Support Your Local Pastor: Practical Ways to Encourage Your Minister

Your pastor needs your help

• 70% of pastors do not have someone they would consider a close friend.
• 80% believe that pastoral ministry negatively affects their families.
• 100% of pastors need their congregation’s support.

Pastors today are burning out at a faster rate than ever. On top of ministry responsibilities, they struggle with loneliness, fatigue, family problems, and even depression. They minister to others for a living and often receive little care in return.

You can help, says Wes Roberts. As a pastor of pastors, he understands the specific needs of those in ministry today. “Life for all of us has more stress than we want to admit,” Roberts states. “But those in ministry have some inherent burdens, pressures, and needs that those in other kinds of work do not.”

Support Your Local Pastor will help you identify those specific needs by cutting through the mythology that surrounds pastors and their families. And you’ll discover the ideas of more than 100 people on both sides of the pulpit, offering creative ways you can encourage your pastor and help him avoid burnout.

WES ROBERTS lives in Denver, Colorado, and is president of Life Enrichment, a worldwide ministry of consulting and counseling to Christian leaders that was founded in 1982. He holds a B.S. in Christian education from Biola University and an M.A. in pastoral counseling from Denver Seminary. Roberts is also the editor of a newsletter for pastors from Promise Keepers.