By Shawn Newberry

The Crisis

I did not expect that one of the most formative moments of my pastoral leadership would come through a medical emergency. In my mid-thirties, I suffered a stress-induced transient ischemic attack (TIA). While physically brief, the event exposed deep fractures in my understanding of faith, leadership, prayer, and trust in God. This is my story and experience as a pastor leading a struggling congregation, and reveals how anxiety, performance-driven ministry, and a distorted theology of faith nearly cost me my life. What followed became a slow but transformative reorientation toward a gospel-centered way of leading, living, and thriving.

My Leadership Context and Formation

At the time of this incident, I was pastoring a small church with significant financial and organizational challenges. I was married with four children whose growing needs added increasing financial pressure. Personally, I am a high “D” personality on the DISC assessment. I am assertive, decisive, competitive, and strongly results-oriented. When faced with difficulty, my instinct is to work harder, move faster, and push through obstacles.

Spiritually, I was deeply committed to Scripture, prayer, and discipline. I had memorized hundreds of Bible verses and believed firmly in the power of prayer and the sovereignty of God. I also held a strong work ethic, reinforced by biblical teaching. Yet I did not recognize how easily these strengths became liabilities. I had quietly embraced the belief that effort and control were faithful responses to ministry challenges.

Ministry Pressures and Organizational Stress

My church was struggling financially and numerically. Leading it often felt like “pushing a rope” (exerting energy without progress). I could not manufacture momentum, no matter how hard I worked. At the same time, my own family expenses were increasing as my children grew older. There was regularly more month left than money.

Emotionally, the strain intensified as I watched peers in ministry flourish. Their churches grew, their compensation increased, and their families appeared stable. I felt left behind and increasingly anxious. Instead of slowing down or seeking help, I doubled my efforts. I spent longer hours in the office, worked harder on sermons, and convinced myself that perseverance would eventually yield results.

Relational conflict further compounded the pressure. One man in the church directly confronted me and told me I was a terrible preacher and should resign. Around the same time, my wife lost a close family member, and we spent long hours in the hospital awaiting his final moments. The emotional and spiritual weight became overwhelming.

The Stroke and Its Aftermath

Late one Friday night, I suffered a stroke while eating dinner. I remember nothing of the immediate aftermath. I do not recall the neighbors caring for my children, the ambulance ride, or arriving at the hospital. My next memory is waking up alone on a gurney placed in a storage area because the hospital was full.

Medically, the diagnosis was a TIA caused by extreme stress and elevated cortisol levels. The physician told me plainly that this episode was a warning. If I did not learn to manage stress differently, I might not survive another one.

Emotionally, I was devastated. Written in large red letters on a chart hanging beside me was the word stroke. As I lay there, tears ran down my face. I felt like a failure as a pastor, a provider, and a leader. Scripture came to mind: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.” I repeated it relentlessly, fighting anxiety with familiar words.

Then another verse confronted me: “Who of you by being anxious can add a single moment to your span of life?” In that moment, I realized the truth. Anxiety had not preserved me, it had nearly killed me.

Leadership Expectations and Breakdown

Despite the medical crisis, church leadership expected me to preach that Sunday. I complied out of duty, not health. I preached on the very Scriptures that had sustained and convicted me. The sermon was poorly received, and I was later told it was one of the worst I had delivered.

The same man who had earlier attacked my preaching encouraged another family to leave the church and then left himself. While his departure removed a source of criticism, it also intensified the church’s financial instability, as he was its largest contributor.

This period revealed a critical leadership failure, not just mine, but the system’s. There were no boundaries protecting my health, no space for recovery, and no acknowledgment that pastoral well-being mattered beyond performance.

Ministering in Christ

In the months following the stroke, I functioned largely on discipline alone. I did my job, but my heart was absent. I questioned why God had spared my life. At times, I believed it might have been easier for my family and church had I died.

During this season, God began reshaping my theology. I recognized that my prayers had often been attempts to enlist God in my plans rather than surrender to His will. I believed in faith, but practiced control. I equated faithfulness with effort and success.

Immersion in John 17 and Romans 8 became transformative. I encountered a God whose love was unconditional, whose kindness leads to repentance, and whose Son intercedes on my behalf. Romans 8 showed me that I did not need to defend myself, Christ already had. My identity was not rooted in effectiveness but in belonging. I was not earning righteousness; I was receiving it.

I saw how my preaching had mirrored my inner life (argumentative, defensive, and heavy). As my understanding of the gospel softened, so did my preaching. I no longer needed to win arguments or prove worth. I could simply proclaim good news.

Lessons Learned

Recovery took nearly three years. Longer than my time at that church. Through that process, I learned enduring lessons about leadership and faith:

The gospel must remain central, not only in content but in tone.
Preaching forms the preacher before it shapes the listener.
I cannot lead others where I have not personally gone.
Contentment in God’s love frees me from needing approval of others.
The church belongs to Christ, not me.
Anxiety is not a sign of faithfulness; peace is a fruit of the Spirit.
Trusting God means relinquishing control, not perfecting plans.

Resting in God

My stroke was not merely a medical event; it was a theological intervention. It exposed the cost of striving disguised as faith and redirected me toward trust grounded in grace. This experience reshaped my leadership from performance-driven anxiety to gospel-centered dependence. For me, faith is no longer about how much I can endure or accomplish, but about how fully I can rest in the God who holds my life, my ministry, and my future.

The Stroke That Reshaped My Ministry