The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
We're all about helping create a healthy, positive, and spiritually positive environment for church staff members and leadership teams.
The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
The Silent Burden
Ministry leaders know how to show up for others in grief but often struggle processing their own losses from broken relationships, failed dreams, and ministry disappointments.
• Recognizing "shadow losses" in ministry—those painful experiences without public acknowledgment or closure
• Unprocessed grief can calcify into cynicism, causing leaders to stop trusting and become emotionally numb
• Buried grief doesn't disappear but eventually surfaces in unhealthy ways
• Practical steps for healing: name your losses by writing them down
• Invite Jesus in as a comforter, not just a fixer
• Talk to someone who understands—a coach, counselor, or trusted friend
• Create space to properly mourn through crying, journaling, or symbolic rituals
• Ministry contains many unseen losses, but you don't have to carry them in silence
If you need someone to talk to about processing your ministry grief, reach out to me at podcast@chemistrystaffing.com. We're all about helping your church find great staff people and building healthy staff teams.
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In ministry we know how to show up for others in their grief, but what about their? We're going to talk about this. It's going to be really candid. Today we're going to talk about the hidden grief that pastors and church leaders carry the funerals that are never processed, the friendships that we lost without any closure, the ministry dreams that just died in silence. It's not just about burnout or stress. It's about the grief that never got a funeral and until we name it, we can't really heal from it. That's what we're talking about today here on the Healthy Church Staff podcast. Hi there, my name is Todd Rhodes and I'm the co-founder, one of the co-founders over at chemistrystaffingcom and your host right here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. What if the reason you're exhausted isn't really burnout but perhaps it's grief? We talk about overload all the time, especially here on the podcast. We talk about stress and boundaries and all those kind of things. But what about the deep hidden losses that ministry leaders carry? If you've been in ministry very long, you've got some of those losses the friends who walked away, the staff who betrayed you and stabbed you in the back, the dreams that just quietly died.
Speaker 1:And let's talk about how we, as church leaders and staff people process grief. First of all, I think we have to admit that we have grief, right. Most pastors, most church staff people, it's part of the job. Right, we know how to counsel others through grief. But when it comes to our own losses in ministry, we often just push that down. Whether it's the way the church plant fell apart, or how a close friend just ghosted you after they didn't like a decision you made, or how a staff member kind of betrayed your trust and just left town. None of those things came with casseroles or hugs or public recognition. But let's be honest, those are real losses, and many of us just we never mourn them. Here's a rule that I think would be really helpful If it hurt, it needs to be grieved. If it hurt, it needs to be grieved.
Speaker 1:A lot of the ministry losses that happen to us, though, just go unnoticed, or at least we don't take the time to notice them. Let's just name some of them right People that came to Jesus under your ministry, people you baptized, people that you thought were your friends, who just left the church and they never even said goodbye. Some of those staff transitions just felt like a death, but you had publicly. You just had to smile through it. Maybe friends in the congregation you just changed overnight after a sermon? Church launches that never get off the ground, moral failures in leadership that forced you into survival mode. These are what I like to call shadow losses, okay, losses that didn't get a moment of silence or mourning, but they should have right.
Speaker 1:So why does this even matter, todd? We're all big boys and girls here. We need to move on. Why are we even talking about this? You might be thinking this is just part of ministry.
Speaker 1:I learned a long time ago in my ministry that you have to have a thick skin, and you do. But Let me push back a little bit. You also need to have a healthy heart, okay, because unprocessed grief can really calcify into cynicism. That unresolved pain that you never deal with can quietly become the lens through which we see everything. We stop trusting, we pull back, we get numb and that's just. It's not healthy and it's not sustainable. Unmourned grief doesn't just disappear, it just gets buried until, sooner or later, someday it's going to bubble up and it's going to burst.
Speaker 1:Okay, so this is really encouraging, todd. Thank you so much for this edition of the podcast. But what are you saying we can do about it. Let's talk about that. What can we do with this? First of all, I think you just have to be honest and name the losses, write them down. Literally get out a piece of paper and write them down and be honest, name those losses, and then this might seem sure, todd. The second step is, after you write them down, just invite Jesus in, not as the fixer but as a comforter. It's not that we don't invite Jesus in, it's that we don't take time to really process and allow Jesus to be that comforter to us that we really need. We supply that and help other people invite Jesus in, but we don't ever get to do it for ourselves. So that's what I'm encouraging you to do today.
Speaker 1:Okay, so name it, invite Jesus in, not as a fixer but as a comforter, and talk to someone, maybe a coach, a counselor, a friend, somebody who understands, who knows you and understands, or somebody that maybe doesn't know you, but you just need to bare your soul and say this really hurt and I need to process through it and then create some space, give yourself some permission just to kind of slow down. Maybe you need to cry and weep through the situation, just actually physically mourn. Maybe you need to journal your way through it. But in this last one it might seem a little weird, but it's symbolic. Okay, maybe if it's a major thing that you know you need to process, you need to mourn, but you've just never done it. Literally, hold a personal memorial, light, a candle, say goodbye, let it go. It's kind of like when your son's goldfish dies and you do that burial where you put them in the toilet and you flush you know, flush that away and that will really make a difference. You don't need a funeral home to honor a loss, but you do need to stop pretending that it didn't hurt.
Speaker 1:Okay, here's today's bottom line I want to leave you with. This Ministry is full of unseen losses, but you don't have to carry them in silence. How are you doing Seriously? How are you doing? Do you have things in your life or in your ministry that have happened to you, that have just deeply hurt you, but you've not taken the time to mourn? Do that today, take some time to do that today, and if you need somebody to talk to and you don't have anybody to talk to, reach out to me.
Speaker 1:Podcast at chemistrystaffingcom. I'd love to hear your story friend and help you through this process. If there's a way that I can do that and if there's any way that I can serve your church, absolutely reach out to me. Podcast at chemistrystaffingcom. We are all about helping your church find really great staff people. We're all about helping you and your team become a healthy staff team together. And if there's any way that I can help you, just reach out. Podcast at chemistrystaffingcom. All right, thanks so much for listening today, always glad to share some time with you. We'll be right back here tomorrow on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. Thanks so much. Have a great day you.
