Andrew Stoecklein, pastor of Inland Hills church, a megachurch in Chino, California, committed suicide last weekend. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about him. I didn’t really know Andrew, but I had met him twice. And I can’t stop wondering, What kind of pain was he in to take his own life?

I can guess at the answer. Most pastors I know live with the pressure that they can’t be really human. And this happens no matter the size of the church. These guys feel like they’re being held to an impossible standard. Many are put on a pedestal they never chose and don’t want.

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I didn’t want to go to church Sunday. And I certainly didn’t want to preach. As I lay in bed comfortable under the covers, I wrestled for 15 minutes with the decision to get up.

I could call in sick.

One of our associates was preaching in our chapel service, and he could preach in the main auditorium too.

I’ve never bailed at the last minute before. Our executive pastor would be OK with it.

It’s not that I don’t feel called to preach. But it had been a heavy week: Sermon planning for all of 2019. A death in the family of a good friend followed immediately by the death of a longtime member in our church. People close to me wrestling with worrisome health issues.

It would be a good morning to sleep. It would be a good afternoon to sleep.

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Videographer and You Tube sensation Casey Neistat (more than 10 million subscribers!) puts it this way: “Don’t let perfection get in the way of good enough. Story is always king. Four good enough shots that tell the story are better than the perfect shot that misses the story.”

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I preached at our church Sunday morning—it was my first Sunday on the platform after being away for a month. “We could totally tell you were fresh and ready to get back,” somebody said to me that morning. And they were right.

Soon after I started here, our elders instituted this annual break. “If you’re going to be in this ministry for the long haul, you can’t do 50 weeks a year, even 40,” they told me. “You need time to be alone, to rest, to be with your family.”

I’m so thankful for their wisdom.

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