Clergy Wellbeing Down Under

Leadership in Mission with Harry Hoffmann - Global Member Care Network

• Valerie Ling • Season 1 • Episode 15

Share episode

As our season draws to a close, I began to contemplate leadership in a wider context, beyond just Australia and parish settings, I was drawn to explore international issues of leadership in gospel work. 

Dive into the complexities of cross-cultural ministry with our guest, Harry Hoffman, a prominent figure in the Missions Member Care Network. With over two decades of experience in cross-cultural ministry and navigating the profound emotional impact of arrests, interrogation, and personal loss, Harry provides a unique insight into stress management, vulnerability, and resilience in ministry and mission.

Harry elucidates these nuances and underscores the pivotal role of self-awareness, introspection, and the place of scripture and personal beliefs on individual growth. We delve deep into the intricate relationship between emotions and decision-making, addressing the multifaceted leadership approaches essential for guiding cross-cultural teams and understanding diverse spiritual perspectives.

Our exploration further encompasses effective strategies to avert burnout in cross-cultural settings, touching on the significance of peer responsibility. The dialogue transitions to understanding the various dimensions of conflict and the therapeutic value of sharing one's struggles. Join us for a comprehensive episode that seeks to inform, inspire, and navigate the intricate facets of clergy well-being, cross-cultural ministry, international gospel work leadership dynamics, and more.

Download my research report and reflections

Watch the video version of this podcast

Complete a Clergy Wellbeing Quiz here

Send us a text

Podcast Disclaimer:

Please be aware that the opinions and viewpoints shared on this podcast are personal to me and my guests, and do not represent the stance of any institution. This podcast aims to present findings for open discussion and dialogue, inviting listeners to engage critically and draw their own conclusions. While the content serves informational purposes, it is not a substitute for professional advice. Thank you for joining me on this journey of exploration and conversation!

Valerie Ling:

Hey, it's Valerie Ling. I'm a clinical psychologist and I'm your host for the clergy well-being Down Under podcast. I'm looking forward to interviewing an expert today to take you through my findings from my research where I asked 200 pastors down under how they were doing. Don't forget to subscribe, like and share. Buckle up and here we go. Welcome everybody. It's Valerie Ling here again and I have the great pleasure of having a conversation with Harry Hoffman. Harry has an incredible story and I'm really interested to get his views and his perspectives of what we're seeing in the clergy leadership and well-being space down under. Harry, you've done a lot in your life. Could you just tell us your current role, Like, who is Harry and what is Harry doing?

Harry Hoffman:

Harry has been living. Harry is from Germany and my mid-fifties. I lived in China for 23 years and over the last well always been involved in counseling and missionary care, member care work. First in Thailand, I started the Well Member Care Center in Northern Thailand I and later started several centers, actually three centers in China one counseling and training center, one counseling for youth and teenagers center and then another center in another province, more sensitive area, where we also did therapy and training. All together I had. Maximum number of people I had was 30 staff and, yeah, I was forced to leave the country then at one point.

Harry Hoffman:

And but actually on a global level, I'm the leader of the global member care network. Member care meaning missionary care network. That is a network under the World Evangelical Alliance Mission Commission and we combine member care missionary care practitioners. About 6,000 people are in my network and we exchange information. It's not just therapists but people who work with third culture, kids, people who work in preparation of missionaries, training of missionaries, the whole flow of care, as we call it, from recruitment to on field and then to retirement. So you have the whole missionary biography there, and some of them are clergy and others are just lay missionaries.

Valerie Ling:

Thanks, harry, and you do. You have quite a lot of entrepreneurial activities in the online world at the moment as well.

Harry Hoffman:

Yeah, it started during the COVID, when the lockdown happened, maybe March 2020,. All of a sudden I was out of job and I thought, okay, what do I do with my life? And then I thought I start recording video trainings on YouTube, different formats like a 20 day and a 30 day course. I did with daily videos and I had thousands of subscribers. Since then. I produced I don't know 700 videos altogether many courses on foundations of member care, on business as mission as well. What else? Furlough devotions is coming out soon and I think next month. Furlough devotions it's a 20 day devotional for cross-cultural workers. On furlough fundraising, different topics that relate to cross-cultural workers.

