- Okay, Pastor Sloan,

my first question for you today,

I saw your Instagram video.

It was a very emotional,

passionate video.

What was going on?

What prompted you to post that?

- Well, you know, I have been,

over the last few weeks,

kind of wrestling with this season

of the pandemic,

and sort of the fatigue of pastoring.

And I started to feel the weight.

When we first began the pandemic,

I think I was running off of adrenaline.

Like so many others.

In attempting to adapt,

and shift, in ministry.

Taking advantage of the new opportunities.

And so as time went on,

of course, you begin tohave some different energies

setting in,

and this was sort of the season

where the weight of the pandemic,

and the distance fromindividuals in ministry,

was starting to kind of take its toll.

So with the accumulation of that weight,

there was this evening,

that evening I was sitting in my study,

and I was preparing to preach.

And of course, we know what goes

into preparation to pourinto the lives of so many,

and what's at stake

in just those few moments.

And so as I'm preparing that,

I get the message thatone of the young dancers

in our church,

was at the point whereshe was transitioning.

I knew she was sick.

And knew that the cancer had begun

to really take an aggressive toll on her.

So when I got the call,

I of course immediately called her mother.

And as I'm talking to the mother,

I'm listening to the pain in her voice.

And as a parent,

you relate to the pain of a parent,

who is having to deal with the transition

of a young child,

and knowing that there'sabsolutely nothing

that they can do.

And the helplessness that you feel.

And so as I'm listening to that,

attempting to sift through my own emotions

in order for me to beable to minister to her,

she tells me, "You'renot gonna be able Pastor,

to come see her becauseof the Covid restrictions.

They're not even reallyletting me in, or the family".

And so that began to weigh.

Then at the very momentthat I'm praying for her.

At the very moment.

My wife FaceTimes me.

And of course I don't answer it,

but the FaceTime I knew was coming,

because my daughter was dancing

in a competition.

And in her dance competition of course,

only two people could go in.

So it was my other daughter and my wife.

So I couldn't go to that.

So as I'm praying for one mother,

who's daughter is transitioning,

and she's a dancer,

and then having to look at the possibility

of seeing my daughter,

who is dancing,

it was just this situation where,

as a pastor you don'toften want to say it,

but that was the momentwhere you're saying,

"This is not fair".

That this mother is having to wrestle

with not resuscitating her child.

And here's my daughter,

who's a dancer just like her,

and she's dancing.

So the emotions just weighed in.

Flooded in.

And when I hung up,

and after watching my daughter.

You know, I immediately called back,

saw my daughter dance.

I wanted to do the video,

because I wanted to share with people,

what so many pastors and people

in ministry are feeling in this season.

That is often notarticulated or talked about,

for so many different reasons.

Maybe it's the feeling that we're supposed

to be at a certain level of emotional

and spiritual maturity.

That it's just not good for us

to display that type of vulnerability.

And so, I wanted to share,

in just that moment,

a sense of vulnerability and transparency,

and hopefully be a voicefor so many other pastors,

about what they're feeling,

what they're going through,

and how they really feel ill-equipped

to walk with their church,

their members,

when this is a part of who we are.

Authentically, we're called to be

with people in crisis.

So to not be able to be there

in a season of crisis,

it was heart wrenching--

it is heart wrenching.

And I hope that I wasable to articulate that.

And convey that message.

And I think so many peopledid really hear that

and see that.

- What's been the response?

What have you heard fromother faith leaders,

other pastors?

I know it resonated with me.

- So.

Of course, whenever you sharesomething on social media.

And especially as transparent as that was.

I wrestled for a moment of whether

or not to push send.

Whether to really go ahead and share it.

So I finally did.

Course.

And it was just a few moments,

I started getting texts from pastors.

And direct messages,

and inboxes,

saying "thank you".

And it just continued to build.

So of course, I wrote in the video,

"Listen, I'll probably delete this,

just depends on how long I'm comfortable

with the vulnerability".

But as I got more and more messages,

I mean thousands from across the country.

From people who were saying thank you.

It has just been overwhelming,

that I think I realized,

that that was more than about me.

That video spoke to the heart of people

who are in this season of fatigue,

and trying to make senseof their weariness.

And recognizing that all of us need

to support one another.

In this season.

Again, the outpouring has justbeen tremendous from people.

And I'm grateful for that,

and I'm grateful for the support

and prayers as well.

- What have you been doing,

and what encouragement do you have

for others like yourself?

Other pastors, other faith leaders.

To make sure that they'retaking care of themselves.

In this season.

Because we've never beenin anything like this.

We haven't, in our lifetimes.

So what's the encouragement,

what are you doing,

what do you hope other people are doing,

to make sure that they're okay?

- I have always been a big advocate

for mental health.

And for therapy, for pastors.

For ministry leaders.

And I think that it's important

that you have a therapist.

