Interview with Derek Lauer

Derek and Brenda Lauer have been married for 29 years and are the proud parents of twins Gregory and Gabriel and daughter Gretchyn.

By Brad Dupray

Pastoral ministry is sometimes daunting, sometimes exhilarating, but nearly always challenging. In his 30 years of ministry, Derek Lauer has seen the peaks and valleys and learned how to meet the challenges along the way. Derek served in youth ministries in California and Arizona, and has been a senior pastor for the past 17 years, first in Arizona, and now at Northeast Christian Church in Rockford, Illinois. He holds an undergraduate degree from Ozark Christian College, Joplin, Missouri, and a master”s from Cincinnati (Ohio) Christian Seminary.

What”s the hardest thing about being in the ministry?

<laughs> Floyd Strater and I used to laugh with each other and say ministry would be great if it wasn”t for all the people! As a leader you”re called to take people from point A to point B, and they don”t always want to go. It”s interesting that Israel means “struggle,” and””true to its name””the nation struggled with following the leaders God put before the Israelites. And more, they struggled with God! There was a whole generation marching around the wilderness dying one after another because they didn”t want to follow their leader. The hardest thing is working with people and leading them to a place they don”t necessarily want to go.

Was ministry what you expected it to be when you were a young, wide-eyed idealist?

No. Especially when you think of it from the standpoint of leading people. I thought ministry would be a place where people would be eager to follow and willing to go. Obviously that”s not the case.

Was your idealism misdirected?

Coming out of college and seminary it was really easy to have lines drawn, huge lines drawn. You know how things are supposed to be””what”s right, what”s wrong. Then you get into the mix with people and you find out they have been ravaged by the world, kicked, beaten, and hit. Today I”m just as black and white as I was then, but I”ve learned a lot of people are just “raw.”

How do you deal with those hurts?

I”m drawn all the time to Jesus, who saw people with compassion. He saw them as harassed and helpless””as sheep without a shepherd. There”s a point where idealism meets reality. Here”s this woman caught in adultery, thrown at Jesus” feet, and Jesus had a right to stone her. But he embraced her. He took care of her. He protected her. Black and white truth meets compassion. He didn”t back off from the truth, but he also loved her.

Why do you think it”s so hard for people to follow?

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10). I”ve often said Satan is wily; he”s looking for a way to worm in, and he does. He”s constantly whispering in our ears that there is a better way. Even though we know God”s ways are going to bring life, we think we have life figured out. Every Christian would believe Jesus” way is the right way, but sometimes he gets in the middle of my thinking of what I want to do or what I think is best.

Why does someone decide to go into ministry?

Hopefully, you”ve been called. One of my mentors, a very wise man, told me very early on in ministry, “If there is anything you can do besides ministry, do it.” His point was””ministry is not for the faint of heart. If you”re looking to be loved, to have no problems, you”re setting yourself up for disappointment. A quick overview of the Bible shows that the vast majority of the leaders described there experienced something quite different from that.

Is there a way to validate that call?

For several years I felt God tugging at my heart, and a lot of people I respected encouraged me not just to consider it, but accept it. So it”s the call of God and encouragement from godly leaders.

Have you ever felt burned out?

The idea of burnout is interesting. Several years ago there were some people in my life telling me I was burned out. Because of that I was encouraged (you could translate that as forced) to enter into counseling plus attend a couple of 10-day retreat sessions in Colorado and California to deal with burnout in my life. I think the interesting conclusion of all the experts I talked to (and there were six of them) was I was not burned out.

Something must have been happening. What did they conclude?

The evaluation from all of these people was more that I was “put out.” As I thought about it, there have been several times in my 30-year ministry experience that I have felt “put out.” I have been put out by particular situations I was being forced to deal with, put out by a lack of support of leadership, put out by feeling all alone in the battle. There have been times when I”ve been put out, stressed out””but not burned out.

Were you ever tempted to quit?

What”s the old joke in ministry? You write your resignation letter every Monday morning! There have been only a few times in the last 30 years that I”ve come to that point.