Valerie Ling:

Most excellent, harry. Do you get this? A lot people say how do you do all of that? How on earth do you produce all of that, harry?

Harry Hoffman:

When I operate in a stress zone that fits me. So I don't like to be bored, but also not be overwhelmed with work, and I actually enjoy working, I enjoy output. So I find my own balance there of having an exciting, challenging life with challenges, with tasks, and at the same time also have leisure time, and that works really well for me and I adjust my workload accordingly. So that's the advantage of being a self led entrepreneur. I don't work under a boss necessarily who tells me every day what to do, but I can adjust my time. So some weeks I work I don't know I work 80 hours, and other weeks I work 10 hours, and that works really well for me.

Valerie Ling:

Harry, you've had quite a lot of stress in your life. You've had trauma as well. What have been some of the most significant events that you can comfortably share with us?

Harry Hoffman:

Wow, that is the most easy really to talk about is the arrest. I was arrested in China by the Chinese police. There was actually twice in my 23 years once in 1997, which was more easier. They also did a house search, found Bibles in our house, which was not allowed. We were reaching out to orphaned children with a gospel, like children's stories, singing songs, and they didn't like this. But this arrest was sort of easy, although at that time we worked in an orphanage and lived in an orphanage.

Harry Hoffman:

At that time I had two young children, age one to three years old, married, young family, young in cross-cultural work and missions, young in leadership. I spoke Chinese at that time, so I was immediately lifted into leadership. So that was high stress Maybe not traumatic, but it was definitely high stress to dealing. It's like you cannot swim. You jump into a pond of cold water and you paddle. You start to figure things out. That was hard, plus the police and the security.

Harry Hoffman:

Now I was arrested again in 2018, which was a very different game, much more professional approach by the Chinese CIA. So I was interrogated for 40 hours. Two of my kids were there as well. They were arrested with me. That was quite challenging.

Harry Hoffman:

Now, as a result, I lost pretty much everything my home, my ministry. My ministry was registered as a business, so I lost my business, I lost my staff, so a home that was home for 30 years I lost, which was quite hard. On a personal level, I was married for almost 30 years when my wife decided to look for other greener grass so let's put it that way and left us. So I'm divorced. That was after a long time of doing ministry, of living together, doing ministry together, and also embarrassing and shameful, because as a missionary you are sort of clergy like pastors, you're sort of the poster child of Christianity. And then you have to become real and say, well, I'm not your poster child, I'm weak, I'm vulnerable, I have flaws and I need to learn. And there are consequences that are visible. For many of us the consequences are not visible, they happen behind closed doors, but a divorce is of a person who is sort of a public person in a certain subculture of Christianity is tough.

Valerie Ling:

When Josh and I met you last, you were sharing your journey of walking through that pain and processing it, and you really showed us how you had to go through a journey of really making connections within yourself. Are you naturally a reflective person, harry?

Harry Hoffman:

Yeah, I would say yes, I was always from child, from teenage years on, always reflective, thinking about the reason of life, integrating emotions with mental processes, physical processes. I enjoy sort of philosophical thinking, questioning things, and yeah, I think that really helped me to. And what also helped me was that I'm working with psychologists. I'm not a psychologist myself, but working in member care and in counseling. You have the benefit of sitting in classes and getting to know one of the most outstanding counselors in the field psychiatrists. Also, you mentioned that you specialize in EMDR.

Harry Hoffman:

I remember in the early days there was a seminar when was that? Early 2000s? A seminar by a psychiatrist on the neurotransmitters after trauma, how the brain changes, how the physiological situation of the body changes after a trauma. In particular, we had the Afghanistan 9-11, well, first 9-11 in New York and then the Afghanistan Taliban coming into Afghanistan in the 2000s, and then there was a terrorist attack in Pakistan at an international school and all these people who were working in Pakistan-Afghanistan came to my counseling center.

