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For years, Americans had an easy default when they thought of attention-deficit\/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): It was the stereotype of a distracted kid goofing off at a game or a fidgety student losing interest in class.<\/p>\n
No one imagined a middle-aged pastor trying to finish his sermon draft late Saturday night.<\/p>\n
But as rates of ADHD continue to rise\u2014with an uptick in diagnoses among women<\/a> and adults<\/a>\u2014the picture of the disorder has become nuanced, and more people are coming to terms with their ADHD, including in ministry.<\/p>\n The symptoms of ADHD can be particularly challenging for pastors, whose all-encompassing vocation often comes without the administrative help that they need.<\/p>\n When Chad Brooks sees a pastor with ADHD, he sees someone who will either burn out in ministry or become the future of the church.<\/p>\n Brooks is a pastor and coach who works with United Methodist Church (UMC) pastors through the UMC ministry Passion in Partnership. The UMC requires a midcareer strengths assessment for all pastors, and Brooks has noticed that when pastors come to him for coaching and have scored poorly in their preaching skills, they often have a clinical ADHD diagnosis.<\/p>\n He developed a course called \u201cPreaching Through Distraction\u201d to help pastors learn to work more efficiently during the week rather than using the adrenaline of procrastination to crank out a Saturday night sermon.<\/p>\n A growing number of pastors reach out to Brooks for one-on-one coaching because their ADHD makes paying attention in a classroom setting too difficult.<\/p>\n \u201cThese people are deeply passionate about people and ministry, and if we cannot figure out how to be alongside each other, we are going to miss out on things we desperately need right now,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n ADHD expert Russell Barkley says<\/a> ADHD is best understood as an impairment of executive function, the self-control necessary to sustain action toward a goal. Executive function controls brain functions like inhibiting behavior, monitoring emotions, and planning and problem solving\u2014in other words, the things you need in order to adult.<\/p>\n Barkley\u2019s definition conveys the myriad ways ADHD can disrupt life. For pastors with ADHD, essential aspects of modern pastoring like planning meetings, managing appointments, studying Scripture, and preparing sermons are daunting. At the same time, many with ADHD report an ability to hyperfocus, though their brains might not fixate on productive things.<\/p>\n The prevalence of ADHD diagnoses<\/a>, which shot up further during the pandemic, has largely gone unnoticed and unaddressed by the church, even though more pastors with the condition are feeling the crunch.<\/p>\n As church size shrinks, churches expect their pastors to be generalists who can manage everything, and pastors with poor executive functioning battle both the stigma and themselves.<\/p>\n For Brooks, much of his work involves helping pastors be honest with themselves about their strengths and weaknesses and develop habits that fit how God made them.<\/p>\n He asks his clients to document how they spend their time since time management is a major struggle for people with ADHD. By making a plan to break down tasks like sermon preparation into smaller pieces, pastors can manage their workloads without waiting for the adrenaline rush caused by procrastinating.<\/p>\n Casey Cease is a lay pastor and coach who also works in marketing and publishing. He believes his ability to switch gears among several enterprises is one result of his ADHD. He enjoys the variety.<\/p>\n Though no longer working as a church planter, Cease recalls how much he dreaded writing his sermons. As a church planter in the Acts 29 network, Cease believed his personal sermon style should match the academic, intellectual styles of Don Carson, Tim Keller, and John Piper. Yet the more Cease tried to craft his sermons like other pastors, the worse the sermons became.<\/p>\n \u201cI felt like I was deficient,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Now when he preaches, about once each month, Cease gives himself permission to lean into the things that help him be faithful to the text, mindful of his congregation, and open to the Holy Spirit\u2019s work.<\/p>\n Schedules are key. Cease sets aside Tuesday as sermon preparation day and schedules time for physical activity on Tuesday to help with focus. He prints out the text and uses pens and highlighters to physically engage with the passage while he thinks about it. By the end of the day he hopes to have a general sermon outline so that if he doesn\u2019t have time to come back to it until Saturday, he can still preach a sermon that is faithful to Scripture.<\/p>\n For Cease, part of accepting his ADHD is accepting that his best sermon work naturally happens early Sunday morning. When he learned how to work with his brain rather than against it, \u201cthe stress of procrastination went away,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Sermon prep is still a struggle, but with a plan to break it down, the task no longer feels overwhelming.<\/p>\n As with his sermon prep, Cease has discovered ways to make spiritual disciplines more effective so his thoughts don\u2019t wander as much. Getting outside for solitude, praying while walking, writing out prayers\u2014the more Cease involves his senses, the more he engages his mind.<\/p>\n It also helps that Cease\u2019s pastoral ministry was starting a church. People with ADHD often get excited about big ideas, and their energy is contagious. They draw others in with a compelling vision and then leave it to more administratively gifted people to handle the details.<\/p>\n