Clergy Wellbeing Down Under

A Conversation with Christopher Ash Author Zeal Without Burnout

• Valerie Ling • Season 1 • Episode 18

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What a joy and privilege to finish our very first season of the podcast with  Christopher Ash -  author of Zeal Without Burnout and The Book Your Pastor Wishes You Would Read But Is Too Embarrassed To Ask. Christopher shares his own journey through burnout and what led to his publications in this area.

Christopher shares his personal pearls of wisdom for pastors: the importance of grounding motivation in the promises of the Lord rather than worldly metrics of success, combatting loneliness with long-term friendships, and cultivating a nourishing relationship with God. So join us, and gain a deeper understanding of the highs and lows of pastoral life and the resilience, faith, and grace required to navigate them.

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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 to another episode of the clergy well-being Down Under podcast. I'm so privileged to have Christopher Ash with me. Many of you will know him from his book Zeal Without Burnout. He's written a number of books. There is another book which I'm a huge fan of. It's called the Book your Pastor Wishes you Would Read. That is too embarrassed to ask. Welcome, Christopher, so lovely to see you.

Christopher Ash:

Thank you very much, Valerie. It's a privilege for me to be with you.

Valerie Ling:

Christopher, I'm very interested in the story behind the book. You wrote this probably in 2015?.

Christopher Ash:

Yes.

Valerie Ling:

That be right, yes.

Christopher Ash:

Yes, yes.

Valerie Ling:

What prompted that book?

Christopher Ash:

Well, the back story is I think I'm probably quite a fragile personality. When I was an assistant minister in Cambridge, I was asked to lead a church plant to a neighboring village and I did so and I God was very kind to us, but I struggled especially with loneliness, having been in a city centre church as part of a significant staff team, and I can remember one day I just hit the wall and thought I can't face another meeting and my lay leadership in the church were wonderfully supportive and I took a month in which I did Sundays but nothing else, and in God's kindness, that restored me. But that was probably a warning sign. And then in 2012, ironically after a very busy ministry visit to Australia where you guys do work your visiting speakers very hard and I flew back in, I think, late August or early September, looking forward to a sabbatical. And, again ironically, during that sabbatical, there were all sorts of reasons I really crashed and it was a dark time. I was also writing a commentary on the book of Job, which had a strange appropriateness in the circumstances, but it was a very dark time and there were a number of factors fed into it. My elderly parents were beginning to fail and the care for them was becoming increasingly onerous. Yes, there were a number of family things that were difficult, but for one reason or another I really crashed and God gave me a measure of restoration.

Christopher Ash:

I went back to work after the sabbatical and then in 2014, I was speaking for Alastair Begg at his pastors conference called the Basics in Ohio, and as part of being one of the speaking team, I was asked if I would do a seminar for pastors on anything I liked, and I thought this question of struggling with burnout is very live for me.

Christopher Ash:

So I jotted some things down on the back of an envelope and did this seminar. I had no idea whether the American pastors what they made of it really, but then, the internet being what it is, I began to get messages from people different parts of the world very appreciative for it, because they'd seen the podcast from it. So I pitched it to one or two publishers and the Good Book Company picked it up and it was published as Zeal Without Burnout and strangely, god seems to be using it to encourage different people. So it's a back story with considerable dark times, and it's probably fair to say that I've never fully recovered. I'm not sure you do fully recover from that sort of crash. I mean, I'm functioning, I'm writing, I'm preaching, I'm physically healthy, but I think my wife would tell you that I'm emotionally more fragile than I was before those days.

Valerie Ling:

Christopher, might I ask you what does that mean, when you say that you never fully recovered?

Christopher Ash:

It's hard to distinguish what is simply getting older and gradually lowering energy levels that come with being in 60s well, in 60s, rather than ones 40s or 50s. But I think I'm emotionally more fragile. I've always been an up and down sort of personality A doctor once called it cyclothymic, which I think means up and down, but not bipolar, and I think probably the downs have been stronger since then and I'm more prone to low mood, what earlier generations would have called melancholic, probably, and I'm probably just more prone to be knocked by discouragements than I once was, just less robust. It may not be a bad thing.