Harry Hoffman:

Well, not everyone, but many going through trainings and getting informed about. Yeah, we've been through traumatizing events and yeah, this particular psychiatrist was talking about symptoms, normalizing symptoms like this one child had bedwetting in his 15 years, 14 years old, and all of a sudden he starts peeing in his bed at night and he can't control. He feels embarrassed, yeah. And so all I'm saying is I was sitting in class as well and just learning and consuming all the knowledge and information I was able to get and realizing, yeah, there is much more to life than just sharing the gospel and living like a robot. There is a lot of reflection that is happening in me and I actually enjoy that.

Valerie Ling:

So when these hard things have happened in your life and you're moving from stress to trauma to profound loss just in what you said for the main events in your life and there's a lot of loss in there as well Do you think that someone can go through those things by themselves, not have any assistance or counseling or therapy, and come out in the other end okay?

Harry Hoffman:

Yeah, there are these great movies right now on Netflix the Extraction, I think it's called. It's like the Rambo kind of style, a hero. In the 80s we had Rambo, sylvester Stallone, and we still have those movies where the one guy who saves the world is highlighted. Guys, this doesn't work. This doesn't work. You need help, what I then did. Well, after my separation, I was then a single parent for a while In China. I realized I need help and then I was looking for support groups, for a trauma support group that was online. In China you don't have these groups where you can go to once or twice a week. I was looking for those online. The trauma or PTSD group was in English online. And then I had a relationship partnership, relationship support group or for broken relationships in Germany that was in German and that was very, very helpful, especially as I was in China having no access to people. And then, after the arrest, I realized I actually need more, more help, more support, and then I was choosing a few people.

Harry Hoffman:

You have different kind of responses from the community. Many people are curious why did these things happen? Do you have sin in your life, especially in our Christian evangelical context? You often deal not with a God of grace, but with a God of reward and punishment and people. If people observe you getting punished, like you go through hard times, oh there must be a reason for why God leads you through this. So they are curious and other responses are just they want facts like why did that happen? And only a minor percentage of responses go towards how are you doing? I mean, that's why we have psychologists, so that's why there is you, valerie and your team. Yeah, to just ask these questions like how are you doing and how can you improve your well-being? And, yeah, go ahead.

Valerie Ling:

It's interesting that as a psychologist, we really are taught and we believe that insight is really important for recovery. If someone doesn't grow insight or have insight, it's actually very hard to progress recovery. In my research and in some of the other research that looks at pastors in Australia, it seems to suggest that pastors would say that they are reflective, but they are not necessarily using their reflection to gain insight or awareness. Does that surprise you?

Harry Hoffman:

Not doesn't really surprise me. No, pastors also missionaries are used to giving, so information you consummate, you package it for the next sermon. You are in the helping business, in the helping ministry, just like medical doctors or nurses the healthcare fields. You are always giving and not really used to reflections. That has to be learned really. In small groups, where the pastor has no responsibilities, like the peer support really, and the groups I was in the online groups, I was nobody. I even used the fake name so people don't even recognize who I am, and that was really helpful to be also challenged and ask questions. In order to really work on myself. I also bought books. This one book that's a German book the child in me needs to find a home, or something like this and it was about the shadow child and the sunny child and it was actually a workbook and it works and that was really amazingly helpful in this phase.

Harry Hoffman:

So, confronting myself with my inner beliefs, the negative beliefs, really I'm not worthy.

Harry Hoffman:

I'm only worthy if I perform, or I'm only lovable if I do certain things influenced from parents and from other people, especially during those crisis events, they were like a how do you call this in English? A Damocles sort like a sort almost like a curse over my life, my wrong beliefs, and I suffered under those those wrong beliefs going through my mind Well, I'm not a person who gets depressed necessarily, but like downcast, my soul is downcast more like this and I needed to get rid of those. I've really felt like this is not from God, but they have manifested themselves so strongly in my mind. And yeah, and then I worked with this book, reflecting on myself, and then I ended with the sunny child, so like what does the Bible say? Well, the book wasn't Christian but I applied it then what does the Bible say about me and what do I want to believe about me? And yeah, and so slowly worked. I think I used this book for about six months, really reflecting and working on myself.

