Death by Ministry

At our recent Reform & Resurge Conference in Seattle, my good friend Pastor
Darrin Patrick from The Journey in Saint Louis spoke frankly of the burden that
pastoral ministry is. I have pushed myself to the edge and over the edge of
burnout throughout my nearly ten years in vocational ministry. Subsequently, I
have been doing a great deal of research that I am compiling in hopes of not
only improving my own life but also the lives of the leaders at Mars Hill Church
and the churches in our Acts 29 Network. As a leader I commonly set the pace of
ministry for those under me, which can lead to wholesale burnout of others if I
don’t learn this lesson and teach it to others. The following points that I pray
are helpful are some brief thoughts from what God has been teaching me as of
late. Lastly, the fact that at least twenty-two separate organizations exist in
the U.S. solely to deal with pre- and post-pastoral burnout indicate that this
is a widespread problem that has only been identified and researched since the
1950s.

Part 1 — Some Statistics

The following statistics were presented by Pastor Darrin Patrick from research
he has gathered from such organizations as Barna and Focus on the Family.

Pastors

Fifteen hundred pastors leave the ministry each month due to moral failure,
spiritual burnout, or contention in their churches.

Fifty percent of pastors' marriages will end in divorce.

Eighty percent of pastors and eighty-four percent of their spouses feel
unqualified and discouraged in their role as pastors.

Fifty percent of pastors are so discouraged that they would leave the ministry
if they could, but have no other way of making a living.

Eighty percent of seminary and Bible school graduates who enter the ministry
will leave the ministry within the first five years.

Seventy percent of pastors constantly fight depression.

Almost forty percent polled said they have had an extra-marital affair since
beginning their ministry.

Seventy percent said the only time they spend studying the Word is when they
are preparing their sermons.

Pastors' Wives

Eighty percent of pastors' spouses feel their spouse is overworked.

Eighty percent of pastors' spouses wish their spouse would choose another
profession.

The majority of pastor's wives surveyed said that the most destructive event
that has occurred in their marriage and family was the day they entered the
ministry.

Part 2 — Some Signs

The following are indicators that ministry leaders are heading toward burnout,
if not already there. Sadly, we too often become so focused on our tasks and
responsibilities that we fail to see these warning signs until it is too late.

Unusual mood swings that may include weeping without just cause, anger, or
depression

Exhaustion

Paranoia and suspicion

Weight change, including gain or loss

Moments of panic and feeling totally overwhelmed

Fantasizing about dying or running away to get away from the pressure

Fight-or-flight cycles where you rise up to intimidate and conquer others or
run away from difficulties just to avoid them

Insomnia, including difficulty falling asleep or remaining asleep, which can
lead to a reliance on sleeping pills

Too frequent use of alcohol or tobacco

High blood pressure

Comforting yourself with unhealthy foods packed with fat, sugar, and simple
carbohydrates

General irritability

Reckless driving
Change in sexual desire of either noticeable increase or decrease

Notable ongoing sexual temptation

Health-related issues such as irritable bowel syndrome, headaches, heart
trouble, chronic sickness, and stomach problems including ulcers

A victim mentality that sees the world as against you and everyone as an enemy
to varying degrees

Shopping sprees and unnecessary financial spending

Reliance on caffeine to self-medicate

Children, friends, and loved ones begin to feel like yet another burden

Part 3 — Some Solutions

The following are simply some things I do in my own life that I have found
helpful to prevent me from dying a death by ministry.

Fill your plate — In a conversation with Pastor Wayne Cordeiro of New Hope
Christian Fellowship in Hawaii, he gave some very sagely advice. He said that
each person’s plate is a different size; each person needs to first find the
size of their plate and then fill it only with those things that are of
highest priority. And, before adding any additional things to our full plate,
we must take something else off to leave space for the new duty. Finding the
size of one’s plate takes time and attention. For example, I have personally
seen that high-level leaders have an energy level that is unusually high and
those working under them who seek to keep up with their pace find themselves
quickly burning out.

