Happy Monday and welcome back to the podcast. Well, Mondays are notoriously difficult for pastors. The Monday blues, as they're called, can set in after giving ones a life and soul on Sunday. And if you're not a pastor, I would encourage you to pray for your pastor today. Pray for them every Monday.

And all of this is compounded. All of these pressures compound for pastors who struggle with tensions inside of a local church leadership structure, which of course then breeds tension in a marriage and in a family. And it all leads to a question from an anonymous wife of a discouraged pastor.

Pastor John, I really appreciate the Ask Pastor John podcast. It's one of my favorite things to listen to when I'm walking or doing the dishes or folding laundry. So thank you. I write to you as a discouraged pastor's wife. My husband and I have been in full-time youth ministry for four years now, and it breaks my heart to say it, but I feel almost fed up with ministry.

My husband gets very frustrated and discouraged at times. I submit to his leading in our family and his call to ministry, but I am so discouraged. The last year has been really difficult for us, my husband, our marriage, our family. My husband looks so defeated some days, it breaks my heart.

We receive difficult criticism from church members, and I have a hard time not taking the criticism personally. Some of these people are our dear friends, and it's hard not to feel betrayed. Our church leadership remains fairly silent regarding the criticism and neither offers support nor guidance in how my husband can improve.

I know we are not perfect by any means, but without guidance, we don't know what the church wants from us. We feel alone. Can you offer any encouragement to us? My heart really goes out to this situation, this young couple, to pastors, especially younger pastors who are not in the lead pastor position but serve in supportive roles like youth pastor, because their fruitfulness and their joy are often dependent on patterns of leadership set by those who oversee them, and so they're more vulnerable than others are.

So I have a special tender spot of concern that they have good leadership, not those who just ignore issues. So what might be helpful is three things. One is a testimony. Let me give a little testimony of my own discouragement six years into the ministry. Another is perhaps a series of diagnostic questions that might provide a way of reflecting on their situation, and finally some encouragement from the Word.

So here's the testimony. I had been at Bethlehem as the senior pastor for six years. I was now 40 years old at this point, which I do believe is an emotionally very vulnerable place for a man to be. There are real midlife issues, I think. And I wrote in my journal on November 6, 1986, these words.

In fact, you can read the whole thing by going to Desiring God and just searching for the article called How I Almost Quit. So here's part of what I said. "The church is looking for a vision for the future, and I do not have it. Does this mean that my time at Bethlehem is over?

Does it mean that there is a radical alternative unforeseen by me? Does it mean that I am simply in the pits today and unable to feel the beauty and power and joy and fruitfulness of an expanded facility and ministry? O Lord, have mercy on me. I am so discouraged.

I am so blank. I feel like there are opponents on every hand. Even when I know that most of my people are for me, I am so blind to the future of the church. O Father, am I blind because it is not my future? Perhaps I shall not even live out the year, and you are sparing the church the added burden of a future I had made and couldn't complete.

I do not doubt for a moment your goodness or power or omnipotence in my life or in the life of the church. I confess that the problem is mine, the weakness is mine, the blindness is in my eyes, the sin, O, reveal to me my hidden faults, is mine and mine the blame.

Have mercy, Father, have mercy on me. I must preach on Sunday, and I can scarcely lift my head." End of quote. Now, as a matter of fact, I remained in that role for another 27 years, which is a warning against precipitous resignations when God may have something wonderful in store by persevering through seasons of blankness.

He certainly did for me, and I'm so thankful he didn't let me go in both senses. He didn't let me leave the church and didn't let go of me. However, not all resignations, not all ministry changes are owing to cowardice or fear or laziness or a sense of failure.

So let me give some diagnostic questions that might help this young couple discern what the problem really is, because maybe a change in ministry is appropriate, maybe it's not. Number one, is there a mismatch between your husband's spiritual gifts and the role he is being asked to fulfill? It's not a defeat or an act of disobedience if you discover that the role you are in calls for gifts you don't have.

Such a mismatch may be painful to discover, but it doesn't have to be shameful. It's very difficult for us to make this call about ourselves. We need loving, honest, objective partners in ministry, and if they aren't there in the staff or in the church, then from outside. I think gifts for ministry are best discovered and best confirmed by others, not just ourselves.

Others see more clearly than we at times whether our gifts are bearing any spiritual fruit or not, and what that fruit should be. So here's number two, the second diagnostic question. Is there a possible mismatch between the theology of your husband and the theology of the leadership? Depending on how serious the differences are, this can be a deal-breaker in ongoing ministry.