Valerie Ling:

And in the midst of those dark times when you're experiencing it, were you aware? Did it creep up on you? Did it come upon you all of a sudden? What was your experience?

Christopher Ash:

It was fairly sudden. It wasn't as sudden as I think Peter Adam when he described his breakdown, which was really catastrophic. From his descriptions and he's been a great help to me and a kind older friend it was fairly sudden. It was in the matter of probably two or three weeks.

Valerie Ling:

And, christopher, do you think there might have been some patterns that pre-existed even before your ministry life?

Christopher Ash:

Yes, I think quite likely. I think that the way God shapes us in our upbringing and experiences all manner of things, I sometimes think as a pastor I struggle to understand other people and I certainly struggle to understand myself, but I'm sure there were patterns. This may be relevant to your work. I come from a family of high achievers. I have a brother. He's not a believer but he's a very, very high achiever, a very distinguished intellectual and writer, and both my grandparents were high achievers and so all through my childhood achieving I wasn't pushed. My parents were very good at not pushing me, but that was what was in front of me as a sort of ideal in life to achieve something with the talents you have. And I guess my view is it's not entirely a bad thing. But like so many things in life, it can get out of proportion and become a disordered thing.

Valerie Ling:

And how would you say that related to your experience then of when you actually went through that period of burnout?

Christopher Ash:

It may be linked with the fact that it came during a not very well planned sabbatical period of study leave which, for various reasons, partly outside my control, had become much less refreshing time. But it is partly the sense of waking up in the morning and thinking I'm not sure what I should be doing, having had a very clear sense of what I was doing before I was on study leave. It was very clear I was in a busy ministry position.

Christopher Ash:

And then you wake up in the morning and think, well, I'm not sure what I should be doing, and it's maybe not uncommon to feel a bit lost with that, but I certainly felt quite lost.

Valerie Ling:

So one of the things that I found in my survey of the ministers who completed it is that one of the top reasons for wanting to leave the ministry is loneliness.

Christopher Ash:

Yes, it's a strange thing, isn't it? I mean it's a stereotype that men are worse at friendship than women, but there's something in it. In my experience and I'm certainly not been very good at friendship I found I mean, long before this happened I've had the practice, most of the time really, of meeting with two other men week by week to pray, just to pray for one another. And I do that now with two friends at Tyndale House where I work, and I find that a huge encouragement. I think when I hit my I suppose you'd call it a breakdown I wasn't at that stage doing that- Okay.

Christopher Ash:

Not for any particular intentional reason, but it had just dropped off the horizon and I restarted it and that was a huge encouragement. There's a great loneliness in ministry, especially, I think, for senior pastors or senior ministers. Nothing prepares you for the responsibility under God for the lives of those placed in your care, and even if you've been an assistant minister in a large church, nothing prepares you for that sense of what in traditional Anglican terms is called the cure of souls. It's a tremendous responsibility and it makes demands of our walk with the Lord and our spiritual lives for which I suspect many of us are not very well prepared and could perhaps be better prepared. And I wonder if some of our Puritan forefathers were better prepared. They thought more about self-examination, they thought more about their hearts, they thought more about examining their motivations, and I wonder if we could do more of that.

Christopher Ash:

Particularly, I was just reflecting when thinking about speaking with you today, being a church leader at a time when in Australia or New Zealand or the United Kingdom or North America, broadly Western cultures the tide of our culture is running so strongly against us.

Christopher Ash:

And even in my lifetime I'm nearly 70, but I remember as a young Christian in my late teens and then 20s, people thought to be a Christian was a good thing. They would apologize to you for not being a Christian or for not being what they called a very good Christian. It was felt to be a good thing and therefore if you were a minister it was in some way an admirable thing, Whereas increasingly now it's very much the opposite. Of course, our brothers and sisters in the persecuted church have known this all through church history and it shouldn't surprise us, but it does, and particularly those who I mean in my context who serve in the national church, in the Church of England. Because you had a certain status, you belonged in society in some way and increasingly you really, really don't, and I think that makes real demands of our walk with the Lord.

