As I continue my series of posts for Pastor Appreciation month, I cannot help but include someone I’ve only known for a short while and interacted with in specific settings, yet who has had a profound impact on my life and ministry.
Today, I want to express my thanks to Patrick Crowder.
To say that Patrick is brilliant and accomplished is an understatement. He holds a BBA from Angelo State University along with a Master of Divinity and an MA in Journalism from Regent University. As if two master’s degrees weren't enough, he is finishing his Doctor of Ministry in Pastoral Care at Lincoln Christian University. He’s also served as an instructor and Dean of Students at two universities, planted two churches, advised on dozens more plants, and currently serves in the Foursquare network of churches to care for pastors and church planters.
With his wife, Mindy, Patrick co-founded Healthy Pastors and Leaders, a nonprofit dedicated to the health of pastors and church leaders. Together, Patrick and Mindy have 80 years of vocational, pastoral ministry experience and thousands of hours of face-to-face counseling care for pastors. In God’s Providential care for me, He saw fit to include me in a fraction of Patrick’s wisdom and experience.
In summer 2021, I was somewhere near what felt then like “rock bottom.” I had served in ministry for eight years but felt burned out. Some might attribute that to my work ethic going unchecked and unbalanced by rest. Others might say it was my ministry environment, which had been difficult for some time, for reasons not worth mentioning here. If I’m honest, it was a mixture of both. On top of that, I had proposed to my girlfriend at the beginning of 2021, but the engagement and the relationship ended only a few months later.
I was struggling, and I knew I needed help. After a lot of prayer, consideration, and research, I found the website for Marble Retreat in Marble, CO. At the time, I didn't know its significance or history as a prominent Christian counseling center, or that it had served pastors struggling with burnout and other problems since the 1970s. As I looked, I felt their approach would lean more therapeutic than I was comfortable with and that it was one of the more expensive choices. But I also felt strongly like it was the place I needed to go.
Long story short, I signed up for one of the 10-day intensives they were offering in the fall, booked my plane tickets, and, a few months later, flew out. After a long day of flying, driving, and arriving, I met the hosts and the other folks who were there to help like I was. Not long after that, I turned in for the night.
The next morning, I met my counselor, Patrick. He and Mindy had only recently joined the staff of Marble Retreat as the lead pastor care therapists, and our group was one of the first Marble hosted since Covid-19 pandemic restrictions were easing nationwide. After spending time with us at the breakfast table, they left to get to work. A few hours later, I was in a living room sitting across from Patrick, spilling my story and fumbling to communicate my hurts and hopes.
The next ten days combined rest with intensive counseling. We covered so much in that time, including, but not limited to, my relationship with my former fiancé, other previous relationships, ministry experiences and hopes, childhood, and current struggles and sins. If I remember right, Patrick and I did two 2-hour sessions each day. It was exhausting work – when I left Marble, I vacationed in the mountains of Georgia for a few more days and just slept.
It was also life-giving – perhaps lifesaving, in a sense – work. I was not considering ending my life, but in many ways, it felt like life was ending all around me. Within, I felt stuck, trapped, and completely emotionally locked up. One day of counseling stands out in particular. The sessions were especially difficult, but also undeniably freeing. Something was “starting to give,” and I distinctly remember posting a single-character caption on Instagram back then: the “unlocked” emoji.
You might wonder how Patrick was able to affect me so radically in such a short time. The answer is remarkably simple. I went into Marble hopeful, but also skeptical and distrustful. I was sincere in my desire for help, but I know I didn’t make it easy for Patrick to help me right away. My answers were honest, but also pat and guarded. Throughout, Patrick was patient – he saw me as a person, not a presenting problem. He listened to and considered my experiences in each session, instead of listening to speak about or tout his experience. He asked questions that didn’t require “right” or “theologically informed” answers, or even any answers. He welcomed my stunned silence, my confused ramblings, and, eventually, my grief and tears and questions.
