Author: Eugene Cho

I’ve been reluctant to share this article with folks but it’s too honest and raw not to share. Couple months ago, I wrote an article – at the request of Leadership Journal – about the “price of getting personally involved in justice.”

The editors of Leadership Journal entitled the article, “One Pastor’s Quest.” Honestly, it could have been entitled, “One Pastor’s Many Mistakes in Trying to do a Good Thing.”

As One Day’s Wages approaches its 1 year anniversary, what people mostly see is the growth and the positive attention it has received through individuals and media. But behind the scenes, it has been one of the most arduous and difficult seasons of my life.

I’d like to strongly encourage you to take a few minutes to read the full article – so that you might learn from my mistakes. Please…learn from my mistakes.

After having started three fairly large undertakings with planting Quest Church, starting a non-profit community cafe & music venue, and most recently, One Day’s Wages, I can tell you that I’ve made some mistakes and blunders along the way. There’s many and each of these can be a chapter of a book but here’s a quick summation of  some of them. Here’s  five  important advice I can give to especially those who are starting something new including churchplants, non-profits, businesses, and anything else you can think of that involves working with other people… Continue reading “my 5 personal advice for entrepreneurs”

Several years ago, I spent several hours/week doing research (and meeting with other pastors) about pastoral health and vitality for my denomination.

I chose to spend some time doing that for selfish reasons. I was and am still learning how to take better care of myself in ministry (as evidenced by the scary picture above) – while completely acknowledging that sometimes, it’s not supposed to feel right. We all know that work…well…is supposed to be laborious. And those in ministry know that ministry in itself is difficult. There’s no way to get around it but…

What I learned was pretty shocking and heartbreaking but one of the conclusions I came to was that as ministry leaders, pastors and other pursuers of God’s work, it helps to understand some of the challenges ahead and to be proactive rather than reactive.

Yesterday, I posted Part I of this post entitled, Why is Being a Pastor so Unhealthy. The reasons are complex and I’ll acknowledge that when one looks for “doom and gloom,” you’ll find some discouraging things. I can focus an entry purely on the joys and blessings of pastoral ministry and feel confident I can write a compelling piece. But these statistics (and stories that many of us are aware of) and our personal stories are hard to ignore. Continue reading “death by ministry?”

Last week, the NY Times published an interesting article entitled, Taking a Break From the Lord’s Work. Here’s a glimpse:

The findings have surfaced with ominous regularity over the last few years, and with little notice: Members of the clergy now suffer from obesity, hypertension and depression at rates higher than most Americans. In the last decade, their use of antidepressants has risen, while their life expectancy has fallen. Many would change jobs if they could.

Public health experts who have led the studies caution that there is no simple explanation of why so many members of a profession once associated with rosy-cheeked longevity have become so unhealthy and unhappy.

What do you think? I’d love to hear from you on the stuff above [or the full article] but I’d like to especially hear your thoughts to this question:

Whether you are a pastor or not…In your opinion,

Why is being a pastor so unhealthy? Continue reading “why is being a pastor so unhealthy?”