Valerie Ling:

There is a level of suspicion, some of it rightly placed by society with some of the horrible mistakes that we have made as a church and as Christians. But it doesn't necessarily mean that when you pastor a church, that your congregants are generally trusting and accepting of you, is it?

Christopher Ash:

No, no, and I wonder if one of the things that feeds into pressure on ministers at the moment is what feels like an avalanche of scandals in different parts of the world ministry, church leadership scandals, different parts of the world, different kinds of churches, different denominations but it does feel. I remember writing down a list just of people I happened to know or know of, and it just went on and on and on, and maybe my perception is skewed, Maybe it's always been like this, but it doesn't feel like that and it's demoralizing.

Valerie Ling:

Oh yes.

Christopher Ash:

Desperately demoralizing. Yes.

Valerie Ling:

Yes, I've often thought about how some of what we hear in our practice I call it it's about longings and belongings. There's a real longing. The human beings have a desire, a real longing to belong, and so you know, I'd love to come back to your point about some of the practices that perhaps we may have lost from investing our sense of belonging in the Lord and what competes with that. There used to be a sense, I think, that perhaps even within the church you could safely find a space for belonging, whereas these days we find that the responses that we're getting from our pastors, it's the fighting and the quarreling and the rejection and the shaming that is in the church that puts a grenade to that sense of here's where I can belong as a place, not just as a pastor, but this is my church. I think that's also very hard for pastors. You don't have a church that you can go to.

Christopher Ash:

Oh, I'm sure that's true, and it's not confined to any particular kind of church government. You find this in Episcopalian churches, you find it in Presbyterian churches, independent churches, all kinds of churches. You find this. It's a precious thing when a church is a kind of foretaste of the kingdom of heaven and when we really find it is a place of safety. But it's really hard when it isn't, and for pastors there's almost nothing that goes to the heart of a pastor more than a divided church, whether it's party spirit or bitterness or selfish rivalries. It's really hard but it's worth our thinking and I'm sure you think a lot about this how a pastor who is seeking to lead a church that is troubled can be encouraged in the Lord as they do that work.

Valerie Ling:

Which returns me to something you said, which is perhaps some of the practices of examining ourselves. I'd love to find out more about your thoughts about that. It's not something I know a lot about.

Christopher Ash:

It's not something I know a lot about, but it's something I feel it would be good for me to know a little bit more about. So the Puritans do speak about self-examination, an out-of-proportion introspection. So we need to look more at Christ and his perfections and his sufficiency, but nonetheless, there is a place for self-examination and penitence conscious, deliberate penitence so that we repent not just generally but specifically of things that we find in our hearts and so that we're actively fighting against particular sins. I sometimes ask myself are there particular sins that I'm now fighting against and they'll be different for different people at different times. There's something very particular and specific about that. I think I've found increasingly that I have valued in my personal devotions using some of the great prayers, the rich heritage of prayers through Christian history. I'm using a little book of devotions which Crossway published called Lord Be my Vision, and it's got wonderful old prayers from church fathers and reformers and Puritans.

Christopher Ash:

And my wife and I often say one of those together and there's a richness in rooting us in Christ and there's a lovely book of Puritan prayers which Tim Chester has edited we're using as well, and that those kinds of anchors into church history can really help, I think, enrich our walk with the Lord.

Valerie Ling:

This is the midpoint break for the podcast. If you want to put a pause and walk away and come back with it, make sure you do check out the description for all the various downloads that we have for you, including my full report, research and reflections. You might also want to remember to like, share and subscribe. So stop now or keep going. You mentioned I thought you know it struck me you began our conversation by saying that you believe yourself to be someone who's emotionally fragile or a fragile personality, and that you can be prone to discouragement. And what really ministered to you?

Christopher Ash:

Christopher, I think the love of brothers and sisters in Christ.