Before you read that and think that Patrick offered some weak, overly-affirming, pansy-Jesus psychotherapy (yes, I once read that’s what “Christian Counseling” is), make no mistake: Patrick challenged me and corrected me, too. One time was very memorable. I remember the topic vividly, but it is irrelevant to the story. What matters is that I, at one point of heightened distress in the counseling room, said to Patrick a variation of a line that I used regularly: “that’s just the way it is; it is what it is, Patrick.” I remember him looking at me and raising his voice in a way that I can only describe as impassioned by love and emboldened by the Spirit:
“THAT is simply a LIE, my friend.”
To this day, I can see the concern on his face and the tears welling in his eyes. I can hear the exact, exasperated, yet controlled, raised tone of his voice. He didn’t yell, and he wasn’t manipulating the moment. I had been honest with him, and it was simply his honest response. Patrick spoke to me with conviction, like God Himself told him to say what he said. But he said what he did with compassion…like God Himself told him to say it.
Patrick offered me many helpful tools and insights into myself. I have nearly an entire notebook of notes, and a shelf in my personal library full of books he recommended, to prove it. But, more than that, Patrick embodied the care of Jesus to me before I ever realized how desperately I needed to be shown God’s care again.
The wounds of a friend are trustworthy, but the kisses of an enemy are excessive. (Prov. 27:6 CSB)
Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. (1 Peter 5:7 NIV)
I would return to Florida with more clarity about what needed to change in my life and, a few months later, make some of the biggest changes of my life, at the time. Those changes led to further growth, development of ministry goals, and, eventually, marrying my wife. The rest is recent history.
Patrick is now a part of recent history, too.
After marrying Chantelle, we suffered through two pregnancy losses, a difficult pregnancy and first year with Edmund-James, and the prenatal medical diagnosis of Benji and subsequent year-plus of surgeries, hospitalizations, complications, and daily threats to his health. As we entered 2026, I personally was in a similar place to where I was in 2021. Not “rock bottom,” certainly, but we’ve been through some hard things in three years’ time! I felt I needed help again.
I considered a few options before calling Marble to see if they offered any sort of virtual care options for pastors or ministry leaders. They informed me they did not, but that Patrick and Mindy had moved on from Marble and might be available to me privately. Marble connected me with Patrick, and he agreed to offer me pastoral counseling through Healthy Pastors and Leaders.
I’ve been seeing Patrick virtually every few weeks for the last several months. The problems and concerns I’ve brought to him are all new, but he has again offered the same listening ear, slow answers, and wise perspective he gave those years ago at Marble. This time around, Patrick feels less like a professional counselor and more like a father in the faith offering love and wisdom to a young man and minister. I recently realized how meaningful that is to me when I came across this verse:
For you may have countless instructors in Christ, but you don't have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. Therefore, I urge you to imitate me. (1 Cor. 4:15-16 CSB)
Today, as then, there is no shortage of Christian teachers. There are podcasts, websites, and channels, and most of the evangelical church places a premium on pastors who focus on teaching. To be sure, we need teachers and should honor them (1 Tim. 5:17), but the call to pastor means more than teaching.
We need pastors who do more than impart information; we need men who will live a life of lavishing love. We need pastors who minister privately in conversations, not just publicly in the confines of the pulpit. We need pastors who consider it ineffective to teach without also being as involved with people as a parent is with their child! We need these true fathers in faith, desperately, perhaps now more than ever.
I’m not Timothy to him, but I’m blessed that Patrick Crowder is a spiritual father to me. There are few people I’ve wanted to “make proud” in my life, but Patrick is one of them. He makes me want to be more like Jesus because I’ve seen Jesus in him. He’s taught me so much about being a son of God, a man, a husband, a father, a pastor, and a friend just by being himself, letting me a tiny bit into his life, and entering the mess of mine. If I’m half the man and pastor Patrick is one day, I’ll have done very well.
Patrick, if you’re reading, I know you’re going through some hard things personally lately. Please know I am praying for you often (if you’re reading, join me in praying for Patrick. You don’t need to know why; the Spirit knows), and that I am so deeply grateful for your friendship and fathering of me in various ways over the last five years. You imitate Jesus in so many ways, and you deserve to be honored for it.
Thank you, and love in Jesus.
(And thank you, Mindy, for your own extensive work and ministry; I have no doubt of your effectiveness and care for others! Thank you also for sharing Patrick with so many, including me).