Valerie Ling:

Harry, couldn't we fast forward that process? If we, just if we read the Bible and read those truths, his grace is sufficient for me. Couldn't we fast forward that? Why do we need to go through all of that reflection and inner work? Why not just read the Bible and arrive at those conclusions?

Harry Hoffman:

Believe and everything is great. What does it say? I think it's Romans five Suffering leads to perseverance, endurance, endurance leads to character development, character development leads to hope, and it's a process and you look through many of the biographies in the Bible, like the story of Joseph and the Old Testament, you have all the process. You have high vision, high hope and, yeah, the reality is not really a faith and everything will be great. The reality is that, well, life and God allows that as well leads us through challenging times and actually in our counseling training in China, we chose people Like we had only a limited number of spots and then we chose people who went through their life crisis already.

Harry Hoffman:

I sort of believe that everybody goes through crisis in their lives and then a good counselor is someone who is aware of their life crisis and has, to a certain extent, worked through that. So don't feel like I'm a poor victim and everybody is bad and I'm good, but sort of has grown through that to a certain extent. And that was part of our interview, of interviewing candidates for our counseling training, and it worked out really well because they had something to talk about and there was a level of authenticity and transparency about their inner life. Yeah, and that was very helpful. So you can't fast forward to answer your question.

Valerie Ling:

I was once asked at a conference, Harry, if I could teach self-awareness in 30 minutes.

Harry Hoffman:

Okay.

Valerie Ling:

I haven't found the solution to that.

Harry Hoffman:

I did that once with sort of sculpturing and that was also in China. I asked people to make a face like a physical expression of joy and that was actually helpful in them being self-aware and interpersonally paired them up, and there was one person did the self-expression of joy with their body and face and the other one had to copy that and comment on that and obviously then the other emotions sadness, fear, anger, and as people express that physically with a tense body posture yeah, you get a good feel of, or they get a good feel of, self-awareness and how that applies to their life.

Valerie Ling:

I think it's interesting that you talked about actually getting people to experience emotion. In Australia, in our client group with pastors Passes very often aren't aware of their emotions, nor can they describe it. In fact, I would say that we would see a kind of a suspicion about bringing emotion into making sense of our decisions or what we're doing. I'm curious, being part of global member care and being a part of the global mission scene when it comes to Christian leadership, I mean, what are some of the challenges that you're seeing for leaders in ministry with regards to stress or burnout or conflict? What are you seeing happening?

Harry Hoffman:

Well, I'm part of the global mission community and that, again, is quite unique and different to people who are stationed in one location. The mobility of that community is pretty high. People move to different countries, different contexts, cultures, languages. Some do that as singles and you have that also in your research the differentiation between singles and couples and families. It was just that a birthday party of a 40 year old woman who is a missionary and a single woman 40, very different processes there in a foreign nation than a family, for example. So you have singleness, families moving. You have issues of kids, kids education, language, cultural identity. The kids change their identity.

Harry Hoffman:

I have three daughters they are married to. Like three daughters from Germany are married to an American, a guy from Zimbabwe and a guy from the Netherlands. So none of them gets married to a German. So these are the consequences and therefore also the stressors. People are aware of the changes and the consequences of an international lifestyle. That adds to the stressors, which are different than an add-on to the normal stressors of an occupation, really. So the stressors are educational needs, interpersonal needs, interpersonal challenges, conflicts, cross-cultural challenges. And you mentioned emotions working in different cultures you have very different kinds of the disclosing of emotions. Some are really clearly expressed, like Argentine, argentina they express this very directly, very clearly Germans as well. While a Thailand culture is, there is always the smile and you have to read behind the smile to figure out what the emotion there is, if you choose to do that or if there is a need to do that. So yeah, so this is quite challenging.

Valerie Ling:

So you have a course or you've put out some material on leadership. So how do you? What are the broad principles then that someone in mission can apply in leadership, with all of those differences?

