Pastors who grew up in dysfunctional families also share a crushing sense of responsibility.

We learned early on that if we performed like we should, we could control our environment, prevent catastrophes, & temporarily "fix" our circumstances. Now, we do this in ministry. 1/

We take responsibility for everything out of, ironically, an over-inflated sense of importance to the situation-"if I don't do it, it will all fall apart." This is part of why we gain a sense of significance from ministry-we are doing what always gave us purpose-fixing things. 2/

However, in ministry this means:

1) we struggle to share responsibility b/c we have never experienced a collaborative environment. So we take on more than is truly possible and set ourselves up to fail, which, not surprisingly, deals us an even deeper emotional blow. 3/

When we fail, we cannot see that the problem was not our inability, but the amount of pressure we put on ourselves and our unwillingness to share the load. 4/

2) We have difficulty trusting responsibility to those around us. It's easier, even safer, to do it ourselves. This is both b/c of our sense of "control" over the situation, & our fear of being let down by another's promises. This undermines the productivity of the whole team. 5/