In the fall of 2013, Pastor Teddy Parker Jr.’s wife found him in the driveway of their Warner Robins home in Georgia with a “self-inflicted gunshot wound.” Many were stunned.
Parker never believed in suicide and often admonished his parishioners against it.
“I’m very surprised because he didn’t preach that. He preached totally against it. It’s something that the congregation don’t really understand,” Russell Rowland, a member of the Bibb Mount Zion Baptist Church in Macon, Georgia, where Parker was leader, said at the time.
‘Everybody is just kind of stunned right now. I think a lot of people are just trying to understand why that happened. We’re just praying to the Lord for guidance on this,” he said.
A few months after Parker’s death in April 2014, then pastor of Community Bible Church in High Point, North Carolina, Robert McKeehan, 42, was found hanging inside his home. He was the same age as Parker and was also the father of two.
An alarming number of pastors have taken their lives in the last of five years. And despite the increasing prevalence of suicide nationally, and the troubling rates at which the epidemic has been affecting certain groups of clergy, many churches remain silent on the issue.
Parker’s suicide came just three weeks ahead of Pastor Ed Montgomery’s in November 2013. Three months later it was the Rev. Allen “Tommy” Rucker. Two months after that it was Pastor Robert McKeehan. Less than a month later is was Pastor DB Antrim. Then three months later it was the Rev. William “Bill” Scott who also killed his wife Charlotte.
While no one knows for sure the exact number or pastors who are among those who die by suicided the number is more than significant according to the National Occupational Mortality Surveillance database.
“Being a pastor is a dangerous job, says Chuck Hannaford a clinical psychologist for the Southern Baptist Convention. “Especially in certain evangelical circles, where you have more fundamentalist orientation theologically, you find pastors who will reduce their depression or their negative thought processes to strictly spiritual problems.”
The Kingdom Partnership has taken the lead by creating Shepherd’s Care in providing assistance to pastors dealing with depression, anxiety, isolationism, and a myriad of mental health care issues.
Shepherd’s Care offers to pastors the opportunity to receive support for any mental health challenges they are facing. Qualified coaches, mentors, and many resources tailored for pastors.
Because of Shepherd’s Care compassion for pastors the leadership has eliminated any concern about cost to a pastor seeking help. This ministry is FREE.
Shepherd’s Care assistance is available 24 hours a day. Encouraging help all begins with a telephone call at: 402.522.6330