I've always been an advocate for this,

because of course,

not only do I believe it's important,

but I also want to destroy the stigma

in the Black community,

that to have a therapist in some way,

identifies some area ofweakness in your life.

Which is totally not the truth.

And so I wanted to kindof help normalize it,

to get mental health.

Somebody to walk with you.

A therapist.

So, I see a therapist regularly.

And of course, with the pandemic,

we've had to switch to virtual.

You know, which hasits challenges as well.

But it has also been helpful.

And then also I think,

one of the most difficult things,

is learning to take time,

and sort of unplug,

and decompress.

I do that.

I've tried to do that on a quarterly basis

throughout the pandemic.

I admit that I wasn't as committed

to it early on,

because I felt so obligated to

- That's a healthy thing.- come through,

for other people.

And then I've taken onsome other practices.

You know, that we justdon't talk about a lot.

Like meditation.

But I think it's critical thatwe understand the importance

of self care.

And not be afraid to take that time.

It's necessary.

Because it's hard to pour into people

from an empty pitcher.

Of course I don't want tosay it goes without saying,

but I think also it's important

that we spend time in ourspiritual disciplines as well.

And I think that the pandemichas also challenged us

to grow in our spiritual disciplines.

And to make a larger commitment

to our prayer life,

and to our reading of scripture.

And so I've tried to do that.

And I'm also aware of my rhythms.

And I think that people and leaders,

have to be aware of their rhythms.

And so, I know when I'm getting

to a place where my body and my mind

are telling me, "Listen,

you're getting close to the edge here",

or "You're starting to lose a little bit,

so let's do something pretty quickly,

to try and reboot".

And so that's kind of what I've done.

- My last question for you, Pastor,

that was so excellent.

I'm literally just gleaningfor my own personal life

from what you're saying.

You're in Houston, Texas, right?

- [Sloan] Yes, Ma'am.

- The pandemic is already happening,

and then there's thewinter storm that happened.

I mean, how did you guysnavigate all of that?

As well.

- Yeah, so it's probably unresponsible

for me to not say that the storm also

had an impact on the emotional overload.

In that moment for me with the video.

That having gone through that week,

and everything had been shut down,

and you're trying to,

again, for us,

for many churches, ministry doesn't stop.

And you still wanna be present.

But you also wanna be--

the most important piece isto be present in your home.

To be present for your family.

And so my family and I spent several days,

huddled around a fireplace.

And thanks be to God,

we did have that warmth.

So we had days without water,

and we're sitting here on the floor,

sleeping on the floor.

And so you go through that,

but of course,

you also look at the bright side

and say that that helped also

to create some connection with our family.

It's always good whenyou realize your strength

in going through difficulty.

But the storm did play a role.

And I think it's playeda role on so many people.

You know, whenever you gothrough any trauma in life.

Anything.

And you can't minimize eventhe smallest moments of trauma.

It is going to leave an imprint upon you.

And your body and mind is going

to record what happened.

And so attempting to respond to that,

and deal with that in a healthy way,

is always challenging when you don't

have a playbook.

When you don't have a template

for how to deal with these things,

from a pandemic to a winter storm.

So all those things incombination I think,

has just challenged all of us

to do our very best tonavigate life's difficulties,

and recognize how critical faith is.

How important it is for us to be in tune

with our bodies,

our minds,

our spirits.

And how important it isto lean on one another,

as well as, most importantly,

our faith in God.

- You said in the video,

at the end of it,

"You know what, thatGod is still in control.

He's still on the throne".

(laughing)

Can you give us just a little nugget

of that fact right there.

Regardless.

Pandemic, storms,

ups and downs.

People, Covid situation, everything.

God is in control.

Give us the final one.

- Yeah, you know,

I've come to the point in life

where I recognize,

I can't explain everything,

and I don't have to have a reason

or an explanation.

That I can't change what happens to me.

I can't.

But what I can do,

is take responsibilityon how I respond to it.

And all of us have to respond.

And the one consistency we have in life,

is the presence of God.

And the one confidence thatwe can lean completely on,

is the confidence in knowing that God

will never leave us or forsake us.

And God is not sitting in eternity looking

over the balcony of time,

trying to figure out,

"What am I going to do?

How am I going to handle this predicament?

How am I going to get them out of this?".

God already has a perfect plan.

And even when we can't understand it,

we can trust that God ison the throne for a reason.

Because God is God,

and God all by God's self.

So the trust that we affordto God in this moment,

is just that we're gonna look to Him,

we're gonna hold to our faith,

and we're gonna trust thatall things work together

for good.

And that's the confidence I have,

and I hope that's the confidence

that others will take with them.

That as long as God's on the throne,

God keeps watch above His own.

- Amen, Pastor Sloan.

God bless you, man of God.

Thank you.

Thank you, thank you,

thank you so much for taking time out

of your busy scheduleto talk with us today.