You owe it to your congregation to deal with your internal struggles

When I was in college, I had some friends who went on a road trip to explore a large city in our region. The driver took his jeep and, as I remember the story, the temperature outside was so cold that he dared not drive with the canopy off. As he flew down the interstate toward their destination, they remained under the warm, protective covering of the canopy with the heater on full blast.

As he neared the outskirts of the large city, he felt that he simply had to unzip the back of the jeep's canopy to "experience" the place. So, they stopped, took out the back "window" section and resumed driving.

His eyes began to water and his nose began to burn. He and his traveling buddies assumed that they must be in the industrial part of town so they endured the smell. But, it wouldn't go away. They kept driving and the smell persisted. 

Eventually, they came to think that the whole city stunk ... until they realized that the exhaust from the jeep's tailpipe was being sucked in through the opened canopy in the rear of the vehicle. 

The smell that they had found so abhorrent was not the city at all like they had suspected. It was their jeep! It wasn't the city! It was them!

Pastoral leadership can be just like that. We all have our own set of problems. And, if we don't deal with those problems, they will distort our view of those we have been called to serve. Rather than enjoying our ministry assignment, we'll come to think that it stinks.

Here's an example...

Maybe you have been deeply hurt by people on numerous occasions. Rather than recognizing how you have developed some bad thinking patterns and then seeking to develop a more positive, Christ-centered way of thinking, you simply come to expect that people are going to continue to hurt you. So when someone in your congregation calls you and says that they need to meet with you, you immediately expect the worst. Rather than beginning the meeting with a genuine interest in what the congregant has to say, you begin with your defensive shield securely in place.

If you don't fix that problem (you're problem), you will exude a "stinky exhaust" and people will smell it. Your flock will come to see that your social skills are severely lacking and it will affect how they relate to you. Your deficient thinking will undermine you ability to enjoy meaningful relationships with those God has called you to love and serve.

If you struggle with a different problem, say, the inability to forgive, you'll begin to keep records of offenses of those in your congregation. Your relationships with your flock will soon head south. They'll pick up on the fact that you don't love them enough to overlook offenses (1 Peter 4:8) and you'll soon be looking for the escape hatch of another church.

The possibilities are endless. The unresolved problems of the pastor eventually become problems that affect the people in the congregation.

So, friend, you owe it to yourself, your congregation and the cause of Christ to deal with whatever part of your thinking that is not emotionally healthy. Do the hard, cleansing work of "taking every thought captive" (2 Corinthians 10:5).

Because if you don't, given enough time you will come to think that your whole congregation stinks ... when the one who stinks is really you.