Developing a compassion mindset

At the center of the Loma Linda University campus stands a profound sculpture: an artist’s portrayal of Jesus’ story of the good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37). The sculpture’s location on a faith-based health science campus is an intentional display of one of the institution’s core values, namely, compassion (Luke 10:33). To walk by such a scene is to be reminded of the universality of suffering, for compassion literally means to “suffer with.”

For Christians, compassion is not only a moral imperative but also what healing ministry calls for today in order to follow Jesus’ example. In fact, the biblical word for “salvation” (Greek: sōzo) can also be translated as “healing” or “making whole.”¹ In my work as a local church pastor and professor in a healthcare setting for nearly 25 years combined, it has become clear to me that both salvation and healing are essential to making humanity whole.

Most people would agree that the good Samaritan story is a great example of God’s compassion for anyone in need. So, we aspire to be like the good Samaritan but then struggle with the real-life challenges of doing so.

Both pastors and physicians deal with much heartache, frustration, and utter exhaustion. With respect to clergy, a recent report from the Hartford Institute documents the extent of that burnout in the context of the post-pandemic period: “In the Fall of 2023, over half of religious leaders (53%) have seriously considered leaving pastoral ministry at least once since 2020. . . . This is nearly 20% more clergy than in 2021 when 37% reported having such thoughts since 2020.”² Post-pandemic congregations have become increasingly more resistant to change, large swaths of members under the age of 60 are disengaged or no longer attending, and pastors are trying to juggle a remaining congregation composed of both online and in-person attendance. In this context, many pastors feel they have become “chaplains to the apocalypse,” referencing the growing sense of disorientation and even dread many of them feel in relation to their ministerial expectations while serving the post-pandemic church.³

The compassion dilemma

Psychology researchers from the Danielson Institute at Boston University identify a leader’s “calling” as a double-edged sword. “Deep commitment to the meaning and moral duty of one’s work can lead people in many careers to sacrifice pay and personal time.”⁴ Indeed, when people conceive of their work as a spiritual and moral duty, setting boundaries can be very difficult.⁵ So herein lies a dilemma: compassion is an integral part of one’s call to spiritual work, yet at the same time, it can become a burden too heavy to bear due to the struggle of setting boundaries.

Perhaps part of the problem is that much of what we have come to understand as compassion is not really compassion at all. In his definitive work on caring in medicine, Dominic O. Vachon, who holds degrees in both ministry and medicine, writes that compassionate caring has tended to be “overly sentimentalized, overly emotionalized . . . and overly spiritualized.”⁶ Caring and compassion can easily be reduced to “being nice” to people, something characterized by a display of “very warm emotion.”⁷ We can too easily read biblical stories such as the good Samaritan as demanding that one “die on the cross for others daily” and display courage of heroic proportions by risking our lives for the sake of the other. To put it another way, anything short of being nice, maintaining a state of heightened emotion, and placing oneself on the altar of self-sacrifice as a martyr is seen as a failure in compassion.

To the extent one has such notions, to that degree, the helper is liable to become overly emotionally involved with clients or patients (and, I would add, parishioners). Such notions include the assumptions that caring always requires a lot of time, that you must always “be nice” and ignore your feelings and needs to help others, that caring means you will have to let people verbally abuse and take advantage of you, and that you will have to accept everything your clients or patients (or parishioners) say they require so that they perceive you as a caring helper.⁸

Here is precisely where compassion can be leveraged against the practitioner. If one does not live up to the expectations of being “nice,” if one does not believe they are “wired for compassion,” or if one cannot display and maintain a certain range of expected emotions, then one may feel that they constantly fall short of the ideal. While other people (e.g., parishioners, congregations, patients) may impose such expectations upon the practitioner, expectations can also emerge from within one’s view of self.

Defining the contours of compassion

So what is compassion? Is it something you are born with (or not), or is it a skill that a pastor can develop? Biblically speaking, compassion was undoubtedly central to Jesus’ mission and message. The Greek word translated as having or feeling compassion, splagchnizomai, occurs nine times in the Gospels. Three are references to compassion in Jesus’ teaching, such as the stories of the good Samaritan (Luke 10:30–37) and the prodigal son (Luke 15:11–32). Six times, compassion is a significant component of Jesus’ healing activities, such as the feeding accounts (Mark 6:30–44; 8:1–10) and the healing of two blind men (Matt. 20:29–34).

A concise summary of the role of compassion in Jesus’ ministry appears in Matthew 9:35–38. Here we learn why He spent so much time healing people who were suffering from all manner of maladies. “Seeing the crowds,” Matthew writes, “He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and downcast, like sheep without a shepherd” (verse 36, NASB). Compassion framed Jesus’ mission and defined Him in the depths of His being. “It described a way of being, a lifestyle if you like, in which he was present for others in such a way that they were made whole.”⁹

The Gospels, however, limit references of compassion to Jesus Himself. It appears that only God in Christ can take on the suffering of the world and not be crushed by it. Christian compassion, therefore, emerges only through the power of the Spirit. The compassion we can exercise in our own power is seriously limited. However, being more like Jesus is something that pastors can learn. The Bible says that we must “learn Christ” (Eph. 4:20). “ ‘Learning Christ’ is akin to learning a new language or culture, learning that comprises both knowledge and practice.”¹⁰ Indeed, while we are motivated by the compassion of Christ, “compassion is not among our most natural responses.”¹¹ “Compassion is hardly an automatic reflex, even for the most faithful.”¹²

Cultivating compassion for ministry

In order to cultivate compassion, one must develop what Vachon calls a “compassion mindset,” which includes four distinct learning components.¹³ The first component of a compassion mindset is cognition, which involves an ability to recognize the experience of the one suffering. The key to doing that requires an experiential understanding of one’s own suffering.¹⁴ The second component is emotion and includes learning how to engage with the sufferer’s emotional experience. That can be difficult to do when pastors deal with hostile church members. Here we encounter the hard work of empathy.

Third, Vachon identifies motivation as an essential component of compassion. And here is where Christian motivation is unique: Christians cultivate compassion in order to be like Christ. Finally comes the component that sets compassion apart from empathy, and that is the action needed to alleviate suffering. It involves the choice to act in ways that address suffering.

While all components are essential for a robust practice of compassionate care, it is not an all-or-nothing approach, nor is the experience of compassion a long, protracted process.¹⁵ The book Compassionomics includes data synthesized from more than 1,000 scientific abstracts and 250 original science papers on compassion. One of the most powerful findings of this research is how just 40 seconds of engaged compassion with a person can deliver positive outcomes.¹⁶

But that is not all—engaging with compassion is also an antidote for burnout. In other words, “compassion can be so powerful for the giver that using compassion can actually help people begin to care again.”¹⁷ The love that God pours through us to others flows back to us. In my estimation, here is precisely what ministers of the gospel desperately need right now. So instead of shying away from the pain and suffering in your midst, lean into it with the compassion of Jesus and equip yourselves with a compassion mindset.

“When we come close to someone else’s suffering, become unafraid of their pain, and connect their fragility and mortality with our own, a deep feeling in the gut inevitably results. Our vulnera­bility intensifies. We become a conduit for God’s love to flow through us to the afflicted. It has little to do with selfish purpose contributing to resilience in our lives. It has everything to do with entering deeply into the world of someone who’s hurting.”¹⁸