Beeson podcast, Episode 472 Joel Busby Nov. 26, 2019 Announcer: Welcome to the Beeson podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University. Now your hosts, Doug Sweeney and Kristen Padilla. Doug Sweeney: Welcome to today's Beeson podcast. I'm Doug Sweeney, here with my cohost, Kristen Padilla, and we have a two-time Beeson graduate with us today, who will be sharing about pastoring to and through anxiety and depression. Very important topic for so many of us. Doug Sweeney: Before we jump into today's conversation, I want to offer a word of thanksgiving. This episode is airing during the week of Thanksgiving, and at Beeson, we have a lot for which to be thankful. God has been so kind to us these past 31 years, by allowing us to prepare and train ministers like today's guest for gospel and kingdom work throughout the world. It is a privilege to be part of God's mission at Samford, at Beeson. I'm also grateful for our many donors and friends who support us financially and prayerfully. We would not be able to do all that we are able to do without your help. Almost six months ago, my wife, Wilma, and I moved from Deerfield, Illinois to Birmingham, Alabama to serve in this special place, and I am particularly thankful this year for God's gracious leading and guiding of Wilma and me to Beeson. Kristen, how about you? Do you have any words of thanksgiving before you introduce today's guest? Kristen Padilla: Yes, and hello to all of you, and happy Thanksgiving. While our conversation today is not on the theme of gratitude, as Doug has already said, I want to echo his sentiments by saying how grateful we are to participate in God's work to prepare the next generation of gospel ministers. And, as Doug said, Joel Busby, today's guest, is one such minister. Dr. Joel Busby earned both his MDiv and DMin degree from Beeson. He is the founding pastor of Grace Fellowship here in Birmingham and he is married to Mandy and they have three children, precious children. And so Joel, we are thankful to have you on the podcast today and we just want to offer a warm welcome to you. Joel Busby: Thank you so much. It is an honor to be here. I probably should just go ahead and say my things. I'm so eternally grateful to Beeson Divinity School for the education I've received, but also the way in which Beeson formed me as a pastor. So it's a pleasure and it's an honor for me to be with you, to be here with you guys. Kristen Padilla: Thank you. And you continue to pour into our students, you have a lot of students who intern at your church and so you are working with and alongside us to equip and prepare these students that are here today. So thank you Joel. Joel Busby: Yeah, it's a joy. Thanks. Kristen Padilla: So let's start off with you just introducing yourself. Who is Joel Busby? Joel Busby: Yeah, I'm Joel Busby. I am a native of the Birmingham area. I always dream to go somewhere really far away to do ministry, but in the Providence of God, I've done most of my ministry alongside Lakeshore Drive here. I was born at Brookwood Hospital, which we could almost see from where we're sitting today. I have lived here in Homewood for a while now and the church that we planted is right here in my neighborhood, just a couple miles from Beeson. I even was an undergrad at Samford University before coming to Beeson Divinity School with some time in Texas in between so I'm a guy from this area, I'm from the deep South. Joel Busby: I'm married to Mandy, as was mentioned earlier. Mandy and I had been married, we just celebrated 15 years of marriage. So Mandy and I were high school sweethearts and got married and we live here in Homewood. We have three kids: Henry, who's seven; Leland, who's five; and then our little girl Millie is two and a half and one of the three of them is my favorite right now. So I'll let you guess which one that might be. No, we adore all three of them. I serve as the pastor at Grace Fellowship just down the road and it's a joy and an honor to serve God's people. And so that's me. Doug Sweeney: Joel, just a few weeks ago, you gave a really powerful talk to the student body here at Beeson called "Pastoring to and Through Anxiety and Depression." I was there at the time. The Lord really used that in my life and my ministry. I went and told Kristen what a powerful talk it was. It's what gave us the idea of inviting you to come and speak on the podcast. Would you tell our listeners just a little bit about your own story as a pastor and what's given rise to this teaching that you did for us few weeks back? Joel Busby: I would say that just in years of pastoral ministry, the more you get to know folks and the more you spend one on one time or time in intimate settings with people, the more intimately acquainted you become with some of the deepest struggles in the human heart. And the work of the pastor is about connecting the hope of the gospel to the actual real things that people actually experience. So, I've done that for many years. But then personally on my own, I began to discover my own issues. Sometimes you can recognize things and people you minister to because you see it in yourself. And so that's something I've experienced in my years in ministry. Joel Busby: I've always considered myself to be an intense person. I'm emotional, passionate, I feel things deeply. But I don't know that I would have thought of myself as a stressed out person or an anxious person. But I remember specifically in my time as a graduate student here at Beeson, and I remember in the weight of some tests and exams, I remember feeling this feeling like something was sitting on my