Harry Hoffman:

The course on leadership is, first of all, a series of different inputs. I discovered that people lose their calling when they it's a bit like the Joseph story in the Old Testament, like the dreamer goes out and then realizes he ends up in Potiphar's house Potiphar's house as a slave and serving somebody else not his own vision, not God, but working as a slave. Then he ends up in prison and only in the end of his life he actually sees his calling being realized, his dreams being realized. And part one of this leadership course is how do you actually Like it's called focused leader? How do you actually stay on course? How do you like write this down? What are the elements of your life that help you to stay on track? Or we call this true north, or stay like your compass is set, because most of the cross-cultural workers missionaries. They start this with a very clear word from God prayer, high motivation. God told me to reach a certain people group or to serve the orphans in, I don't know, in Ethiopia or somewhere. And then they go there and after two or three years they lose their high stress. The effects of the high stress is they lose their calling, they don't know why they are there they lose their God relationship and they feel disappointed by God and, yeah, and losing faith, etc. So there are strains on the spiritual life and the first course then is about how do you stay on track?

Harry Hoffman:

And then I realized there are others who well, in cross-cultural work, you easily end up in leadership very quickly. People have no idea how to lead, especially a cross-cultural team. And staying in your own country, in your own context. Maybe you see examples here and there where you can find orientation, people who are a step ahead of you. But in cross-cultural ministry, well, I have a 25-year-old leading a team of 10 people, different ages, different nationalities. They don't know what they are doing, and so this course, then, will help people on how to lead. Like small group leadership, these guys then have books by Steve Jobs in their shelf or the Amazon Jeff Bezos. That's not helpful. That's like a multinational cooperation with 50,000 staff. It doesn't help a person who leads a group of 10 international, intergenerational people.

Harry Hoffman:

So, well, it's a different style of leadership. Well, what we learned through the Apple person is Steve Jobs is more a visionary, is more the innovative, the confrontative leadership style, very professional stage performance and very convinced. He's also a marketing guy, steve Jobs, so very convinced about his products and a very, very good communicator In cross-cultural teams of 10 people. You need to. Many cultures are high-context cultures, which means you need relationships. Well, as a leader, you don't stand on stage and market your product.

Harry Hoffman:

As a leader, you have meals. You share about your life story, you share about even emotions to a culturally appropriate extent. You introduce your family, you go on an outing, you go to church together and then you work together. So, as a German, I'm low-context. I don't need that. I work first and then, if we have time, we go for a meal. Most cultures around the world are high-context. They first need the meal, then, during the meal, they decide if they want to work with you or not. So very different approaches. If you're a new leader to a team, you also need to balance between generations. You have high generations and nations If you work with a 50-year-old Korean and you are a 20-year-old German leader it has to be a certain honor and respect towards the 50-year-old Korean.

Harry Hoffman:

You need to be aware of how that works. How do you get the 50-year-old Korean to do what you want him to do? Many challenges are very diverse. Then you have servant leadership, biblical leadership models. How much do you serve? How much do you actually give direction? It's a challenge that creates stress and frustration and anger. How do you express anger in a cross-cultural team? What is good anger? What is bad anger?

Valerie Ling:

A lot of what you said can apply to a typical church in Sydney. First of all, even the Australian research on pastors would say that the call in conviction language is. We don't all agree on that, but certainly a sense of a conviction to serve the Lord is so important. Without that, and if your spiritual life is impacted as a minister, that's the number one thing that's probably going to bring you down Profound spiritual discouragement and feeling lost in the wilderness. Secondly, I think what you were saying about it being intergenerational as well as cross-cultural Sydney has now become very cross-cultural. I think we don't really understand the different generations either in our churches.

Valerie Ling:

I think everything that you've just said is very interesting, because I myself have this question for myself, in that, as a leader of psychologists, who are mainly women, I can't do Steve Jobs. I think they'll all leave. You can't be high-tech, you've got to be high-touch, and so I myself, in my own context, really understand that I've got to lead in a different way from what I read in the books, and there's a lot of books that you can read about that.

