Scott Sauls is the Senior Pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church in Nashville, speaks throughout the country, and writes books too.
But he’s also one of the rare pastors who openly shares his battle with anxiety and depression.
That makes him something of a unicorn. Well, the “openly shares” part.
According to Amy Simpson’s research, 23% of church leaders suffer from clinical anxiety. And when you add conditions like depression and bipolar, that number balloons to 40%.
So nearly half of all church leaders have battled intense mental turbulence, and yet how many talk about it?
Not many.
And I can understand why. It can be a huge risk, as noted by The Wall Street Journal’s Ian Lovett in this searing piece.
Yet humans are humans, and pastors are human, and people crave authenticity in their pastors.
I recently came across Scott Sauls’ account of his battle with anxiety and depression in The Gospel Coalition and was so moved by his honest account of what it’s like to go through this beast, which he called “a living nightmare.”
There’s nothing more powerful for breaking the deadly, spiritually exhausting stigma over mental health in the church than for church leaders to talk about their own struggles.
I recently talked with Scott about his struggle, about a verse (Philippians 4:13) that’s been egregiously taken out of context, and how to be authentic with the rest of the world.
Oh, and there’s a little enneagram stuff in here, too.
Our conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity.
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HEINZE: You’ve talked about having episodic periods of depression and anxiety throughout your life, and you wrote about one particularly bad episode while you were a pastor. What was that like?
SAULS: It was about three months and pretty much immobilized me. I felt like I was a little bit in a twilight zone when I was trying to do my work, engage with people, engage with community or preach sermons.
It was almost like an out-of-body experience where I just lost myself.
HEINZE: How could you do all those things with immobilizing depression or anxiety?
SAULS: My wife had suffered similar experiences over the course of her adult life, and had gotten some excellent counseling and was able to speak to my situation based on her prior experience and also my brother.
So because they were family, I was able to call them literally every day.
They were always ready to show up for me. That was a gift.
I realize that not everybody has access to people who’ve walked that journey, but for me, it made a huge difference.
And of course, the Psalms become a lifeline for me, especially during those darker seasons.
So many of the Psalms are written from a place of distress, a place of feeling immobilized, isolated.
The Psalms of David were often written in the context of the famous stories about running from King Saul, essentially being an asylum-seeker, and seasons of betrayal.
There’s a loneliness and isolation in all these experiences that tend to accompany anxiety and/or depression.
So those Psalms gave me a vocabulary with which to pray, because sometimes when you’re in that mental space, you can’t really think of the words.
It’s helpful to have words that have already been inspired by God and spoken by people who were going through very similar things, emotionally. You can let yourself be led by what’s already been written.
So, really, those things – close relationships, the Psalms, and the kindness of God to get me through the things I needed to do.
I took a few days off during that season, as well – I knew when to quit.
HEINZE: Have you found any particular triggers that set off your anxiety and depression?
SAULS: I’m an Enneagram Type 4, which is the tortured artist.
You simultaneously feel this need to be unique and to be understand, which is a really challenging combination – to be different than everybody else and to be understood by everybody else.
But that’s how we’re made up.
There’s a melancholy that goes along with that.
With that personality comes certain kinds of triggers – one of which is being misunderstood, being criticized, which is pretty common in the vocation of pastor. Especially in the last eighteen months with Covid and all the crazy politics and the climate we’re in right now, in this cultural moment.
Anything that makes you feel misunderstood, anything that makes you feel overlooked or ignored. Those are things that trigger me.
For my wife, other things. She’s a six on the enneagram. Perceived lack of safety would be an anxiety trigger.
If you’re a three, maybe it’s an attack on your reputation or your job is threatened.
Or if you’re a two, there’s nobody to take care of.
If you’re a one, something important to you has spun out of control. And that will be an anxiety trigger for you.
HEINZE: There’s a “victorious living” mentality in American Christianity, and when depression and anxiety hit Christians for the first time, they don’t know what to make of it, and it can rock their faith.
What would you say to someone, right now, who doesn’t feel “the joy of the Lord” or “the peace of God that passes understanding?”
They don’t feel Philippians 4:13: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
For new Christians, those promises might suddenly feel like lies.
SAULS: It points out how American Christians are culpable of taking Scriptures out of context.
Let’s take Philippians 4:13.
If you think of that verse all by itself, you could maybe draw the conclusion that I’m supposed to feel like I’m winning all the time.
But leading up to that verse, Paul says, “I have learned a secret. I have learned something that most people have not learned. I have learned how to be content under two sets of circumstances. I’ve learned how to be content while living in want and while lacking. There’s something bigger than circumstances that I’ve learned to access as the source of my joy, my satisfaction, and ultimate sense of meaning and purpose.”
But he also says he’s learned the secret of finding contentment while living in plenty.
Let’s talk about American society.
We’re one of the wealthiest nations in the history of the world. Yet more than just about any other country in the world, [we’re among the leaders] in cases of anxiety, depression, suicide and self-harm.
Madeline Levine, a psychiatrist from the Bay Area, says that teens from affluent homes are three times as vulnerable to anxiety, depression, and suicide as the national average.