chest and, I called the doctor friend and I said, "Elliot, I feel like something's sitting on my chest. What is this thing?" And he talked to me a little bit about anxiety. Joel Busby: So that was some of the beginning of me noticing. A lot of times we can notice things a little bit better looking backward. So I think in the pressures of being young in ministry, of graduate school, of being a young father, being a young pastor, trying to learn how to do this work that I'd been called to do, I think I began to see some weight beginning to set in on me. I think I consider myself somewhat of a tough person with some grit. So I think I convinced myself I could power through those things a little bit. Joel Busby: But I started to see that maybe there was something deeper going on. My wife and I endured a tragic loss. Her brother was killed in a hunting accident almost six years ago. That had happened right around the time that all these new young, young father, young pastor things were going on. And I just began to see that there was something of a weight and maybe a darkness that seemed to be hanging over like a cloud and not dissipating as quickly as maybe I would have expected. Joel Busby: Pastors are sort of known for going through these emotional dips. You know, the general adrenaline rush of a Sunday usually has a little bit of a crash on a Monday. But I was starting to notice that my Monday fog, which is pretty typical for pastors, was becoming somewhat of a Tuesday fog, which was becoming Wednesday fog and things were just starting to be just foggy in general. And I'm starting to just kind of pick up on those things and notice them and wasn't totally sure exactly how to deal with them. So grappling in my own way with all these things is kind of what has given rise to me trying to think about it theologically and even trying to help others in these issues. Kristen Padilla: Are there certain aspects of pastoral ministry that you've identified, at least for yourself, Joel, that trigger the anxiety and depression? And what are the signs? I know you mentioned the weightiness, the fog. Were there other signs of that for you and did others see that in you and were able to help discern you're struggling with anxiety or depression? Joel Busby: Yeah, so I would say aspects of the work. I'm a very relational person. Sometimes when you go through church planting assessments, cause I've recently planted a church, they want to map you on a personality scale and that stuff's I think is helpful and has helped me a lot. And when I take those assessments I'm kind of off the charts when it comes to these relational and empathetic styles of ministry. So I think there are parts of pastoral ministry that perhaps bring forth some of these emotional experiences, but I think those strike me in a particular heavy way because of some of my personality. So when I sit down and talk about the depths of maybe a problem that someone is struggling with spiritually, I think I carry the weight of that a little bit more than some. Joel Busby: So I think I go home with that on my mind maybe to greater degree than some other pastors that happened to know and as far as signs go, I began to realize that that empathetic nature of the way I do ministry, there were times where I would be sitting down and listening and that ability to empathize was almost like it was busted. I was wanting to look down at my watch, but I know you're not supposed to look down at your watch when you're sitting with someone pastoral ministry, but I wanted to, I wanted to look down at my watch and think, when am I, when can I get out of here? My ability to really go there and empathize was starting to seem kind of off. I'm actually a pretty outgoing, extroverted, gregarious person, but I started noticing times in ministry where I'd want to try to plot my way of how I could walk out of the church without having to talk to certain people. Joel Busby: And maybe I became overly fearful. I'd get an email with a church member wanting to speak with me about something and I would in my mind bring that into some kind of catastrophe of what they were going to say about my leadership when I show up for that lunch meeting. And they just wanted to encourage me and tell me how thankful they were for the work I was doing. So those are some signs. I just started noticing there were some things kind of off in my inner life. Other people helped me see that too. My wife Mandy was really helpful. Dear friends would sit with me and be like, "Hey, are you okay?" I had a doctor friend who really sat me down and asked me some really good questions and really helped me to discover these things cause I wasn't really fully seeing it. So those are among the things. Doug Sweeney: Joel, through all this, what have you learned about taking care of yourself? I'm thinking about our listeners, many of whom are involved in ministry. They're very self-giving people. Sometimes there are people who probably don't take the kind of care of themselves that they ought to. Is there something from your own experience and learning to take care of yourself that might be helpful to share with them? Joel Busby: I think you're right, Dr. Sweeney. I think for pastors, the idea of caring for ourselves, it seems funky. It seems strange. And I've been trying to think about why that is and I think part of it is even the word "self care," isn't the Christian life about self-denial? And the thing is is that it actually is a joy to be poured out for Jesus. That's actually a great joy. Charles Spurgeon famously said, "It is a joy to be poured out for Jesus." It's just that