Healthy Pastors Series [Part 3 of 3]: Click | View Series

On the eve of October 19, 1856, Spurgeon commenced services at the Royal Surrey Gardens Music Hall, a popular amusement hall that Spurgeon's congregation rented when they had outgrown their building and had not completed a new one.

During the morning service he preached at New Park Street Chapel on Malachi 3:10: "Prove me now." With chillingly prophetic voice he declared, "I may be called to stand where the thunderclouds brew, where the lightnings play, and tempestuous winds are howling on the mountain top. Well, then, I am born to prove the power and majesty of our God; amidst dangers he will inspire me with courage; amidst toils he will make me strong... We shall be gathered together tonight where an unprecedented mass of people will assemble, perhaps from idle curiosity, to hear God's Word; and the voice cries in my ears, 'Prove me now.' ...See what God can do, just when a cloud is falling on the head of him whom God has raised up to preach to you..."

Reason Shattered, Distressed, Ministry Flourished

The evening service was held at Surrey Hall, which seated up to twelve thousand and was overflowing with an additional ten thousand people in the gardens. While the evening service was underway, during Spurgeon's prayer, several malicious people shouted, "Fire! The galleries are giving way!"

The panic produced rushes of people. Seven people were trampled to death and twenty-eight were hospitalized with serious injuries.

Near the Furnace of Insanity

Spurgeon (only 22 years old), was carried from the pulpit and taken to a friend's house where he remained for several days in deep depression. He was so distressed he was unable to preach for several weeks and later said the experience was "sufficient to shatter my reason" and might have meant his ministry "was silenced for ever." He remarked, "Perhaps never a soul went so near the burning furnace of insanity, and yet came away unharmed." A friend and biographer commented that his early death may have been the result of this tragedy, "I cannot but think, from what I saw, that his comparatively early death might be in some measure due the furnace of mental suffering he endured on and after that fearful night."

Spurgeon later recounted the agony he went through: "Standing in this pulpit, this morning, I recall to myself that evening of sorrow when I saw my people scattered, like sheep without a shepherd, trodden upon, injured, and many of them killed. Do you recollect how you cried for your minister, that he might be restored to a reason that was then tottering? Can you recollect how you prayed that, out of evil, God would bring forth good, that all the curses of the wicked might be rolled back upon themselves, and that God would yet fill this place with His glory? And do you remember how long ago that is, and how God has been with us ever since, and how many of those, who were injured that night, are now members of our church, and are praising God that they ever entered this hall? Oh! shall we not love the Lord? There is not a church in London that has had such answers to prayer as we have had; there has not been a church that has had such cause to pray. We have had special work, special trial, special deliverance, and we ought preeminently to be a church, loving God, and spending and being spent in His service."

Not Erased From My Memory

"I cannot speak, as a grey-headed man, of the storms and troubles which many of you have endured; but I have had more joys and more sorrows, in the last few years, than any man in this place, for my life has been compressed as with a Bramah press—a vast mass of emotion into one year. I have gone to the very bottoms of the mountains, as some of you know, in a night that never can be erased from my memory—a night connected with this place."

Spurgeon's ministry was vast and people all over the world loved him, but I believe he would have lived longer if his sheep only cared more deeply for his total wellness!

Your Pastor-Shepherd Feels Deeply

Your pastors may be built as tough as a Dodge, but I tell you they weep, ache, sweat, agonize, intensely labor and lose sleep over their tribe. They weep over those who are living separate from Christ and labor to keep sheep in healthy pastures away from harmful predators. They sweat to provide nurturing food. They ache and agonize to provide a better way for you and for me. Give them the best of your prayers, service and work—your sacrifices and action of faith will be the aroma of Christ.

Learn to appreciate the work of your pastors, and when they don't seem to meet the mark don't just throw them in the trash compactor with the hopes that they will see things your way after the battering is done. Give way to grace, for we all have our down days and it's good to have a friend in our corner to give us the light of reason when we need it most!

Lift up your pastors!

Vintage Church

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Healthy Pastors Series [Part 2 of 3]: Click | View Series

Pastor, how can I help? Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the greatest revivalist preacher of the 19th century, was asked this by many parishioners. His response to this question was to establish a serving and prayerful church. His ministry became the largest prayer-based evangelical work in the Christian church since the days of the apostolic era.

