Is Ministry Your New Drug? Pastors on Doing Good and Real Recovery

Key takeaways

• Old patterns can wear new clothes. William Chung found that ministry and work had replaced his old habits without touching the need underneath them.
• Being needed can feel like a reward. The pastors warned that helping people can turn into chasing thanks, and that people are meant to be pointed to Christ.
• The body holds what we push down. A massage session and the loss of a dog showed Jeff Osborne how much he was carrying.
• Capacity is something to receive. The men talked about asking God what grace they actually have, and being at peace with the answer.
• Rest is part of the work. Adam Mesa described a weekly Sabbath, daily rhythms and a health scare that changed how he lives.

Men who were not always who people see

This episode of the Beyond the Letter podcast began with jokes about middle names and a round of arrest stories. Adam Mesa, the host, told of being arrested at about 13 after he and the youth pastor's son jumped the fence at the Coca-Cola factory across from his church to steal bottles. It happened during a Sunday service, and he was in handcuffs by a police car as members walked past on their way out. William Chung said he has been arrested somewhere between 20 and 30 times, many of them in Korea. Sammy Rodriguez told of being detained and sent back across the border from Mexico on a trip for tacos.

The laughter had a point. One of the pastors said that people often tell them they wish their husband or son were like them. He answered that none of the men at the table started out that way, and that anything that looks admirable from the outside comes from God's grace.

The same patterns in nicer clothes

Chung went further. He said he is still dysfunctional, and the difference is how it looks. In his words, "But on the inside, my patterns are actually very similar." He has stopped drinking and using drugs, and he told the table that his therapist saw what had happened. She recommended a 12-step program for adult children of dysfunctional families and told him, "there's a difference between abstinence and recovery." In her view he had traded one addiction for another that people applaud, which is ministry and work. He started the program about three months before the recording.

He also looked back at why he joined a gang as a kid. Being a gangster felt like safety, and being respected in that culture felt like significance. As he now sees it, "what you're actually craving is safety and significance." He is the same man with a different way of reaching for it.

Chung said the person who sees this most is his wife. As a pastor he has an image to project, and nobody else gets close enough to see behind it.

When being needed becomes the reward

Another pastor at the table spoke about the savior complex, which he called common among pastors. A leader who needs to be the hero of other people's stories can look endlessly available and caring while really wanting to be told, "We wouldn't have been here without you." He said that is a drug that fills them up.

When pastors tell him that someone really needs them right now, he agrees it is noble and then reminds them, "you are not their savior." If people leave knowing only that you are easy to reach, and have not learned that Christ is King, he said the pastor has fallen short. He suggested asking yourself why you want to be available so much, and whether it is because you like being relied on.

What the body holds

The conversation moved from the mind to the body. One of the men described a book that changes the question from "what's wrong with me" to "what happened to me." Chung added that his therapist had him draw a trauma map by age. For each memory he wrote what he felt, the story he told himself and how he coped, then shared those notes with his wife.

Jeff Osborne told a story of his own. One day at the gym he kept thinking, "I just need a reprieve." He booked a deep-tissue session with a friend who is a massage therapist. The friend found stress stored behind his legs and told him it would release emotions, and Osborne ended up crying on the table. He linked it to the death of his dog, a healthy four-and-a-half-year-old Bernedoodle who collapsed in the backyard on Thanksgiving Day. Osborne did CPR, then the family found a 24-hour clinic in Anaheim Hills that gave them a room to grieve. The dog's loss, he said, was part of what came out.

Capacity is not a weakness

Osborne also told how the family later brought home a Doberman puppy. After a few days of being up every two hours, he told his wife that he did not have the capacity. He said it was the first time he had admitted being overwhelmed, because "dads aren't allowed to be overwhelmed." His daughter cried, since it was her dream dog. When he called the breeder, the first buyer on the list turned out to be a police officer who had attended Patriot since he was 13. The family met him, and Osborne said his daughter felt calm through the handoff.

Others at the table applied the same honesty to leadership. Chung said he has learned over the last five years that his one yes counts for someone else's five, after a mental breakdown in his past. One pastor told of working for about a year and a half with a self-made billionaire and finally telling his wife he could not keep up. That limit, he said, set him free to be who he was called to be, with confidence in who he is and comfort in who he is not.

Another man told of Tim Grover's account of Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan. Kobe was obsessive and would return to the gym for any small edge, while Michael was intentional, working set hours and then heading to golf. He had beaten himself up for not being an obsessive until he accepted that he is an intentional person. A pastor closed by naming an addiction to vision. He suggested asking God whether he is giving you grace for the vision you carry, and wanting the greatest vision for the grace you have been given.

Rhythms that keep a person well

Mesa said he does not think he gets very tired in his emotions or ideas, though his body tires if he goes a full day without a break. When he is dysregulated, he said, his ADHD can make everything feel meaningless, like the book of Ecclesiastes. His fix is to do what he enjoys: a few days away with his wife, shopping, a good meal, and friends who make him laugh.

He also keeps a Sabbath on Mondays. He takes two naps, watches a movie and touches nothing, and the Monday before the recording he slept three times. He reasons that "If a farmer can't take a day off," he has no excuse.

Mesa also spoke about his health. A pastor friend, Cruz Ramirez, once told him that if he kept going down the road he was on with his weight, he might not live to see the impact he would make. He lost 60 pounds after that and still works at it. On the inside, he said, his fear of rejection keeps him from getting angry, and his wife learned to read his calendar to see when he is overwhelmed.

What this means for you

You may not be a pastor, but you may know the pull of being needed, or of staying busy so you do not have to feel something. These men suggest a few honest questions. What need is your good work really serving? When did you last say out loud that you are overwhelmed? What would a day of real rest look like for you this week?

Recovery, as Chung's therapist described it, means doing the inner work and not only swapping one habit for another. That may take a counselor, a program, a friend who will tell you the truth, or a body that gets to rest. God's grace caught each of these men in different ways, and it keeps meeting them where they are still working things out.