DALLAS (BP) — Most Wednesdays, Chris Hilliard finalized plans for evening Bible study at the church he’s pastored in North Carolina for nearly a decade, but on the Wednesday of Feb. 12, he instead “tried to O.D. on medication,” he told Baptist Press.

“I say tried,” he emphasized. “I didn’t take a lethal dose because God intervened.”

Now on extended sabbatical from the pastorate, he’s making plans to transition to another ministerial vocation after a pastoral career spanning decades in two southeastern states.

“No one, and I mean no one, saw this coming,” Hilliard said of his experience. “I know because many have told me. They said I seemed happy. I preached with passion. I counseled with biblical wisdom. But, on the inside, in ways that even I did not fully appreciate, I was letting the negative build up and live uncontested in my brain.”

Hilliard, who shares his story in detail in a companion article in today’s Baptist Press, is not alone.

Barna, in its latest “State of the Pastors study” released in 2024, said 18% of Protestant senior pastors in the U.S. said they had at least contemplated suicide or self-harm within the previous 12 months.

Joe Jensen, Barna’s senior vice president of content & engagement, told Baptist Press the data likely hasn’t changed much in a year.

Even just one pastor who takes his one life is “one too many,” said Jensen, who himself pastored large and small congregations in The Christian Church before joining Barna. “And statistically, we need to look at this and say, this is something that we need to seriously address within the Capital C Church, within our local churches.”

Former pastor Mark Dance, who leads pastoral wellness at GuideStone Financial Resources, said while it’s counterintuitive for caregivers to seek help for themselves, it’s still vital.

Dance often shares his personal story of clinical depression suffered in the pastorate more than 15 years ago that was so profound a professional therapist within his congregation diagnosed him from the pew, he said, just a week after his personal physician had told him the same.

“We’re not really qualified to self-assess our mental health any more than we are qualified to assess our physical health,” Dance said. “And I would say that to pastors, it’s OK not to be proficient in other people’s professions. God called us to pastor and so we should follow that calling. But there are people who are proficient in their respective professions and this therapist was good enough to notice signs that I wasn’t able to notice in myself. And so I believe that was a gift from God to be double diagnosed.”

In a 2024 GuideStone study of what pastors under 55 need help with the most, conducted by Grey Matter Research & Consulting, 21% of pastors flagged mental health, citing stress and anxiety brought on by the burdens of ministry.

“And what’s refreshing about this is young pastors are not hesitant to ask for help, whereas older pastors like myself still fight the stigma against it,” Dance said.

He believes the willingness of younger pastors to seek help might be a driving factor behind a 40% rise in GuideStone mental health insurance claims after the COVID pandemic.

“At first I was alarmed, because I thought COVID had done a harsh work on pastors and to an extent it did,” Dance said. “But I think that the spike in mental health claims has more to do with younger pastors reaching out for help who are … by attrition, replacing older pastors that were reluctant to get help.”

Barna’s study, “The State of Pastors” Vol. 2, was expansive, updating a 2017 release on several indicators of pastoral health, including spiritual, mental, professional and personal, and how they overlap holistically.

“We expect a lot out of our pastors and we need to be careful with the words that we say and the expectations we place on our pastors,” Jensen said, “that we understand that those expectations should be biblically rooted and also with the understanding that pastors are people.

“And we know that mentally, but I’m not sure we always live that out within our church communities.”

Pastors who consider self-harm in particular report higher feelings of loneliness and isolation, Jensen said, while 95% of pastors who report no such feelings also never consider harming themselves. Only 5% of pastors who didn’t describe themselves as lonely or isolated considered self-harm in the previous year.

“I always recommend to pastors to connect to other pastors in their local community, because pastors understand pastors,” Jensen said. “I think that’s a community that a lot of pastors aren’t taking advantage of is their fellow pastors within their community or city.”

While research isn’t prescriptive, Jensen believes the church can help with pastors’ mental wellbeing.

1) Make sure pastors are connecting in deeper ways with other people in the community with whom they can be vulnerable and develop friendships.

2) Make sure pastors know they can seek help when needed without the congregation’s retribution.

3) Make sacrifices and budgetary priorities to provide sufficient healthcare avenues for mental healthcare.

4) Secure volunteer staff members to reduce pastoral workloads.

5) Establish prayer support and adequate pastoral Sabbath rest.

6) Consider realistic metrics of pastoral success that are not driven by worldly consumerism, which might drive success based on attendance, baptism or growth.

7) Learn the mental health warning signs and, avoiding paranoia, be attentive to how your pastor is doing.

GuideStone provides mental health resources, including the free and confidential Southern Baptist Convention Pastoral Care line, provided by Focus on the Family and supported by both GuideStone and the North American Mission Board.

Considering the broad spectrum of mental health, Dance encourages a professional diagnosis. His clinical depression lasted about three years.

“There are different kinds of depression just as there are different kinds of cancer. So clinical depression is different than chronic depression which is pretty much a lifetime challenge,” he said. “And I did not have that.

“Also, bipolar depression is an even steeper cliff. And so, I guess, clinical depression would, I consider it like the common cold of depression as opposed to some of the deeper, longer diagnoses out there. And so that’s again why I encourage them not to self-diagnose, because it might be that you find out you’re not clinically depressed, you just feel depressed.”

Whatever the diagnosis, Dance encourages pastors to remember the hope Jesus offers.

“Jesus can change any situation,” Dance said. “One thing that every kind of depression has in common is a need for hope. When I was diagnosed, the word that refreshed my soul more than anything else was that you do not have to stay the way you are. And that gave me hope that my life could improve again and that the joy of ministry would return, and it did.

“So I want to encourage pastors to see mental health as a normal part of biblical holistic health and to courageously talk about it from the pulpit, along with physical and spiritual health.”

Read pastor Chris Hilliard’s account of his battle with depression here.

(EDITOR’S NOTE — May is Mental Health Awareness Month. Diana Chandler is Baptist Press’ senior writer.)