How sweet when there's a theological camaraderie on the staff and nobody has to be fearful of openly sharing what they believe and can teach. Number three, is there a possible mismatch between your husband's philosophy of ministry and the philosophy of ministry in the leadership of the church? This is different from theology.

It basically refers to how you go about ministry, and in youth ministry this is explosively controversial. Parents often have views about what they think should happen in youth ministry that certainly should not happen in youth ministry, but if a youth minister doesn't have the full support of the senior pastor or the rest of the staff, he's not going to probably survive the onslaught of these parents who don't like what he's doing with their kids.

Four, is there a possible mismatch of personality or culture? This can often feel like a matter of sin when in fact the essence of it is not necessarily sin, but genuine differences that are almost undefinable in the culture of ministry or the personality of the leadership in the youth minister, in the staff of the church.

We need skillful, spiritually discerning friends inside or outside the church to help us discern whether our personalities are simply like oil and water on this staff. Maybe that was part of what was going on with Paul and Barnabas. Number five, is this present discouragement a test of faithfulness and perseverance, or is it something that shouldn't be endured and needs to be changed?

And God knows what you're in, and he's put you there, and his purpose is that you would persevere in grace and overcome evil with good. No matter what the outcome is, that's your calling. Discerning whether this is the case requires partners in ministry. And I suppose, this is number six, but a continuation of five, really, I suppose the most disheartening sentence in this wife's question was, "Our leadership remains fairly silent regarding the criticism and neither offers support nor guidance in how my husband can improve." That's just inexcusable.

That's just inexcusable for a mature, godly staff to function that way. And it's not at all uncommon, unfortunately, and suggests that the leadership is too immature or fearful, part of their own dysfunction, too fearful to deal face-to-face, up front, get the conflict, and take the flak that addressing it will get.

And many, many leadership structures experience staff changes by simply not addressing staff problems. And that's the only way they know to deal with them. Well, if we don't do anything, the staff member that perhaps shouldn't be there in our judgment will just not be here if we let things get bad enough.

Well, that's awful. That's just not the way Christians should do things. It just ticks me off when I see that happening. That's not the way we're told to deal with each other. It ought not to be. And I don't know if it is the case there or not, but that sentence was a big, red, flashing light to me, and I was so sad to read it.

But let me end with some encouragement. Clearly, God is sovereign, and God is over this present moment and has you in this situation of sorrow and pressure and burden and discouragement. His purpose for you there is not your harm. It's not your harm. We know this because of Romans 8:28 and 8:32.

We know that he has bought with his blood good for you in every circumstance. We know that his purpose is for you, and he wants your joy in the ministry. We know that because of Hebrews 13:17, where it says, "Let the pastors do their work with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to the people." And we know that God's purpose is to bring you through this season stronger and happier.

So let me close with these two Psalms. Listen with your heart. Let it sink in. "Those who sow in tears," like in youth ministry, "shall reap with shouts of joy. He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him." That's Psalm 126, 5 and 6, and then this one from Psalm 30.

"Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning." Loads of leadership implications here. Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for the question. A lot of the hardest questions come to us anonymously, and that's perfectly fine, to send them in with a request that they remain anonymous.

We will, of course, respect that. Thank you for your willingness to open up your life to the APJ community so that others in similar situations can be helped, or at least that's our prayer, that many of you would find help, as you find in this community, other people who are struggling with the same things you are.

So please keep those questions coming in. Thank you for listening and making the podcast a part of your week. You can subscribe to our audio feeds and search our past episodes in our archive. You can reach us by email with a question of your own, even questions related to discouragements in the ministry.

You can do all of that through our online home at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn. Well, Wednesday, we hear from a young woman who struggles with body image, and she wants to know what's wrong with immodesty in order to attract the attention of a future spouse. We'll look at the heart of modesty and the heart of immodesty next time.

I'm your host, Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast with longtime pastor and author, John Piper. We'll see you then. 1 Desiring God's Purpose and Purpose in Your Life 2 Desiring God's Purpose and Purpose in Your Life 3 Desiring God's Purpose and Purpose in Your Life 4 Desiring God's Purpose and Purpose in Your Life 5 Desiring God's Purpose and Purpose in Your Life 6 Desiring God's Purpose and Purpose in Your Life 7 Desiring God's Purpose and Purpose in Your Life 8