Leadership And Suicide: When Ending It Seems Like the Only Way Out

Patrick Bradley — Tue, 18 Sep 2018 09:00:42 +0000

by Carey Nieuwhof: It’s so hard to write a post like this.

Hard because it’s something that has impacted so many people and it’s so close to so many of our hearts.

As many of you have likely heard, last week Andrew Stoecklein, the pastor of Inland Hills Church, took his own life at age 30 after a battle with anxiety and depression. That’s a picture of Andrew, his wife Kayla, and their boys, above.

I never met Andrew or his family nor have I visited his church, but, like so many of you, I’m devastated for everyone involved. His wife Kayla wrote a moving tribute on her blog, and Andrew’s death made national and international news.

That’s difficult enough, and all of us need to pray for Kayla, their boys, family and church. (And please consider giving to this GoFundMe campaign to help support Kayla and the boys.)

The other reason it’s hard to write this post is because I don’t even like to admit I was there too a number of years ago myself.

My story isn’t a long battle with anxiety and depression per se. The way I got to suicidal thoughts was through burnout. And the worst part of my burnout in the summer of 2006 was a season when I thought that ending it was the most logical and least painful way out.

You know how hard it is to talk about this stuff? I’ll tell you how hard. In my new book I have an entire section on burnout and how to overcome it, but I only gave five paragraphs to my battle with suicidal thoughts. Honestly, I was just too terrified/embarrassed/ashamed to write more.

But today, in light of the widespread dialogue that’s emerged over around Andrew’s passing, I’m going to give it a few more paragraphs, because like many of you, I was so saddened to learn about the suicide of a leader who by every appearances had so much going well: a wife who loved him, three sons, a great church and a future.

Let me say it again before we dive into more words: maybe you’ve thought the only way through your pain is to end your pain. It’s not…

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by Peyton Jones: This week Peyton Jones and Pete Mitchell sit down to talk about another very serious topic…Depression, Suicide, and the Pastor. To get straight to listening click here and to download in iTunes click here.

We know this can be an extremely sensitive topic but we feel that it’s one that needs to be brought up. We tend to view our pastors and ministers as people that are impervious to any of the same negative thoughts and ideas that we might experience. We view them as the people we go to when we have trouble so naturally we don’t think they could go through the same things. This just is not the case. Listen in to today’s podcast as we discuss a real like example of this that just happened in Southern California and things you can do to help your Pastor.

Go ahead and click here to listen to this podcast or click here to head on over to the apple store to listen and download this and previous episodes in the Church Planter Podcast series!

Buy Peyton’s newest book “Reaching The Unreached: Becoming Raiders of the Lost Art” over on Amazon.com. You can also download a free chapter and watch a cool trailer for the book HERE or click the image below.

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Leadership And Suicide: When Ending It Seems Like the Only Way Out

Depression, Suicide, and the Pastor.