It’s Ecclesiastes. Here’s this guy who has everything in unlimited supply, and he’s miserable. He says it’s all vanity.
You can trace history and list one celebrity, musician, and artist after another who was at the peak of their success, while going through a season of deep depression and darkness.
But that’s the context in which Paul says he can do everything through Christ. When he uses that word “everything,” he’s talking about finding the secret of contentment.
He can find contentment through Christ in any circumstance. He writes that book from prison, and says he wants to share in the fellowship of Christ’s suffering. There’s some kind of secret in there, as well.
Pastor Joe Novenson says, “The feel of faith is not the feeling of strength, but the feeling of dependent weakness.”
That’s how the Bible describes faith. Dependent weakness, not triumphal strength.
HEINZE: So Paul was content even in these terrible conditions. He learned the secret.
But immobilizing depression and anxiety can be monstrous.
How is it possible to be content when you’re in that state?
SAULS: “I can do all things through Christ.”
It really has to do with what forms us, on a day-to-day basis.
I think this is another crisis, especially in the western contemporary church. Christians allow and even choose things that aren’t Christ to form us.
Partisan politics, cable news talking points. Social media. All the social dilemma stuff we learn about.
There’s a Netflix film about how social media is actually programmed to monetize our outrage and anxiety. The feeds are giving us things that make us feel more angry and anxious.
We’re allowing it to form us.
The standing invitation from Christ is one that we often don’t take him up on.
“Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
Get into the Bible, so the Bible gets into you. Get into Christian community and life of the local church whether you like it or not, because that’s a gift God has given to help form us.
We become what we look at, we become what we behold, we become what we take in, we become what we consume.
If we’re not consuming the goodness of Christ, there’s something in there.
But I think it’s also important to speak to the fact that not all anxiety and depression is merely that.
For some people, there’s also a physiological, chemical, biological component that predisposes them to anxiety and depression.
I’m personally an advocate that if there’s medication to help — especially with biological factors we can’t unprogram ourselves — then those are gifts in the same way that a cortisone shot will take the pain out of your sore back.
Sometimes you have a sore spirit. There are medical helps, as well.
Regardless of whether our anxiety and depression is physiological, circumstantial, or both, the formation piece is really important.
Looking to Christ, looking to the truth of God to be our primary, formative content and reality.
HEINZE: When you’re depressed, you need Christian community, but that can be the hardest thing to do. You don’t feel like being with anyone because you don’t think they understand what you’re going through.
SAULS: There’s an initial step, perhaps, of one person.
Maybe it’s a gifted counselor who can help you get to the point where you take those steps and those risks involved with entering into a healthy, life-giving community.
If you don’t have access to good counseling for financial reasons or you live in a town where there aren’t a lot of good counselors, a trusted pastor or spiritual leader or director. Somebody to come alongside.
The magic of the recovery movement is the sponsor piece, where there’s somebody who’s walked this road who can help you walk it from a place of greater health and greater sobriety.
That translates with mental health challenges.
If there’s someone who understands and is available to show up and walk with you, that’s 95% of the battle.
They can empathize and are willing to show up, but they’re also not willing to let themselves emmesh to you, because this is your journey and they have to let you walk your journey. They can’t become somebody you plug your emotional umbilical cord into. There’s a boundary. We don’t want to emmesh, but we also need that support.
Anxiety and depression want us to isolate ourselves because that’s where they thrive and really gain momentum – in isolation, in the shadows.
HEINZE: A lot of Christians struggle with being honest about their depression. Particularly, with their nonbelieving friends. They worry they’ll reflect poorly on Christ.
They imagine them saying, “Well, they might have Christ, but they seem miserable with him. Not for me!”
How can Christians talk honestly about their depression?
SAULS: Psalm 130 is very helpful.
The Psalmist says, “Out of the depths, I have cried to you, Lord. Hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my anguished prayers.”
There’s a real honesty about that, but then at some point in the prayer, he pivots and says, “Hope in the Lord, for with the Lord there is mercy and with him is plenteous redemption. And he shall redeem us from all our iniquities.”
There’s a certain stating of hurt and then preaching truth to it about who God is. He’s plenteous in mercy and compassion.
He’s bigger than any problem that can be thrown our way, and our best days are always future. Never in the past.
Our best days are always ahead of us, no matter where we’re at in life, because of the promises of God. The new heaven and earth.
Or to use Tolkein’s words, “everything sad becomes untrue.”
I think it’s this dance between naming our struggle without making it about our struggle.
Our struggle, like everything else in our life – our joy, our resources, our relationships — is ultimately about God.
It ultimately comes from him and ultimately is given back to him.
It’s not about changing the subject of the conversation, as much as it is expanding the conversation and putting it in its proper context under God’s sovereign care and direction.
HEINZE: Finally, when you’re melancholy, what’s your favorite music?
SAULS: At all times, and especially in those times, my favorite artist is a man named Andrew Peterson. I find both Andrew and Sandra McCracken to be deeply authentic and deeply hopeful, all at the same time.
HEINZE: Thank you so much!
(You can buy and read some of Scott’s books here, and check out his personal website here).
