyond limitations. There were no margins of error. There was not enough rest, there is not enjoyment. And I think, pastors first and foremost, we usually get this backwards, because we’re afraid of being selfish, self centered. But your personal health, your personal walk with God, my experiential, regular, daily walk and enjoyment of God comes before anything else. And you need time for that time. So we have to create make time, lessen certain other things that are peripheral, maybe too urgent. We again have to have good discussions, where the pastor comes forward and says this is what is going to make me fruitful, long term happy, healthy, and therefore Of course, that is going to be the best thing for the church as well. Because if the pastor is fruitful, happy, healthy in the Lord, there is nothing more you could, you know, there’s nothing better you would want.
Yeah. So I think I’m at the pandemic, the pacing, hopefully we slow down, take a deep breath, exhale. At the same time, the pandemic forced people into the continual just online world. All the engagement, all the issues, all the discussions, all the comments, all the feedback that we’re kind of driven into, and I know that has been a beast. And there’s a lot of discipline and discretion that needs to be practiced as well. In terms of our speech, that is our speech, control of our what we’re saying, our attitudes online. At the same time, drawing boundaries and limitations. Again, pastors are not responsible to read comment, respond to all the things that are going on, on a 24/7 news cycle. I actually think it is draining, and it’s completely lethal to people’s souls. It has been, right, it’s only been creating people more anxious, more insecure, more competitive, more depressed. All the studies show this. And it’s beginning with pastors.
SOLA Network: I know for me as a pastor before, like one of the things that I struggled with was like, You’re oftentimes overworking because you care, right? When you care about these people, you and you know, you could do something. So like, my best friend is in law enforcement officer, right? Yeah. And I talked to him a lot of times, because he wrestles that same thing of like, I know, I could do more. But I have to not like I have to pass the report to somebody else, and I have to go on to something else. But as a pastor, I think that was really hard to do. How would you encourage, like, how do you build that theology and maybe the system of the job around? That allows for that kind of I do care, but I don’t have the bandwidth, the margins to do these.
Harold Kim: Wonderful question. I would like for us to look at that, again, with all these issues. One of the dangers is to oversimplify right? And just make it a single type of issue. I think a lot of discouragement, depression, is biological temperament to we need to pay attention to that. And it could be spiritual and it could be social. But the inability to say “no”, people, overworking, going beyond their limitations, which is most Asian American pastor leaders, I know. I think we need to probe a little deeper into the root causes of that. Because until a person comes to see and repent of what is at the root of that inability, having discussions and trying to persuade other people, I’m not quite sure it’s going to be that persuasive. Because when you yourself are speaking about it, you’re only going to deal with some of the symptomatic issues.
So for instance, I know what I struggle with, in the past and I’m trying to repent of now, the inability to draw some boundaries and limitations has to do with one of the four classic idols, you know, there’s four general umbrella vitals, right? Control, comfort, respect, and approval, or power. And once we identify why I cannot say no to this, and I get to the root cause it’s in my nature, nurture it might even be in a bit in my theological education. I kind of bred an enormous idol here. Once I identify what that idol is, then I get all the kinds of biblical teaching council, fellowship, accountability. And I mentioned counseling again, and then to pray specifically, regularly, directly for it. You need to not only dismantle I repent of dismantle that but replace it, replace it with something else.
Until the idol is dismantled and replaced. All the other mechanisms or actions I can take are, I think the overflow of that, you know, that’s just what you call the result of the root cause being replaced. Examples from from my life at the church. I have come to love, love, personal, deep kind of emergency situation counseling. For sure. And I think God has developed that in my life and I feel that is one of the things that first and foremost that a pastor does. I don’t just preach I don’t just vision cast or organize things, no matter what size of churches but I do you know, counseling but also, frankly, there can be seasons where the counseling is just overwhelming. There’s too many that happens. And there’s different degrees of counseling that may happen.
In the past, I did it to a point where I was so wiped out. Like, for instance, if there were three or four and a week. Now, I mean, let alone I couldn’t really prepare, I didn’t feel healthy for the sermon. I was restless, I was a little bit cranky. I was on edge. And make that long story short, I needed to share how I felt, I need to tell this is the warning signs that I’m having. I need to admit to myself, I’m going across my limitations and boundaries, and then ask for help. So other pastors and staff can step in, or elders can share the load.