we need to be able to replicate being poured out again and again and again so that we can fulfill the calling that we've been given. So I think for me, I've had to grapple with the idea that for me to be able to pour out in the ways in which God has called me, I have to be able to be in demonstrable practical ways, I have to be seeking to be filled up so that I can be poured out for a lifetime of ministry. Joel Busby: So I've learned a lot. I've learned about common grace, practical realities, like trying to manage your schedule in responsible ways. You know, trying to look at my schedule and just seeing, you know, I think I can probably handle three one-on-one meetings regarding heavy subjects this week, but not 17 of them, like I tried to do one week, and being okay with realizing that that would actually, accepting my limitations would actually be a gift to the people that I serve. So learning things about schedule, learning things about vulnerability, just being able to say to people in the church, "Hey, would you be praying for me with regard to some of the heavy things I have to carry as a minister?" And being able to just say that and realizing that in those moments people will receive that as a great gift to be able to pray for their pastor and they'll consider that part of their role within the body of Christ is to support and uphold you. Joel Busby: I've learned about just the good old fashioned value of taking a walk in, breathing in some cool fall air like today, patterns of exercise, trying to eat healthy. I think learning to walk away from feeling like you are supposed to be this indispensable person, but I think the nature of the body of Christ is that we all are integral parts of the body that need one another. Sure. But we have to be able to lean on one another and just that really precious truth, that Christ's strength is made perfect in our weakness. And so there's biblical things, there's theological things, but there's also just practical things that I've learned about filling my own tank so that I can responsibly pour it out in ministry. Kristen Padilla: Joel, how has pastoring through anxiety and depression helped you to shepherd people in your congregation with anxiety and depression? I would imagine perhaps it gives you empathy, but perhaps even more than that. What does that look like to pastor others who are dealing with some of the same things? Joel Busby: Sure. I think for certain the ability to listen in an empathetic way is changed for me. I also think it's really important to, in a way, normalize these things. When I sit down with someone in our church and they share with me, "Hey Joel, I feel like I'm just kind of drowning under the weight of stress." For me to look at them and say, "Oh yeah, you know, that's, that's actually pretty normal, I've experienced that. There's lots of folks around our church that I've had this same conversation with in the last couple of weeks." So helping people understand that this is a normal part of moving about in a broken fallen world, and being able to tell them that that's kind of normal. I think it has helped me more responsibly refer people to appropriate counseling because I have a little bit of an understanding of how these issues work. Joel Busby: I think in the wonderful community, I mean we're truly blessed in Birmingham for just a great community of Christian counselors, but it's helped me more responsibly in a more targeted way refer people, but then also stay engaged with them. I think sometimes pastors refer and they sort of forget about it, but I've been able to refer and then walk alongside and continue to pray alongside a good Christian counselor's help. I think more than anything though, I think it has given me just a vision for the simplicity of gospel ministry. Joel Busby: People who are struggling under the weight of dark clouds. Even spiritual warfare has a factor, it plays a role in these things under the weight of stress or anxiety or depression. People struggling under the weight of those things need to hear about the simple, real, objective work that the Lord Jesus has done on their behalf. And He's given me just a focus to make sure that I'm speaking the hope of the gospel in very direct ways, very concrete ways. It's somehow just helped me aim my work at folks' hearts. That's been a real gift to me. Doug Sweeney: Are there other pastors or theologians or counselors or scholars whom you have found to be especially helpful when it comes to thinking about ministering in the midst of, or ministering with people who are dealing with, anxiety and depression, whom you would want to commend to our listeners? Joel Busby: Sure. I've been thinking about this a little bit lately. Just the fact that we sit here today on the heels of having commemorated the process of reformation and the work of Martin Luther has been really helpful to me, to see the way Martin Luther seems to be very aware of the deep struggles of the human heart. His struggles of the guilt of our sin. In some ways it seems like Luther's writings and when you read the sermons he preached, they really seem to deal with people in the depths of who they were in their hearts. And that's helpful to me. I'm also not Anglican, but the treasure of the Book of Common Prayer has been precious to me. Just some of the prayers, like I particularly am fond of some of the prayers that happened in either Evening Prayer or the Compline Prayer. There's one that's written that talks about something to the effect of Lord, in the constant changes of this life, we become weary, but help us remember your eternal changelessness, Lord