How to Help Your Pastor

• Understand. The first way to help your pastor is to develop understanding and sensitivity to the stress and demands of a pastor's work.
• Pray. Secondly, pray for your pastor. A very active prayer ministry to support the pastors in their evangelical work is fundamental to the health of pastors and the church at large.
• Grow. Thirdly, mature in the faith. Grow and work to preserve the work of God in your sphere. Do not contribute to confusion, gossip and bitter attitudes. Get involved in action, service, and financial contribution, which are all vital to the health of the Christian mission of proclaiming Christ in your community and the world.
• Lead. Finally, faith in action is serving others above what you want in support of the ministry of the church. Don't just get involved in ministry; actively work with the leadership to provide healthy momentum in ministry and to become a personal preacher of the ways of Christ!

Preachers Are Human

Your pastors can become physically, emotionally, and spiritually exhausted. Again, C.H. Spurgeon shares his afflictions and trials throughout his ministry to demonstrate that it was in his weakness that Christ's strength within him was magnified.

Spurgeon was afflicted with spiritual agonies, slander and scorn, the weight of preaching, emotional trials of depression, ministry burden, and physical illnesses of gout, high blood pressure, and kidney disease.

Saved From Much, Called To Much

His journey began with the foundation of suffering and by his own words he gives a clear picture of his agony before his conversion. "The justice of God, like a ploughshare, tore my spirit," he recalled. "I was condemned, undone, destroyed--lost, helpless, hopeless--I thought hell was before me... I prayed, but found no answer of peace. It was long with me thus." Thus, he clarifies through his life that the present suffering he encountered in ministry was no match for the devastating bitterness of soul he experienced before living for Jesus. This taught him to pursue the holiness of God and to loathe sinful living.

Slander and Scorn Go With the Territory

During the early years of his ministry he encountered intense slander and scorn, and his response to this was, "If I am able to say in very truth, 'I was buried with Christ thirty years ago,' I must surely be dead. Certainly the world thought so, for not long after my burial with Jesus I began to preach his name, and by that time the world thought me very far gone, and said, 'He stinketh.' They began to say all manner of evil against the preacher; but the more I stank in their nostrils the better I liked it, for the surer I was that I was really dead to the world."

The Crushing Blow of Scorn

Spurgeon's again on his deepest emotions regarding the scorn and slander he faced: "Down on my knees have I often fallen, with the hot sweat rising from my brow under some fresh slander poured upon me; in an agony of grief my heart has been well-nigh broken; ...This thing I hope I can say from my heart: If to be made as the mire of the streets again, if to be the laughing stock of fools and the song of the drunkard once more will make me more serviceable to my Master, and more useful to his cause, I will prefer it to all this multitude, or to all the applause that man could give."

Don't contribute to the sufferings of your pastors by gossiping, backbiting, or scorning. Instead, get in the trenches with them!

To be continued.

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Healthy Pastors Series [Part 1 of 3]: Click | View Series

He gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. (Ephesians 4:11-16)

I have the privilege of being a pastor to the pastors in coaching and praying for their wellness. The expectations parishioners place upon pastors in this church age are both complex and demanding. For the last two decades I have observed the continual decline in the heath of pastors in the Pacific Northwest. It is both distressing and grievous when pastors share some of the pressures of the ministry and the criticisms and burdens they carry. I believe the best place to begin is to clarify the pastor’s responsibility list.

Unhealthy Expectations

• They are not substitute parents
• They are not shrinks
• They are not janitors, plumbers, or construction workers
• They are not crisis managers
• They are not perfect problem-solvers
• They are not corporate executives
• They do not have wireless access to the Holy Spirit concerning your problems
• They are not responsible for your sin
• They are not constructed for long-term bashing
• They are not required to shoulder repeated harsh criticisms
• They are not celebrities
• They have families with real problems too
• They are not always available and tireless
• They are not God in human form
• They can burn out

Healthy Expectations

• They serve
• They teach
• They lead
• They inspire
• They pray
• They cry
• They get tired
• They are human
• They need family time
• They must be renewed

To be continued.

Trial Study Guide

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