Thirty years ago this month, I sat in the balcony after the service of death and resurrection while the rest of the gathered community milled about in the adjacent social hall during the reception. We had just said farewell to Eugene Mitchell Forrester, my ninety-one-year-old paternal grandfather and my last grandparent to die. My brother Michael and I had spoken in the service.

  The church was a small brick building with a sizable cemetery behind it surrounded by trees, as well as a smaller, confederate cemetery off to the side set in the rural farming and fishing community where my family had lived and worked for generations. My parents had been married in that church’s sanctuary, and I had grown up going to countless Easter sunrise services there throughout my childhood.

            As I sat in the balcony, I was wrestling with something I had not shared with anyone: a call to pastoral ministry. I had been running from it for about two years and now, I was looking down at the chancel where my grandfather had just laid and the pulpit where I had just stood, imaging spending a life behind that sacred desk, and I prayed this corny prayer of surrender to God:

If you will keep your hand on the wheel, I will keep my foot on the gas.

            And that, siblings in Christ, is how I began the journey to become a pastor. I was twenty-two years old.

            I would preach my first Easter sermon from that pulpit. It is where I always imagined myself standing when I buried my parents. As an itinerant United Methodist pastor, I have learned not to grow too attached to places or things. Doing so would make it too difficult to pull up roots every few years. And yet, there is no holier place on earth for me than that church. It is my manger, my Gethsemane, and my empty tomb. It is in so many ways my spiritual home.

            And earlier this year, that church voted to disaffiliate and left the United Methodist Church. The grief and loss for my family has been deep and wide.

~~~

            As I reflect on life in the UMC over the course of the last year or two, as I speak to clergy and laity in my role as a District Superintendent, and as I read the anguish in posts by clergy and laity on social media, especially in the Stay UMC Facebook group, I can recognize the collective trauma those who love the United Methodist Church have endured. We have seen our congregational families rent asunder, we have seen beloved clergy and lay leaders depart, never to return, we have even seen ourselves the victims of misinformation and even slander. We have seen the very Body of Christ broken again and again in agonizing ways as we have attempted to forge ahead in was feels like a perpetual Good Friday world.

            And it has taken its toll on us, often in ways it may take us years to fully realize. 

~~~

            October is clergy appreciation month, a thirty-one-year-old holiday that churches celebrate in a wide variety of ways, or (unfortunately) not at all. This year, I would like for all of us to consider how we can best minister to those appointed to care for our church and who, as such, care for us. Years ago, I was serving a church in a small town when my physician looked at me as I sat on the examination table and said, “I have come to realize that one way I can serve this community, Doug, is to keep you healthy.”

            What follows is an attempt to pay forward that kindness.

            For this Clergy Appreciation Month, I reached out to John Fuller, the Executive Director of Virginia United Methodist Pensions, Inc. (VUMPI), who along with his wonderful staff, care for the caretakers of our congregations and communities. I asked him to elucidate the resources our Conference offers in regard to the mental health of our clergy and their families, and he shared with me the remarkable resources that are available through the auspices of VUMPI. 

            The primary resources that VUMPI makes available to our clergy and their families are the Employee Assistance Program (EAP) administered by Anthem and the programs offered by Health Advocate. The EAP services are available to all clergy and their families, whether they are enrolled in the Conference-sponsored health plans or not. The Health Advocate services are available to clergy and dependents who are enrolled in the Conference health plans.

            The Anthem EAP provides four free and confidential face to face or virtual counseling visits per incident per year.  These visits can be with therapists and psychologists.  Virginia Conference clergy and family members can access these services at https://www.anthemeap.com/, and entering “VAUMC” as the company name. EAP personnel can also be accessed via telephone at 800-346-5484.  Crisis consultants are available via telephone 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  The EAP also offers several enhanced services including legal assistance, with a free 30 minute consultation with an attorney, and free financial consultations.  

            Health Advocate is a vendor that VUMPI has engaged to provide a range of health-related services to our health plan members.  Clergy and their family members who are enrolled in the Conference health plans can access these services at Health Advocate: Home or by calling 866-799-2731.  A login name and password must be created, after which members may access a wide range of services including mental wellness-related supports.  Members can participate in online wellness-related workshops, such as learning healthy habits for managing stress. 

            Clergy and their family members who are enrolled in either the PPO Core or PPO Buy-up health plan are able to access mental health care in a provider’s office at no cost.  The Conference-sponsored PPO plans have zero member cost sharing for these services, which is intended to remove any financial barrier that may otherwise discourage someone from seeking needed care.  We are, however, not able to have the same cost structure in the Health Savings Account health plan, due to IRS regulations.

~~~

            At its best, ministry is profoundly rewarding work. It affords one the opportunity to better communities, to rejoice when your people rejoice, and bless them in such a meaningful way when they are hurting, to know Christ and make him known, to teach, to preach, to care for the sick, dying, and bereaved, to be a local resident theologian and shepherd. 

            At the same time, no work can break your heart quite like ministry can. Clergy work so very hard to follow this mysterious calling that has been placed upon our lives by the One who created, redeems, and sustains us, and clergy generally take this work so very personally. 

            As such, this October (and always) I am asking you to check on your clergy. Pray for your pastors and their families. Ask them for ways you can support them as they support you. Excellent resources for their health and wellbeing are attached to this document. Share this with them. Put these resources in the hands of your Staff-Pastor Parish Relations Committee. We are all in this together, and I remain convinced that better days lay ahead, where Christ still sojourns with us, blessing, preserving, and keeping us and those we love, for the sake of the world Christ died and rose again to save.

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
    Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.

– Psalm 139:14

The mental health resource documents referenced in this post can be found here.