Christopher Ash:

I was preaching in our home church just a few months ago and I slightly shocked people. It was a passage in one, john, about love for one another. And I slightly shocked people by telling them of a time when I was in church and nothing touched me. The prayers didn't touch me, the singing didn't touch me, the sermon, the Bible reading, didn't touch me, the sermon didn't touch me. I just felt numb because of various sadnesses. And then a lovely sister in Christ came over to me at the end of the service and she said you're looking a bit down, how are you doing? And it was very simple, but the fact that a brother or sister in Christ had cared and noticed really got to my heart and encouraged me. I went home with a full heart just simply from that little act of care and love and concern. And I think that's, I think it is the encouragement of brothers and sisters. When it's not flattery, it's just a concern and a care is a very deep thing.

Valerie Ling:

I did happen to catch your recording of the talk that you gave in the United States. That was the basis of the book, and at the time you actually said that you had a son who was himself in ministry.

Christopher Ash:

I do. Our oldest son is in ministry.

Valerie Ling:

yes, Having watched him now. So we're 2014, or that was when you presented that talk and passed through COVID and things like that. Well, there'd be anything additional you would want to put into the book when you've watched your own son go through this experience?

Christopher Ash:

I think, the world of our oldest son. He's a very fine man and a fine believer and a faithful disciple and a faithful minister and considerably more gifted than me in many, many ways. I really look up to him in all sorts of ways.

Christopher Ash:

I think the COVID years were really tough on church leaders, really really tough. Just the former student of mine he's in Canada, he's a pastor and he said it felt like being a workman with a tool belt, like a carpenter, and you have a tool belt with all your tools in it and you reach for a tool and it's just not there in COVID because you weren't allowed to meet and gather and all the things you would normally do. I think that was really really tough. I think when I watched my son and his wife, I think the rich network of edifying, encouraging Christian friendships that they develop should be warmly encouraged and actually I think that his generation is in his late 30s. His generation of pastors in Britain are far better than my generation at doing that building those networks of really encouraging friendship and accountability, the sort of friendship where somebody can ask you some of the harder questions, and we need that.

Valerie Ling:

And so might he have studied your book. Then Zeal Without Burnout and put into place everything he contributed to it.

Christopher Ash:

All sorts of little anecdotes and turns of phrase were his, so he read an early draft and contributed considerable wisdom. I should be passing the royalties to him.

Valerie Ling:

There is so much wisdom in that book, foundational things that are so important for mental health and well-being, and some of the barriers that we face in ministry, things like regular working hours and the fact that your whole family is exposed to ministry. I still read it and, as a psychology practice, it's one of the mandatory books that I say okay, all psychologists working in the Christian ministry space read this book.

Christopher Ash:

It's kind of you to say that my friend Steve Midgley, who contributed an appendix on stress. He and I wrote a book on anger.

Valerie Ling:

Oh, I've read that too, Christopher.

Christopher Ash:

Well, just today, about half an hour before speaking with you, I had an email from a former student who's a pastor in Bratislava and expressing appreciation for that. So I shall pass that on to Steve Midgley. But I think the kinds of things that the biblical counseling movement at its best have been trying to bring into the mainstream of our church cultures has been really helpful in thinking what is it to be a disciple now, not simply having a ticket to the life, to the age to come, but what does it feel like and what does it mean to walk with Jesus through this age?

Valerie Ling:

Oh, I read the book on anger. I actually read it right before I started to think about destructive leadership. So what explains some of the behaviors that we see in church leadership? Is there a? I was wondering whether there was a stress pathway to that. You can feel like your back is up against a wall. You can freeze, you can run or you start to fight back. I was curious about some of the things that you might have to say about this emotion anger. So I'm wondering whether you had any thoughts or insights into how the stress on a pastor can lead to sometimes unhelpful and inappropriate reactions such as anger.