Harry Hoffman:

In addition to that I mean there are so many levels here the spiritual development of people, like they lose faith, and I have this sort of model of five stages of spiritual development, the warrior style Some people are in that and they operate in that. Everything is spiritual war, spiritual mapping. We have to fight the enemy we are, and there is the God described in scripture as well as the Lord of the war, Like he is leading the army. And then you have to adjust as a leader and also as a team member. You have to adjust to members who are focused or primarily operate in this kind of mindset. Then you have the right and wrong people, the sin and well truth, kind of dichotomy, or the dualistic sort of thinking where we'll just do the right things right and leave the wrong things, and then God will bless you. Then you have the running the race and finish the race first. Then you get the reward, the poor line, theology, people who are always optimizing themselves, always improving what else to have. Then you have the counselor, the father of God, kind of people who are oh, let's all counsel each other and let's look into the emotions for that. For some they don't know you mentioned that before. They don't know how to do that, they don't even want to do that, they refuse to do that. Why should I look into my emotions? Let's just get on with the work. But many like this, the touchy kind of the community, the consensus seeking. There's also a leadership application there, where you don't lead by decision making but by consensus and not just democratic, where you have 51%. Some international teams, the leadership team they have to have 100%, Otherwise they don't do it in that decision making. Then you have the.

Harry Hoffman:

I think the last one is sort of the networking people who operate on a global scale and they look for other resources. So the lead by the Holy Spirit maybe that's a good description. Or the Gospel of John talks about he's in me and I'm in him as he is in us. I can't quote that right now, but as the father is in me, Jesus says I am in you and you are in the father. I think something like this. So there is a networking kind of yeah, and so what I'm saying is that people so you have generations, then you have economical background or society segment backgrounds, the educational backgrounds, you have gender and you have spiritual phases. People are in and operating in cultures, languages and cross-cultural work. Maybe it's in Sydney the same way. You have different languages as well, and people can't communicate with each other.

Valerie Ling:

So how do we fix this? This sounds awfully complicated. How does one actually, therefore, develop to lead in such a complicated setting?

Harry Hoffman:

Well, that's a good question. You don't need to get married to all of them. So project related is really. Yeah, have some tasks, define tasks and work on those tasks together and have conversations. How do we do this? What do people actually need to feel part of the team to accomplish these tasks? It's challenging, but it's not a marriage. It's a ministry team usually and they have to learn how to work together, how to minister together in all of these areas.

Valerie Ling:

I'd love to understand and hear your thoughts about burnout in ministry. Do you think it's a thing? Does it exist?

Harry Hoffman:

Well, we have to define burnout first. Burnout the term is really, it's the end of the engine. The engine explodes and the car doesn't move anymore. So there is a stress, there is a traffic light, there is a green stress, there is a yellow stress and a red stress, and it goes both ways. People work too much, but also people working too little or being challenged in their lives too little.

Harry Hoffman:

You have that in cross-cultural ministry too like a 40-year-old manager ends up back home, ends up as a language student in China, feels underwhelmed, under, challenged, under what do I do with my life? So that's high stress, and then they burn out. I had a guy whose wife was really Leha, really strong and active, and he felt like I'm in the shadow of my wife and I have nothing to do, I have nothing to show off. I feel underwhelmed. So they move then into the negative stress, so to speak. That can also lead to burnout. If your car stands in the garage too long, it doesn't start anymore either. So you have those elements. And then you have the high performance, high stress. Where the battery is has. No, you always need enough battery for crisis cause in cross-cultural ministry, you will always have crisis. Your visa doesn't come through, there's a sickness, you need a doctor that is not available, et cetera, et cetera. You always need buffer, kind of reserves, and so the term burnout then means if we use the phone, then the phone dies, then there is no more connection. So if your phone goes into red, you gotta do something about it. That's definitely a problem. How to prevent that is probably the question.