Jesus. Joel Busby: So I think of the reformers, I think of Martin Luther, I think of Thomas Cranmer, I think of even John Calvin, there's an edited volume of Calvin's letters of pastoral piety. And this is John Calvin, this ivory tower theologian supposedly, right? But no, he's just a pastor and he's writing just these pastoral letters to his people, talking about how the hope of Jesus meets them in the struggles of life, and those have been helpful. And for someone more modern, there's an Anglican writer named Tish Harrison Warren, I'm pretty sure she's in Pittsburgh, and she wrote a book called the Liturgy of the Ordinary, which is one of the better books that I've read in a long time. And Tish Harrison Warren writes about the daily practices, spiritual practices in the mundane things of life, things as mundane as fixing lunch for your family and the way in which God's grace is reliably present force in those moments. Those are three that I would mention off the top of my head that had been really deeply helpful to me. Kristen Padilla: When you experience anxiety and depression, are there any spiritual practices or biblical texts that you find most helpful during those times? Joel Busby: My doctor of ministry dissertation was on the Psalms and helping a congregation learn to read and treasure the riches of the Psalms. So, I mean, I would just say the Psalms, reading the Psalms, praying the Psalms, memorizing the Psalms, letting the Psalms soak really deeply into your heart and soul. It was Calvin who said that the Psalms are like a mirror. Everything we could think or feel or experience we see there. The Psalms had been precious to me and my wife, Mandy, our family. So let's say that. Joel Busby: Also the spiritual discipline of solitude. I think it is when we get alone and we get quiet, which is actually when we start feeling the assault of stress and we normally want to really quickly distract ourselves from that by looking at our phone or finding something to do so we don't have to face those things. But I found the spiritual discipline of solitude to allow those stressful, anxious thoughts to just come rushing in so that then I can turn those thoughts to prayer, like Paul talks about in Philippians 4, and so that, as Peter talks about in 1 Peter, that then I can cast those cares on Christ because he cares for me. But it's when I get alone in times of silence and solitude that I'm really able to actually deal with those things responsibly instead of just distracting myself so quickly. Joel Busby: Then if I can also just add this spiritual practice, and I really think it's a discipline of friendship, of having treasured friends that I can have a Christ centered friendship with, who I can just sit down with and just say, "Hey, this is what's going on." But I call that a spiritual discipline because I think in the busyness of our lives, I don't think making time for deep friendship is the easiest thing to do in the world. I think you have to carve it out of your schedule and fight for it with intensity. I think especially in my season of life with little bitty children, giving myself permission to break away with close friends whom I can share these things with and they can carry it with me. All three of those have been just deeply helpful. Doug Sweeney: Joel, thank you so much for being with us and sharing so much love and wisdom with our listeners. We're almost out of time, but one last question. If anybody listening to us now is struggling with depression or anxiety in the midst of a very busy life of ministry, do you have any final word of encouragement for that person? Joel Busby: I would think I would want to just say that you are not alone and I mean that on two levels. In Jesus Christ, we have a high priest who's able to sympathize with us in all our weakness. I mentioned Spurgeon earlier, Spurgeon said that at the cross we learn of bodily pain, but at Gethsemane we learn of emotional pain. Just knowing that Jesus Christ knows the experience of living under the weight of emotional pain, of being tempted and tried in every way that we were, but yet without sin, just such a powerful thing to know we're not alone because of the company we have with our Lord, savior and friend Jesus. Joel Busby: Also that you're not alone. You have people like me, you have other pastors out there who've walked this road. It's a normal road for us to walk and you're not alone, so I'd encourage you to reach out to fellow pastors and friends. And then maybe just one final thought is if it's true that Jesus's strength is made perfect in weakness, then weakness is a good thing and we shouldn't be afraid to be publicly weak because that is the way we gain Jesus's strength and I think at the end of the day in the work that we're called to do, I think we're going to really want Jesus his strength. So those are just some thoughts I'd have. Doug Sweeney: You have been listening to Dr. Joel Busby, the founding pastor of Grace Fellowship Church here in Birmingham, Alabama. We hope and pray that what he said has been as helpful to you as it has been to so many of us here at Beeson Divinity School. We are grateful that you've joined us. We hope you'll tune in again next week. Goodbye for now. Kristen Padilla: You've been listening to the Beeson podcast. Our theme music is written and performed by Advent Birmingham of the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama. Our engineer is Rob Willis. Our announcer is Mike Pasquarello. Our cohosts are Doug Sweeney and myself, Kristen Padilla. Please subscribe to the Beeson podcast at beesondivinity.com/podcast or on iTunes.