Christopher Ash:

Oh, I think you've really put your finger on something enormously important and I can think just in my experience. People don't think of me as an angry person, but with the right stress and the right triggers I can be apoplectically angry. Just by God's grace I haven't lashed out at people, so people wouldn't be aware of that, but it's there in my heart and I. It is perhaps one of the greatest pressures on a pastor in terms that they walk with the Lord when treated badly, when somebody behaves badly, especially one of those entrusted to your care, and they behave badly or they behave badly towards you. The disciplines in the Psalms of taking it to the Lord in prayer and not lashing out are much easier said than done. I've been just reading very recently well, I'm reading through Calvin's Institute rather late in my life, and the wonderful pastoral way in which he teaches the sovereignty of God, that God is directing all things in his providence and wisdom and the effect of that on the believer. A wonderful quotation I jotted down yesterday.

Christopher Ash:

He says when people treat you badly, there's an extraordinary piece that comes from knowing that you have a Heavenly Father who is directing and working all things for your good, so you don't lash out. But I think these, the spiritual nature of these things and the kind of deep engagement with our spiritual lives, is very important. I'm quite certain that you're right. There's a stress pathway to anger and of course we only see the examples where somebody has to leave ministry because of behaving very badly and inappropriately with what is real bullying, not the sort of imagined bullying where someone's just forceful, but real bullying. We only see that, but, as with most sin, that there are things in our hearts which can lead to that.

Valerie Ling:

Power being one of them as well, whether we are aware of it or not.

Christopher Ash:

Yes, yes, yes, power, and it's not just institutional power, it's the power of personality, or the power that just comes from the way you're regarded. Of course, some church cultures will accord the pastor more, a higher position than others, but there's always something where you know more, you're better educated in terms of the things of the Bible than Christ, and there's a hidden power, or it may be I mean, in England it's very much People often talk about this to do with education or class very intangible, but it's not. That doesn't mean it's not real. An awareness of the power we may wield is a first step towards learning to use it in a godly way.

Valerie Ling:

The other book that you wrote, which I'm always trying to get people to read the book your pastor wishes you would read, but is too embarrassed to ask in parentheses.

Christopher Ash:

It was the publisher's title. It's a rather mischievous title, isn't it?

Valerie Ling:

I love it. What prompted that book?

Christopher Ash:

Sorry, what.

Valerie Ling:

What prompted that book?

Christopher Ash:

Well, I think it was just the thought that when I left the Cornhill training course and I was no longer a practicing pastor so I work at Tyndale House they call me writer-in-residence but I don't have any duties there, so I'm not a practicing pastor in a church. I preach here and there but I don't actually have a pastor's position. And I was having to come to terms with what is it, when you were in a pastoral leadership position, to be a member of a Christian church, to be under the pastoral leadership of your pastors. And it's quite a challenge, I think, for a number of us when we're technically retired from ministry to do that. And that prompted me to think I want my minister to be glad that I'm part of the church he leads, and what sorts of things make a pastor glad. And I thought to myself I know lots of pastors through the Cornhill training course and other connections. I've been a pastor. Maybe I could have a go at trying to sketch out what are the kinds of things that will rejoice a pastor's heart.

Valerie Ling:

I loved reading that book because when it came out I think in 2019, it was right before the pandemic and I started to wonder about when we talk about leadership, there's also an element of followership. It's a dance, there's a leader and then there are followers, and what constitutes healthy followership. And so when your book came out, I was so excited to read it and I was so encouraged, I think, just as a human being under Christ, to say that I can do this for my pastor. It's really not that complicated.

Christopher Ash:

No, it's not that complicated. No, it's really not that complicated, is it?

Valerie Ling:

It isn't.

Christopher Ash:

And I think what struck me was we often think functionally about what I might contribute, what gifts I might have, or what money I might have to give or something functional, but actually it's when I'm walking with the Lord, repenting day by day, trusting in Christ, seeking to serve Him. That's what ought to rejoice a pastor's heart, a pastor at their best. Pastors are just thrilled to see that and couldn't care very much whether people have money or gifts. Actually, of course we do care when people have money or gifts, but it's signs of godliness that really, really warm a pastor's heart.