Harry Hoffman:

Oof there are well, there are different responsibilities there. There's an individual responsibility. There is a peer responsibility and also, within organizations, a leadership responsibility that leaders, if you're part of a organizational structure, should do an assessment ever so often, maybe once a year. They can do this in-house or hire somebody like you to do that with them. There are good assessments out there that gauge the. It's like your blood work, like I do my. I check my blood work once a year and then I can compare this to the last years. So you do the same test every year. You sort of see where you are at in your stress level and you differentiate different areas of life personal, occupational, psychological, trauma, I don't know peer, family, marriage, et cetera, different areas and then you can gauge that a bit.

Valerie Ling:

What's the peer responsibility, harry? So you said the individual, and I think I can understand that. That's you working on your care practices and making sure that you've got energy in your tank. And then you talked about the organizational responsibility. But what's the peer responsibility? What's that?

Harry Hoffman:

I think the Bible talks 50 times or 100 times about the one and others. So the Bible is really peer focused serve one another, care for one another, challenge one another, love one another, carry one another's burdens. So if you see me stressed, then if you see your brother and sister stressed, you've got to do something about this. Just making them work harder and more is missing. The point is actually missing scripture.

Harry Hoffman:

So to carry one another's burdens, if I see someone cry, I need to be the Emmanuel. God is with us for them, not just trust God, that God will be there, but also be the Emmanuel in flesh and blood for that person. So there is a peer responsibility that we need to learn in the body of Christ and mission in the church, et cetera, where it's not always what you see is what you get, like I look happy but you have no idea how I am doing inside. So, but as peer, as friends, friends and family, small groups in church, it's not just about spiritual growth and gaining knowledge. It's about carrying one another's burdens to fulfill the law of Christ, and that's so, so key to learn that. And we learn that by learning how to connect, learning how to talk about emotions, learning how to listen to each other and summarizing what we're hearing.

Valerie Ling:

I often find that when I'm interacting with Christian community that there can be a suspicion to that process of supporting one another. It's almost like then we're just becoming lazy, whinging, complaining people, so it's best that we just get on with it. Toughen up. After all, Hudson Taylor, Billy Graham did you ever hear them whinge? Well, I don't know, maybe they did. To know, that tends to be the kind of, sometimes, I think, what we think when we hear our people in ministry say we're struggling.

Harry Hoffman:

Yeah, like let's not put them in cotton wool. Cotton wool is the word. Yeah, put them in cotton wool. Yeah, you have Hudson Taylor, who had problems if you read the biographies well, and William Carey. Anyway, His wife was psychosis or was depressed or something and he's the hero of modern missions, but his personal life was really challenged and I think there was a biography about his wife that came out recently by William Carey Library to also highlight that part. So it's so important to highlight. There was another book, I think, Open Doors.

Harry Hoffman:

I forgot the author who wrote about the stories untold. I think it's called the stories. These are the stories, not the hero stories, but people who were part of the hero story but who suffered under these hero stories, and those stories need to be told. Like a Chinese pastor's wife, husband went to prison, was pronounced dead in prison and she survived like she wasn't put in prison and she grieved for a few years, then got remarried and then one day she presumed her husband was dead but he actually wasn't dead. 10 years later he showed up at her door and she was buried again and there was so much shame and guilt that she killed herself. So stories untold yeah, these are real stories we have to face.

Harry Hoffman:

There's nothing. I mean you can't do this too much to be, but I don't think missionaries have that problem. They are full of vision, usually an energy that they want to. They go out to achieve something. And a bit of support doesn't help. A bit of one another doesn't not, doesn't help. A bit of support doesn't harm. A bit of one another doesn't harm. In the contrary, it actually helps people to stay healthy.

Valerie Ling:

One of the things that Josh and I really enjoyed about your time with us in the conference that we met you was your model of conflict. I don't have the visual here, but it was this, this analysis, if you like, of levels of conflict, and in the research that I conducted it was sad to see that the levels of conflict experienced by our pastors at the level of, you know, physical, sexual assault, gossip and slander, feeling bullied, filling tears. You know really personal, personal levels of conflict and I get the impression when I'm out and about in you know, church dumb, that we just think that conflict is conflict. You know there'll always be conflict in church, that's normal, right, and that's all. That should not lead to things like trauma. What's you know what's the big deal? What are your thoughts on that, harry?

