One of the perks of editing Best Practices is traveling with Dave Gemmell to an occasional pastors' event on behalf of the NAD. I love being with pastors, and when I'm there I visit with as many of you as I can.

At a recent event, a pastor told me how his entire ministry has been haunted by a time, many years ago, when a small group in his church attacked him without mercy. His flaw wasn't anything major, like immorality. Some had decided that he wasn't an interesting enough pastor - that he was dull - and that he needed to go. Though by the time they finished enumerating his faults, "I felt like someone who barely deserved to exist!" he said. "I'd sat at hospital beds with these people, I baptized their children, married some. But when it came down to it, none of my good points seemed to matter."

"But surely," I said, "not everyone felt that way." "No," he said, "most didn't. I wasn't surprised at some criticism. I was surprised that those who claimed to love me, in the clinch, became uncertain in their response. No one jumped up and said, 'Quit picking on our pastor!'"

It's a story I've heard too often - recently I've heard it from at least four others, and I suspect there are thousands. None of these were tough, bossy pastors. In each case, I'd have said their gift for ministry was tenderness to people's needs. Thin-skinned? Maybe. But sensitivity and thick-skinned don't often go together.

Another pastor who'd experienced something similar suggested this explanation: "You're an outsider," he said. "You look like part of the community, and they want to believe you are. But you're the pastor - not really a person, but a position. They may have to live with the other church members for a long time, but someone else can be slotted into your place."

I don't know whether his analysis is right. I do know that lately I've met too many pastors wounded by their relationship with their congregations. We often hear of church members who've been hurt by the church. Less recognized is how criticism and anger damage the spirit of pastors and their families. "I can't talk to my wife about these conflicts," one pastor told me. "It embitters her, and she pulls farther away from the church. I, though, have to go back to work, looking cheerful and untroubled, with the same people who've told me how bad I am, or kept silent when others did."

There are no perfect pastors. None of us are always interesting; we make mistakes, and fail to lead effectively But there's something deeply wrong when so many good, well-intentioned leaders have to burn so much of their emotional energy trying just to keep going.

Has your ministry been wounded by criticism or rejection? How to handle it? What's going wrong in the pastor-parishioner relationship in so many churches - and is there a solution? Join me in the Night Owl Café blog, and share your thoughts with us. (Note: for this topic, the rule about giving your name is suspended.)