How would you describe someone who is burned out?

Someone who is burned out feels helpless and hopeless. There is complete disengagement; there is a loss of motivation that can lead to depression. Everyone who was checking me out was telling me I was as far from those things as I could find myself. I was stressed out””a person who was over-engaged, a person with a number of things on his plate that can lead to hyperactivity, which can lead to stress, which can be overwhelming and cause you to lose energy.

Did you recognize it at the time?

I was definitely hurting. I had been involved in a long, arduous ministry. I had been through one set of difficult circumstances after another. Plus my wife was diagnosed with a serious illness. On top of that, my mom unexpectedly died. I was definitely hurting. I was stressed out. But more, I was put out.

Did those around you step in to help?

Actually, my stress was being encouraged by the very people who felt like they were helping me. It”s just incredibly difficult to be in a situation where you feel like you”re being totally misread. At the same time, you”re in no position to do anything about it. You”re put in a position and forced to submit and obey. So when these men came to me asking me””actually demanding””to do those things (counseling, retreats), I did what they asked me to do, even though I disagreed with their opinions. It just added to my stress level.

Did any good come of what they were asking you to do?

The good news is while I was talking to all these professionals, I was learning better ways to handle being stressed out and put out.

What were the “better ways?”

The first one is you”ve got to know yourself. You”ve got to set healthy boundaries; you have to know what your gifts, strengths, and weaknesses are. Second, you need to know the triggering symptoms of stress. In my life, stress reveals itself in anger, frustration, being irritable, and feeling like I”m in a no-win situation. When I feel like that, I know I”m stressed. A better way to handle stress is to make sure you have time away. For me, that means getting away for several weeks at a time, not just three or seven days at a time. The interesting thing is that when the ministry is pounding in around you, the natural thing is to avoid time off, to throw yourself in and dig in. That”s not healthy.

How do you keep from just finding more things to do?

You have to war against taking on too much. Sometimes, just because you”re the pastor, stuff gets put on your plate. The problem is, you have only so many hours in the week. If you are responsible for a weekly sermon, and you”re working on it at one in the morning, you”re spending too many hours in the day working on stuff that shouldn”t be on your plate. You need to either pass the stuff away or let it hit the floor.

Is ministry a lonely place?

It can be an extremely lonely place. I have a ministry friend who was out late making a call and his car broke down. He glided into a gas station that was closed and pulled out his Day-Timer with his contact info. He was walking over to a telephone booth (that tells you it was awhile ago) and he started flipping through his contacts to see whom he was going to call. He had relationships with all these people; they were people he had helped, but one by one he was passing by their names with an excuse about why he couldn”t call any of them””it”s too late, he”s too busy, I don”t want to bother them. As he flipped through the names he started crying, and then weeping. He locked up his car and walked five miles home.

That”s a very sad commentary.

I got an e-mail yesterday from a friend who told me one of our college classmates committed suicide. The e-mail said that nobody knew he was hurting. He preached the week before; three days later he was gone. So he put on a stiff upper lip and smiled at the appropriate times and killed himself. Is ministry a lonely place? Yes. But I don”t think it has to be that way.

How do you keep it from being lonely?

The first thing you must do is make a determination to be vulnerable. That can be dangerous. Over the years I”ve had supposed friends who said they cared about me but were really using me to get information, and then they hit me with it. I think most everybody lives in fear of that.

Are you talking specifically about people in ministry?

Everybody in general. What would people think of me if they knew what I was really doing, or thinking about, or struggling with? The reality is, you don”t want to hand somebody a club to beat you with. “Here”s a rock, please smack me with it!” That seems pretty absurd to me! So, it”s got to begin with vulnerability. Understanding that is dangerous. But if we”re going to be healthy, there need to be other people in our lives that we”re talking to.

Where does a minister go for real friendship and support?