SOLA Network: And then in terms of asking for help, you’ve been very public, you know, at our conferences about finally go into therapy and having regular therapy. And I’ve noticed right like, there is this tendency, a lot of pastors now they’re very encouraging of it. Very equipping of it, and then they don’t do it.
Harold Kim: Like we don’t take our own medicine.
SOLA Network: Right. Every pastor is different, but how would you encourage more pastors to say, hey, professional help, is a good tool, that there’s no shame in using.
Harold Kim: Right? I think there’s several areas in pastoral leadership in particular, that are not addressed specifically, insightfully. They’re not discipled in a way that pastors need, quite frankly, because most of the pastors are usually kind of the oldest person at their church and immigrant church has come to the second or third generation, I think this is where history, wisdom from the past, in professional biblical counseling circles can be of immense help, and experience. Now counseling is a hit or miss I again, I would encourage all pastors to go see it, even if they don’t feel like they need it. Because by the time you feel you need it, right, that’s where already it’s a little too late. But God can, of course, you know, restore and be merciful.
Let me say one more thing, though, on the whole, I observed the trend. However, now with pastors in the 30s and 20s, I think, going to therapy counseling is totally celebrated. It’s called, and I welcome that, I love it. I love it. And I think people are much more in touch with much more in touch with mental emotional health, how vital that is, to our overall well being and for the long run. So I think I see less and less stigma, to go into see professional counseling. My one concern is counseling itself, depending on who your counselor is, can only take you so far. And this will be a generalization for a lot of Asian Americans, because we don’t sit in the pain, we don’t review and talk about the pain. We don’t. We don’t get in touch with our feelings, especially Asian American males. That’s where I think having counseling is throwing up. I mean, opening a huge door, or the floodgates can come in that I think is not only very therapeutic, but extremely helpful.
Because as you talk, as you just unfiltered talk in an honest and safe way, you actually begin to understand yourself better, you begin to know the real you as you just you just talk and then you start noticing things. But we don’t take the time to talk. So we don’t get in touch with what’s really going on. Having said that, so that’s one of the benefits. Generalization will be it’ll give you a diagnosis, it’ll get you in touch with what’s going on. I’m not quite sure it gives you good solutions or prescriptions. I’m not quite sure if it brings you a remedy for that.
Harold Kim: That’s huge with the Word of God and the wisdom and the counseling.
SOLA Network: You know, we’re talking about possible discouragement and the nature of quitting vocational ministry or transitioning out of Yeah, I know for me, because I transitioned out of vocational ministry.
Harold Kim: Yeah. Good for you. Congratulations. And I think enjoying that like, totally, it was hard because there was this kind of guilt that if you’re a pastor, there’s a stigma to that. What would you say? Like theologically, biblically, were just like a real experience. Like it’s okay .Oh, yeah. I always have this up. I mean, to discern the will of God what God wants us to do. I think there is a triangle. You know, the trifecta is affinity, ability and opportunity. So affinity is your heart naturally gravitates toward it, you like it, you’re attracted to it, you want to do it, that’s affinity, you just have a natural interest and passionate ability is, you know, can you do it? Do you have the skill set? You know, do you have the bandwidth And I would say a lot of that has to do with character, discipline, self management, perseverance, humility, even take criticism so you can innovate and improve. That’s all ability skill sets stuff and you want to get better. The last one is opportunity. Do other people want you to do it, you have an external calling. They affirm they encourage, they really look forward to when you do that, because that’s clearly a spiritual gift for you. And I think when affinity ability and opportunity all come together, and I think these are all taken from biblical passages, we can be pretty sure that is what God may be leading you to do.
And we are to all discern, and there is absolutely no shame that should be given to any person who, by that discernment of those three elements, goes into pastoral ministry, or may come out of it for a season, because God is leading you, according to, you know, some of those elements in your life. I, you know, I think that’s unfortunate. I mean, we’re in the danger of again, we’re in such an honor, shame culture. A lot of shame is appropriate when it deals with sin. But there’s, you know, there’s an older shaming or cultural over shaming that we need to be careful about.