Pastoral Support: An Interview with Bob Peach

Read about a program that provides counseling and support services for Christian leaders—The Ministry Care Line.

Willie E. Hucks II

Editor’s note: Bob Peach, LPCC, serves as director of the Kettering Counseling Care Center (KCCC), based in Miamisburg, Ohio, United States. One of the services KCCC provides is the Ministry Care Line, a resource for ministers who need pastoral support.

Willie E. Hucks II (WH): What was the impetus for starting the Ministry Care Line?

Bob Peach (BP): The Ministry Care Line started in 1992 as a result of the general mission we at Kettering Health Network were calling the Kettering Clergy Care Center at that time. Hospital leadership asked us to start a program that would provide counseling and support services for Christian leaders, such as pastors, teachers, conference staff members, and their immediate family members. Kettering is a faith-based hospital, and the hospital leadership wanted to give back to the Christian community and that was one of the ideas to do it. Within a couple of years, we realized that, in order to fulfill our mission in a broader scale than just the immediate local community, we needed to do something in addition, so the telephone medium was the way we chose to expand the Kettering Counseling Care Center so it could have a nationwide impact. We called this telephone support program the Ministry Care Line.

WH: What are some of the major challenges callers face today that are addressed in the Ministry Care Line telephone consultation sessions?

BP: We have identified six major catego­ries of calls people make to the Ministry Care Line. The first category (and 23 per­cent of our calls) is a simple request for a referral for face-to-face counseling with a Christian professional in the caller’s community. We can usually provide two or three referral suggestions to the caller from our access to online directories.

The second category (and about 10 percent of our calls) is about the caller’s professional relationship with another person; if they’re a pastor, perhaps an issue with a parishioner; if they’re a teacher, maybe in their professional relationship with a colleague, parent, or student; if a conference office staff member, maybe office personalities clashing. In addition, all of us, when we are counseling with people, sometimes get stuck. The Ministry Care Line is a confidential place for a counseling pastor or teacher to talk with somebody about those situations.

The third category of calls (13 percent of our calls) is for marriage and family relationship issues. Clergy and other church workers have the same family issues as everybody else: your teenagers are bugging you, and you’re feeling frustrated with them; you’re having some disagreement with your spouse and need a safe place to talk about it.

The fourth category (about 22 percent of our calls) includes people calling about what we call individual or personal issues. The caller might be suffering from depres­sion, an anxiety disorder, or a problem that isn’t necessarily arising from their profession. Perhaps the caller is unhappy in their present job and is considering going back to school and wants to talk about the pros and cons of doing it.

The fifth category (about 8 percent of calls) is an update from a previous caller. This means that we’ve had an earlier phone conversation with a caller. They are calling back again to follow up with us about the previous call. Perhaps they’ve tried a solution to a problem suggested in the previous call and they wish to report its success or failure and continue the discussion.

The last category (about 24 percent of our calls) is what we label information calls. We have a free quarterly resource that is made available to subscribers­ they might be calling for that. They might be a new employee that just heard about the Ministry Care Line and are asking questions about the nature of this service, etc.

WH: What are some of the warning signs that might indicate a pastor is at some kind of risk?

BP: If they are showing signs of depres­sion and anxiety, beware. In the mental health field, we talk about the vegeta­tive signs of depression. Things like a sleep disturbance, trouble concentrat­ing or remembering, loss of a sense of happiness or closure, a sense of pessimism or negativity, a lowered resistance in the immune system, being more temperamental, and a decrease in interest in the sexual relationship with a spouse. If any of these signs begin to be noticed by the individual or a spouse, family member, or others around them, that is a warning to them that things are not going right, and they ought to get help before it gets worse.

Signs of anxiety sometimes overlap with that, but there is a greater sense of aggravation: The person has a hard time sitting still; they tend to feel more jittery. They are more reactive. If it gets really bad, people tend to get panicky, and it’s not unusual for a person who is beginning to exhibit some panic disorder to end up going to the hospital emergency room, thinking they’re having a heart attack, because panic disorder or high anxiety symptoms tend to mimic what people ordinarily think of as heart attack symptoms—the pressure in the chest, the tingling down the arms, the shortness of breath. I remember a pastor telling me years ago that he was suffering from what we colloquially would call burnout. One of the signs was that he caught himself putting his key into the church office door lock; and as he shoved the key into the lock, he would sigh. He realized he was not eager to begin his day of ministry. And that was a warning sign that something wasn’t right for him.

WH: Why are some pastors afraid to get the help and support they desperately need?