Valerie Ling:

Well, it's been a fairly steady result in any research that has been done in Australia about clergy well-being is that ministers have not lost their zeal, if you like, they find enormous meaning from serving the Lord and serving the church. It is that they are exhausted and, I think, perhaps, as you said, deeply discouraged. So one of the things that I discovered in my survey was, by asking you know what level of conflict and unpleasant behavior are you exposed to on a regular basis? And that was pretty high. I mean, it's not something that I would want to turn up to regularly, to be frank, but unpleasantness. And so the book that you have, then, about the joys it comes down to one fundamental principle it's working on ourselves, our relationship with Jesus, and loving and caring our past, and doing it together.

Christopher Ash:

Yes, yes, yes, and you're quite right. I don't know why you discussed this, I think, with Archipoulos, but why this kind of behaviour seems to be more intense these days. Perhaps it always has been and I just haven't known about it. I don't know. But I think of a good friend of mine who's really been driven out of Christian ministry by ungodly behaviour of one sort or another, and it's a terrible thing, terrible, terrible thing to see.

Valerie Ling:

It's very damaging.

Christopher Ash:

Oh, very damaging. It's damaging to a church, it's damaging to the pastor or minister concerned, damaging to their family.

Valerie Ling:

And so when you released this book, did you get much interest, much feedback, much solid. You know, christopher, we are with you.

Christopher Ash:

I got some. It's a strange thing writing a book to start with you get nothing, and then maybe somebody reads it and every now and then somebody will message you. No, not a huge amount. To be honest, I haven't had a tremendous amount of feedback. It may be that all the COVID thing intervened and everybody was focusing on that strange world that we lived in.

Valerie Ling:

Yeah, I love that you put it in parentheses. I think it actually gives permission. So if anybody is listening to this podcast, I'd encourage you to. You know, purchase a whole stack of that and put it on the booktables in your church, because it is one of those things where your pastor can't openly say this is how I'm feeling. This is what would deeply encourage me.

Christopher Ash:

I did have some examples where a lay leader, an elder or a church warden or somebody had bought copies for the church council, for the elders or perhaps for the whole church if it wasn't too big a church, and that I think in a way I was hoping for that really, that people would begin to think, as you say, it's not so very difficult to do these things.

Valerie Ling:

It seems to be in church circles a fear that if we're too nice or if we don't get it all out. You know it's quite combative at times the way that we approach conflict. I find I don't know what it's like in the UK whether there are similar combative ways of dealing with conflict in church. Maybe it's different.

Christopher Ash:

I think some of our Australian friends say to us in the UK that we are much too nice, and I think there's something in that. It doesn't mean that we're any better, but it's often cloaked in a veneer of niceness but behind that the words are spoken that are like two-edged swords that cause great harm. So we're less likely to have a public showdown in a church meeting although that does sometimes happen but it's more likely to be behind the pastor's back and then they hear what's being said and things that are being distorted and people that have the courage to come and say these things to their face.

Valerie Ling:

So, eight years on from writing Zeal Without Burnout, would there be anything additional that you would want to say to a pastor listening into our conversation, anything that you would like them to walk away with from listening to us?

Christopher Ash:

I think I would. It's not so much something completely new, but I would reinforce what I tried to say about motivation and to resist the worldliness which is in all our church circles. That success means large numbers, success means speaking at conferences, success means being a well-known preacher so people download your sermons. That success, all these worldly metrics, and to focus really hard at developing a deep, deeply nourished walk with the Lord so that we really trust that, even if nobody ever gets to hear of us that to be the pastor of a local church, to care for men and women, to pray for them, even if we see so, so little visible fruit, that that well-done, good and faithful servant is the one thing that we are praying to live for. I think I would just want us to emphasize that even more and that it is tough and we mustn't be pathetic.

Christopher Ash:

We must admit that it is tough and the Lord Jesus told us it would be hard. So not to be surprised, but to learn, to rejoice, to walk with Jesus and to trust His promises.

Valerie Ling:

And when times of temptation come to earn that approval by doing more, taking on more, saying yes to more, might you have some words of wisdom.

