Tried to stay out of the Sabbatical stuff because Garris, Moody, and others have handled it well. This is Kofi, talking about my wife, who has been a pastor's wife for 20+ years & student minister's wife for 25. Here's why evangelicals are so broken on this topic. Would appreciate you reading to the end of this 1. There is an entire industry of counselors, retreats, and writers whose entire job market is maintenanced by telling pastors & their wives how uniquely difficult they have it. It is a grift. I met it for the first time in the early 2000s at Timothy/Barnabus at FBC Woodstock and it has only compounded exponentially from there. 2. There is a kind of pastor who wants to be told how uniquely difficult they have it. It tickles their ears. It feels good to have someone say you're essentially a victim & care for you. In this way, it is similar to how wokeness had such rapid uptake among certain identity groups. 3. Too few pastors have ever worked other jobs. My dad was a farmer, mailman, and did A. I. One of my grandfathers raised pigs and cattle. The other raised tobacco. Both survived the great depression. When I was bi-vocational I worked at a trucking company & taught school. I also farm. Pastors & families have unique challenges. So do fire chiefs. So do High School Principals. So do guys working the line at an autoparts factory. I've got a young man at church. Recently married. Taking a full college class load. He works in a giant metal box with no substantial climate control. Part of the year it is freezing. Part of the year it is an unimaginable sweat box. I would collapse into shame if I'm ever in front of him saying, in effect, "I'm so pitiful because I have it so hard." 4. This softness, and that is what it is, is a major component of the feminization of the church that makes evangelicalism so ridiculous in the eyes of men and particularly young men. They know, in general, life is hard. And it is hard to respect another man who wallows in self pity. 5. This is a product of and aggravated by seminary culture. Too many go from High School to Bible School to Seminary to Church with no contact with the outside world. It is a sheltered world & existence that makes the grift sound credible when the real problems of ministry life shows up. It is also why seminary profs offer classes on pastoral ministry when they've never done it. The emblem of this is Curtis Woods, darling of Southern Seminary at one time, who takes a church in KY and crashes out within a year. Summary: The therapuetic grift and disconnect from real life is where this mess comes from. But it wouldn't work if there wasn't an appetite for being coddled. Finally? Twice in our time at our current church we've went through crushing difficulty. The most recent was last spring and has only recent mostly resolved. Seriously, crushing. But we aren't on here whining or looking for a Therapeutic Spa self-identifying as a conference or some other form of coddling. We have a good church and a great Lord. And we know every one doing meaningful work has difficulty in a fallen world. We aren't victims, we're merely servants doing what was expected of us.