Issue 39 Steadfast PrayerBlog | Mentoring matters: Resilience in the face of adversity
Mentoring matters: Resilience in the face of adversity
Author: Andy PeckPost Date: 13.06.24
PART ONE OF A NEW SERIES ON RESILIENCE
He’s not pretending the difficulties don’t exist and he’s not denying the pain and anger he sometimes feels. From time to time, his tears of sadness and frustration welled up during our mentoring conversations. Yet he has found a way not just to survive but to positively thrive in the midst of adversity.
Displays of resilience
He’s not the only one. In mentoring around 200 Christian leaders over the past 30 years, I have often encountered people who display remarkable resilience in the way they deal with the challenges of ministry. These are not people who have had a dream run and escaped hardship; nor are they superhumans, impervious to the afflictions that accompany servants of God. Whether by instinct or by careful choices, they have found strategies through which they live sustainably with significant levels of inner peace and joy. These leaders whose lives I am reflecting upon are both male and female, and range in age from 20 to 70 years. They work in a variety of socio-economic contexts, from desperately poor to moderately wealthy; lead in churches colleges, charities, mission agencies and denominational structures; and represent several nationalities. The strategies for resilience I have observed in them are not tied to a particular culture or demographic but are broadly applicable in human experience.
What is resilience?
There is debate about whether resilience in humans is an outcome, a process or a capacity, or some combination of these three elements. But the essence of resilience is a positive, adaptive response to significant adversity.
Resilience transforms potentially toxic stress into tolerable or even constructive stress, allowing a person to flourish. That often involves significant inner change. I prefer to think of resilience in human beings as the capacity to come through adversity in a positive condition. In Christian leadership, we experience pressures that mean things can never be the same again. Resilience gives us a way to embrace a new reality in which we discover the transforming grace of God and a life that, for all its difficulties, is good.
Situational resilience
In mentoring Christian leaders, I have often encountered people who are caught by situationally specific lack of resilience. Helen, for example, entered pastoral ministry after a successful career teaching high school students. She had managed to juggle a demanding job and motherhood along with her theological studies. Resilience was one of her personal strengths, she believed.
Two years into her new role as a minister in a local church, she was reeling. Never before had she experienced such exhaustion and loss of confidence. What was wrong with her, she wondered? Had she made a terrible mistake and misunderstood God’s calling on her life? As she reflected on her changed circumstances, she also learned new strategies for resilience and found a way to engage in ministry sustainably.