Exercise — Sadly, most pastors and Christian leaders I know are woefully out
of shape. Many of them pound their pulpits against rock music and alcohol
while their huge gut jiggles in mockery of their own gluttony. In the early
years of our church plant, I ate poorly, slept infrequently, and lived off of
the constant adrenaline of perpetual stress. As a result, I weighed 235 pounds
at my highest point. Through regular diet and exercise I dropped back down to
a lean 190 pounds. But in the past year I have seen my weight climb back up to
210 pounds as my diet and exercise routine has been trashed by laziness,
travel, and the constant state of emergency. So, yesterday I cleaned out my
garage and plugged my treadmill back in so I can resume daily running and
lifting conveniently at home. I got started exercising this morning. I find
that when I work out, I drop weight, feel better, sleep better, and am better
able to lead out of health with energy. The experts say the best time to
exercise is in the morning and those who work out early in the day are most
likely to remain on an exercise regimen.

Do not allow technology to be your Lord — A recent issue of Fortune magazine
had an insightful article about the average day of some of the most successful
CEOs in the country. These people lived lives ruled by technology, including
spending whole days each week doing nothing but obsessively responding to
every single email they received. The article mentioned that the average
American worker is interrupted once every eleven minutes and takes twenty-five
minutes to refocus on their original task. The problem is that the alarms and
bells of our technology deceive us into reacting to them even when the matter
they call us to is neither urgent or important. So, turning off the chime and
vibrate on your phone, only checking your voicemail and email on certain days
at certain times, and turning the notification off on your email will itself
go a long way toward your healing. You won’t have the unpredictable fire drill
caused by the bells of technology. Imagine what the world must have been like
before the 1200s when the first mechanical clock was invented, or before
minute and second hands were added in the 1600s, or before 1879 when Edison
produced the first light bulb, thereby enabling us to stay up all night.

Sabbath — This includes taking five minutes off every hour to catch your
breath, go for a walk, stand up at your desk, etc. It includes taking thirty
to sixty minutes off a day to nap, go for a walk, read, garden, or whatever
else releases your pressure and helps you to relax. This also means taking one
day off a week to Sabbath, including a date night if you are in a serious
relationship or married. This also includes a day or two off a month for
silence and solitude and a few weeks a year for an actual vacation that does
not leave you more tired than before it began.

Pick a release valve — Because ministry causes pressure, any leader without an
acceptable release valve will either burn out from stress or blow up from sin.
So, the key to releasing pressure is to find and use an acceptable release
valve. This may include exercise, gardening, a hobby, journaling, or my
favorite, dropping the top on my Jeep and heading into the mountains for a day
of adventure to find new lakes to swim in.

Work on your life, not just in it — Rather than just pulling more hours and
trying harder, time needs to be regularly taken to pull back and look at your
life so that you can work on it rather than just run in it. For me this
includes printing out my schedule every few months to review how I spent my
time and inform my assistant of what was a waste of time that should not
happen again. This also means taking time to read books on the issue of time
management and burnout and biographies of great leaders to learn from their
lives, and possibly even taking time to meet with a Biblical counselor to get
insight on your own life and tendencies.

Leave margin — When we push our bodies, schedules, minds, and budgets to the
point where there is no margin, all that it takes to destroy us is one
unforeseen expense, one small emergency, or one small cold. Therefore, leaving
margin is the key to not being crushed when life does not go according to
plan. This means leaving extra money in the bank, leaving extra time between
appointments, and preparing to arrive at places early so that if there is
traffic you will still be on time and not stressed.

Spend most of your time training leaders — While thousands of people came to
see Jesus, only a handful really knew Him, and only three knew Him intimately.
This is because Jesus spent his time training leaders to do ministry and
without doing the same we will die from our work and sadly see it die with us
as well.

Work from conviction, not guilt — Conviction comes from God and guilt comes
from people. The key to being both fruitful and healthy is to do what God
wants and not always say yes to or let yourself be pushed around by people who
are demanding and have perfected the art of making you feel guilty if you do
not do what they demand.