I live in a community, and a big part of that community is my church. My life is here, in this place, in this church. There needs to be a door someplace for me to have a relationship with people I”m in ministry with. Whether they are leaders, elders, or members of the congregation, I need to be careful, but if I”m going to survive I must have that. I”m really blessed because I have some friends around the country I talk to regularly about what I”m thinking and struggling with. In my present ministry situation (I”ve been here for 30 months), I”m building new relationships to open up about my pains, fears, struggles, and heartaches. I also have a “PIT crew” (pastoral intercessory team). This is a group of three guys whom I meet with monthly. They love me, look me in the eyes, and ask me how I”m doing. They”re constantly praying for me and encouraging me.

It”s hard work to be vulnerable and open to others, isn”t it?

I don”t think it”s natural for us to talk about how we”re feeling. What”s natural is for us to shove it down, bottle it up, and put a cap on it. And if you”ve been burned in the past, that tendency really takes over. The question is””is there anybody out there I can trust? I believe we have to war against our natural tendencies, and that”s why I believe health in ministry comes through open loving, trusting, vulnerable, accountable relationships.

What can elders to do make life easier for the minister?

I learned a long time ago that the relationship between an eldership and the pastor is centrally and critically important. If the elders and pastor are on board and together, then everything is going to be OK. If not, then everything is going to be bad.

So how do they make it good?

The first thing they can do is be in agreement. If they”re not in agreement, then it”s all downhill from there. It”s all ugly. The elders need to support the pastor for the mission, vision, and direction of the church. They need to protect him from others and from himself. They need to provide the necessary tools and resources to get the job done. They need to be open and honest at all times. All times.

What about personal relationships between the pastor and the elders?

I think they need to include him in their lives and in their circles. There are a number of elders I”ve worked with over the past 20 years where that hasn”t been true. I”ve never been in their homes, never been out with them for a meal, never been included in their circle. It was like I was an outsider, that I didn”t belong, and it was communicated at every level. Elders need to love and be concerned for the pastor. He needs a pastor, too.

What do elders do to make life miserable for the minister?

It”s just the opposite: Don”t be on the same page, work behind his back, blame him, tie his hands, don”t protect him. Over the years I”ve used the analogy””mostly when I”ve felt really put out””I”ve felt like I was out on a limb. In ministry we”re out there all the time. We have to take a stand when there”s something to confront, we have to say “no,” preach a message you know is going to be unpopular. When you go out on these limbs, you know there are people who want to do damage. They shinny up the tree with a saw in their hands. What I”ve needed is the elders to circle underneath me with the rescue net and catch me when I”m coming down. It”s disheartening when you turn around and it”s the elders on the tree with the saw cutting on the limb.

Ouch. Where do you go then?

That can be crushing. How many pastors are leaving ministry? For me, that”s when I”m ready to quit.

Where do you find solace?

Jesus said in John 16:33, “In this world you will have trouble.” Or how about Matthew 10:22, “All men will hate you because of me.” <laughs> If you”re being shot at, you”re in good company. On the serious side, there are a few passages that bolster me. In Matthew 28:20, Jesus said he would be with us to the end of the age. I love the passage in Joshua 1. Joshua is taking over for Moses””who wouldn”t be afraid of that? In verse 5 God says, “As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

One of the great encouraging passages for me is 1 Kings 19. The prophets of Baal had been put to death, the rain had fallen, Elijah”s running for his life from Jezebel, and God told him, “You are not alone, there are 7,000 men in Israel who have not bowed the knee to Baal.”

In Hebrews 4 we”re told that Jesus is our great high priest and he understands all of our struggles because he”s been through them and can sympathize with them. God has not only surrounded me with a high priest who has been there and done that, but he has surrounded me with people who are of like mind and like heart and I need to open my mind and heart that God”s promise is real. Because of that, I can”t let the past dictate the future. I can”t allow bad experiences or a compromised promise or a slap across the nose to form my opinion about tomorrow. God is true, he is right, he is good, and he will, in his grace, lead me forward.

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Brad Dupray is senior vice president, ministry development, with Church Development Fund, Irvine, California.