BP: Pastors, along with other helping professionals, are trained and gifted with abilities to be helpers of other people. What they’re used to doing is helping other people cope with their stuff. Because of that, they are pre­disposed to expect, I’ll always be the helper. I help you; you don’t help me. When they get in a personal situation where life is starting to get crumbly around the edges, and they begin to feel some of the symptoms of anxiety or depression, they don’t know what to do—that’s very disturbing to them. The thought might come, Well, maybe some­thing’s wrong. But then their training and expectations reassert themselves and they say, “That couldn’t be true. It’s not the way I do it.” And so that forms a barrier of denial. They need to be able to say, “I am not made of stainless steel. I’m a human being too. The people who’ve come to me for help, I’m human just like them. It’s OK for me to get help from somebody else when I need it.”

WH: How do church leaders go about receiving the aid that you and your staff offer?

BP: If there’s an openness for the ser­vice of the Ministry Care Line, the first thing to do, practically speaking, is determine if your organization is a sub­scriber. This decision is an individual employing organization’s decision. And right now, across North America, about half of the local conferences subscribe to the Ministry Care Line. Talk to your ministerial director to see if your orga­nization is a subscriber. If they’re not a subscriber, ask them to become one. Call me and ask for a MCL subscription application form. You can pass it along to the president or ministerial director.

WH: Is this limited just to conferences and unions or can universities and other entities also participate?

BP: No, it’s not limited. Any church-related employer is certainly invited to contact us to be a subscriber. It’s organized on the basis of a group. The smallest group is a group of fifteen. So generally, it’s going to be an employing organization that becomes a Ministry Care Line subscriber.

WH: Can you give our readers a phone number they can contact?

BP: Yes. Our business office number is 1-937-384-6920. Our toll-free number, if that’s more convenient, is 1-866­ 634-0493. The staff on duty at those numbers will talk to you and give you information. If you want to ask us if your organization is a member, we can tell you the answer to that question as well.

WH: Is this ministry available interna­tionally? If not, what suggestions can you offer to others outside of North America who need such assistance?

BP: This ministry is internationally available. But, one of the challenges for us is the time zone differences. We are not accessible twenty-four hours a day. We had hoped, earlier on, that we would have a large enough subscriber base to be able to offer the service that way. It has not become large enough to maintain a twenty-four/ seven presence. So we have chosen to concentrate our available time more to the North American time zones. I would be pleased if another division is interested in this concept. I would be delighted to share our experience if someone else wants to develop something similar in another part of the world.

WH: The conference ministerial sec­retary essentially serves as the pastor to the pastors in his territory. What would you say to them as they read this interview?

BP: Just to encourage them and to express my deep appreciation for what they do. They are in a strategic position to be of help and encouragement to their employees. Ministerial secretar­ies are sometimes called upon to serve in dual roles, which can conflict. They can have administrative responsibili­ties that make it hard for the pastors to feel safe with them when they put their “pastor’s pastor” hat on. So I would encourage them, number one, to be aware of the dual relationship, and if you feel somewhat frustrated by that, you’re not alone. It is hard to straddle those dual roles. I encourage ministerial directors, if they find people have a wariness to confide in them, that’s not a strange thing. But they are still in the position to use their energy to provide confidential resources. For instance,  investigate a subsidized counseling program in their neighborhood, in their local field; spend some time recruiting and vetting mental health professionals that pastors can go to; enhance a local blind billing counseling program; utilize the Ministry Care Line, communicating its availability to their employees. They are in a position to be great facilitators, providers, and organizers of caring resources for the clergy.

WH: Is there anything else you would like to say to our readers?

BP: Ministry is becoming increasingly complicated and challenging. Our clergy are part of the population that the church serves. There’s not some kind of an isolated hothouse place that ministers are hatched and delivered to the church. We bring our human frailties and problems we have experienced in our lives to ministry. So if a person has been abused as a child, just becoming a minister does not instantly fix all of their negative life experiences. Unfortunately, it can even camouflage them. The expectation of being a perfect Christian and having everything work just fine can make us blind to our own humanness.

My appeal would be for ministers to be good stewards of themselves. They find themselves depressed and tend to think, Well, if I just prayed more and read my Bible more, that would instantly get fixed. But it isn’t necessarily the thing that is going to fix the wounds of abuse that they suffered, these wounds that they bear in their hearts and lives. It might be that the wounds surface in troubled relationships with lay leadership on the board. I would like to encourage you to sit down and talk to somebody. Take care of those wounds; get rid of that internal pain. Christian counselors are prepared to help you deal with your past. And there’s no shame in recognizing and acknowledging that.

To ministerial directors, come alongside your clergy. If you are surprised at seeing an employee acting in a bizarre manner, you might be observing the external manifestation of their wounds. Your opinion of this person as being a gifted pastor, an intelligent individual, might not be wrong. You’re in a position to come alongside them and say, “I have noticed some areas of concern in your ministry. Let’s do something to make repairs.” Even if you do not counsel that person, you
may be in a position to gently prod them into taking some action to deal with the issue.

WH: Well, thank you so much for spending this time with us and with our readers. I pray that as a result of our time spent here in this interview, men and women who, deep down inside, want to get the help that they need, will reach out and get that help.


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Willie E. Hucks II

June 2013

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