Harry Hoffman:

Yes, we usually, when we talk about conflict in the church, we talk about this, matthew 15 or so go to the person yourself. Then, like, if somebody has sinned against you, it says then go to the person. If that person doesn't listen, take someone. And if that person still doesn't listen, then take him to the eldership, something like this. And I feel like conflict is much more complex and progressive, gradually progressive.

Harry Hoffman:

Then it's not sinning against me. It starts with tension. Yeah, maybe a small disagreement and tension, and you swallow it down. Yeah, I can do this. And and maybe next time I slam the door, you know, to just tell you that, like non verbally, tell you that I actually disagree with you, or I change my face or so. And these are like they're out there. The first there is a nine step model. The first three steps. They say that you can actually solve this yourself through self reflection. And maybe, yeah, maybe, talk to the person. Hey, I misunderstood you, or what did you mean by saying that I was part of a coalition, actually initiated a coalition against another person who had his own coalition, and that was sort of the middle, the three, the 456 levels of conflict.

Harry Hoffman:

This is when you publicly blame someone, you make the other person lose face, you blame yeah, he's a bad person, he's not trustworthy, and you don't think that. So you don't talk about that in a small group, you make that public, and yeah. And then the last three is really when it's too late, when it's called together into the abyss, when you, when you, when you strike, destructive your offenses against the other person, you want to, you want this other person to leave, to not be there anymore, and in the end is, even if it kills me, as long as you are dead, that we are happy. Sort of these, these kind of these kind of levels and yeah, and, and each of these nine levels can, can, can have a different approach on how to confront. So it's not just forgiving and forgetting and pull the log out of your eyes before you. Yeah, it's much more difficult, much more diverse than what we ensure. We can use scriptures with all those nine levels, but but we don't usually use them. We put them on into one box, as you say, and then this should fix. It doesn't work that way.

Harry Hoffman:

How does the church level impact missions? Well, overall, there is a loss of trust in leadership. Definitely. There's a reality check that high level. Leaders are not the superman, super women of this, but we want to make them to that. We people need heroes. We have the Marvel movies. People need heroes and they make pastors and Christian leaders to heroes. They stand in public and they give orientation to many who feel like they are less than those heroes, public people and if they fall, the consequences of that fall is not just on a on a local level. I mean the news that hit your, your news stations, also hit the international news stations and has a consequence, so they people fall off the pedestal, so to speak.

Valerie Ling:

So, harry, the last word from you. If there is a pastor who's listening to us and they are discouraged, hurt and wounded in the battle, what would you want to say to them?

Harry Hoffman:

I've talked to someone. Find someone. Talk to someone. The first person you talk to might not give you the right feel. Find someone else. Choose 10 people you want to talk to and and be intentional about opening up and, as you do this, learn what you actually need. Maybe, as I say, maybe the first person you talk to gives you the wrong answers or something you don't want to hear. Learn from that, try again and then tell the next person I don't want to hear this, give me another answer. And so teach your your opposite, what you kind of need from them. And by the 10th person you will add 100%. Sure, you have 10 people you talk to.

Harry Hoffman:

One person out of that, 10 gives you what you actually need level of empathy, understanding, level of yeah, of connection that you need to feel relaxed to share about your life. And then the one another's can help. Doesn't need to be a psychologist or counselor, can just be a friend, maybe spouse, someone where. But we got to talk about our stuffs. We got to find space to unload some of our burdens, not just talk about football and the last holiday and the weather, but actually go deeper in our hearts how, how life has changed us, how, how circumstances have changed our image of God, our calling, our sense of identity, our sense of love. Also, many don't feel loved anymore, etc. So that's find someone. Find someone that's really so important.

Valerie Ling:

Oh, harry, thank you so much. I mean right there, I think was an ebook. We've got lots of really rich resources and links. So I'll be sure that when this actually heads out into the, into the world, we put your links in there. But thanks so much for spending time with me, harry.

Harry Hoffman:

Thank you for having me Real pleasure.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Valerie Ling

Host