Christopher Ash:

Oh that there are times I've developed something of an expertise at saying no, and you learn it the hard way because to start with it's flattering, isn't it? When somebody says, here's a new ministry opportunity, why don't you do this? And you think, oh, how wonderful, they've asked me, maybe I'm somebody special. And after a while there are enough scars and knocks and you think, no, that was just nonsense. And there is one savior of the world. It's not me and it's never going to be me. And I seek to serve the Lord in my generation as he gives strength and of course you get older, it becomes more and more necessary because the strength is less and the energy is less and will gradually or perhaps suddenly it'll go, and we trust that the kingdom of God does not ultimately depend on us.

Valerie Ling:

And when times of loneliness and profound discouragement sets in what would be your words of wisdom there.

Christopher Ash:

I think it's something that I haven't been very good at, but it is to cultivate friendships that go on through the years with Christian brothers and sisters. I find I value friendships where we've been through some highs and lows together. I value those friendships. I meet, as I'm sure you do, many people who could become friends and they're lovely, lovely people and I warm to them and enjoy their company. But to meet with somebody who's been a friend for 10, 20, 30, 40 years is a wonderful thing and to nurture those friendships for the times of loneliness.

Valerie Ling:

Yes, I have to say, my husband and I were in that season of life. We aggregate that between the two of us, we're in our 50s.

Christopher Ash:

Very young.

Valerie Ling:

Yes, we've started to think that, because of the ministry life we have had, we've not always had consistent friendships through the years and we're starting to really deeply think, partly because of the wisdom that has come out from these podcasts, the wisdom of being intentional now to actually name those people and to ask them will we journey together for the next decade? Will we consider some ways that we can make our meeting intentional and more frequent so that when we are in our 60s, 70s, we will have those friendships? So I think that's so wise.

Christopher Ash:

I think that's a great thing to do.

Valerie Ling:

And, finally, if there was a church listening in to our conversation, it lighted some of the things that I've found in my research with the conflict, the loneliness and also the demands and expectations that are on pastors. What might you want a church listening in to walk away with?

Christopher Ash:

Pray for your pastor. Encourage your pastor in preaching. Encourage everything good that you appreciate and encourage them when they care for you. Encourage them when they do that simple thing of getting alongside you and caring for you and walking with you through one time or another. Encourage them in that so that they know you don't take it for granted, so that they know that you deeply appreciate that and you appreciate that more than whether they're well-known or whether they're tremendously good organiser or all the other things that pastors do.

Valerie Ling:

I actually think that our episode will be the final word on this podcast. I said to my husband I'm not quite sure how many you're supposed to do. I'll just keep going until I get to the end, but we've recorded so many that I'd like to actually finish by Christmas. This will be the final word, so I might just leave you with a thought of might you have something final for us to say here in Australia, families that might be listening to this, all of us here in Australia trying to grapple with what it means to serve Jesus and love one another and be faithful. Your last word, christopher Ash.

Christopher Ash:

What a great privilege. I think I want to say that God is faithful and good and wise and infinitely loving. He knows exactly what he's doing and to belong to Jesus. There is no greater privilege in the world and whatever happens in church life, whatever happens in our culture, God will make Jesus the head of the new heavens and the new earth and all things will be put together in him, and let's rejoice in that.

Valerie Ling:

Thank you so much. I think I will be listening on those words time and time again. Christopher, Thank you so much for spending your time with me. It's been such a joy.

Christopher Ash:

Oh, it's been a privilege for me. Thank you, Valerie, very much. May the Lord strengthen you in your work.

Valerie Ling:

Thank you, friends and listeners. You have now come to the very last episode of the Clarity Wellbeing Down Under podcast. It's been a joy to be with you for this last season and we wish you and yours a blessed Christmas and happy new year straight from the hearts of the Ling family as well as from the team of the Centre for Effective Living and the Centre for Effective Serving. We look forward to seeing you very likely next year for season two. Take care and thank you.

People on this episode

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Valerie Ling

Host