“Where does the fire go? Again and again, ministers burn out. They lose their enthusiasm and excitement; they become bored and pedantic; and they decide to leave the ministry and enter other occupations.
Burn out is a hazard common to the service professions. Social workers, teachers, nurses, psychiatrists, and counselors all are in danger of suffering from a malady that makes once-coveted jobs seem like thankless chores. But ministers are especially hard hit because there is a stigma attached to leaving the ministry. It’s seen as a spiritual failure, and those who leave often suffer a special kind of guilt about failing to fulfill their call.
Fortunately, burn out is not inevitable. It’s often tied to misconceptions about the nature of Christian ministry, reluctance to change traditional pastoral roles, and unrealistic idealism about a minister’s humanity. Burn out doesn’t have to happen. If forewarned of the dangers, ministers might better anticipate, plan for, and work through this threat.
Four Cases of Burn Out
William Setoni is a small businessman who formerly was an Evangelical-Covenant minister for twenty-two years. Although no longer a full-time clergyman, he still enjoys substitute preaching, and remembers with nostalgia his years as a pastor. About ten years ago he decided to become the director of training in a company owned by one of his members. He had become discouraged with church work, even though he was good at his job and was well liked by his congregation. Since leaving the ministry he has been quite successful, and today owns a thriving vending company.
Consider the case of Peter McWilliams. Peter served
Presbyterian churches in New York, Ohio, and Kansas prior to becoming pastor of a small church in Tyler, Texas. Less than a year later, he made arrangements with a career development center for a “mid-career evaluation,” stating that he was very frustrated with the ministry after fifteen years of service.
His record showed he had been effective, his churches had grown, and he had been elected to denominational committees. His move to the small Tyler church was an attempt to simplify his life, and to resolve some of the frustrations experienced as a problem solver, counselor, and administrator in his ministerial role. Yet he found the issues were the same. He decided he would be happier with an eight-to-five job which would give him time to be with his wife and to go camping. He was just tired of doing what ministers do.
Harold Sorensen, a Lutheran minister, considered leaving the ministry after an intimidating congregational conflict. He watched a difference of opinion over a missions program erupt into a divisive conflict in spite of his peacemaking efforts. Things went from bad to worse, and finally both sides felt Harold was against them. The idea of leaving the ministry had never entered his thought before, but he began to think about becoming a full-time counselor. A sense of panic and failure overwhelmed him, for he had wanted to be a pastor since high school days. Deciding that changing his occupation would be the only way to survive, he made some contacts and began to plan for a new way of life.
Finally, consider the case of Randolf Balleau, a former Young Life staff member who had been an Assemblies of God minister in Winnfield, Louisiana, for six years. He had cultivated his speaking talent during his work with adolescents in Young Life. He was a popular speaker and received many invitations to address banquets and rallies. However, he felt the people at his church did not appreciate him, and that they resisted his leadership. When the congregation voted down a building project he supported, Randall reconsidered his long-standing interest in acting and entertaining. He thought seriously about going to California and attempting to establish himself in an acting career where he would be able to use his talents more effectively.
These four scenarios illustrate experiences which provide a basis for discussing the common issues involved in most ministerial burn outs.
Burn Out: Causes and Cures
First, a distinction should be made between a career and a job. Careers are focused over a lifetime; jobs are the particular positions one has at different times and places. Being a pastor of a church is a job. Being in ministry is a career. This is clear when a minister goes to another church, but is less apparent when the minister becomes a counselor or teacher. People may ask, “Why did you leave the ministry?” But you see yourself as still in ministry. The switch of roles from pastor to businessman may be more difficult to explain, but the dynamic remains the same.
In many cases, ministers need to feel less guilty about their desires to fulfill their ministries in settings other than a local pastorate. Vocational theorists acknowledge that persons become bored with their jobs over time, and that seven years is about the maximum length of time one can tolerate doing the same thing without some change in the role. Ministers are no exception to this rule.
Ministers should place their careers in developmental perspective. Careers involve many assignments or jobs. The average person works at ten jobs over a lifetime. Jobs can change while careers remain stable. Of course ministry is “public” in a way in which most jobs are not. It may always be necessary for ministers to state their intentions and perceptions. In many cases they can do so in a manner that allays their guilt and assuages the concerns of others.
One pastor, for example, sensed his congregation’s concern over his “leaving the ministry” to enter hospital chaplaincy. He reminded his people that for hundreds of years the most visible expression of “ministry” was pastoral ministry conducted in a particular local parish setting. He said, “It has been only in comparatively recent times that the church has moved out of the parish setting and into other settings where people live, move, have their beings, and need tender loving care when they are sick. Hence, hospital ministries have sprung up throughout the land, and who is better prepared to serve those ministries than men and women who have ministered to the sick in their local parishes?” In this way, a pastor who was moving into another ministry environment was able to help his parishioners see that through his service in a hospital, they were actually extending their ministry!
Second, there is a saying that “unless forestalled over time, all relationships deteriorate into arrangements.” Persons lose the enthusiasm and excitement they once had about a job, but persevere in a convenient, routine way. We should be more concerned with this type of ministerial burn out than with the kind where pastors leave their churches. As one minister said, “It has become drudgery. The people are nice, but I’m just filling a position. On the other hand, I wouldn’t know where to go.” In these situations, both the pastor and the people suffer.
Relationships don’t have to deteriorate into arrangements. Although much that the minister does is traditional and prescribed, he does have enough freedom of movement to prevent becoming custom-bound in his tasks. However, since the weighty influence of the congregation is half the picture, ministers cannot change their roles if their parishioners refuse to let them.
But congregations also get bored and lose enthusiasm when they allow the relationship with the pastor to become an arrangement. If a pastor wishes to change roles he must realize that although congregations have a penchant for custom, they also have an inner desire to remain enthused and excited.
Over a period of time an individual can change rank, such as moving up to conference leader; change position, either by changing churches or the focus of ministry within a church; or change influence, possibly by serving on a denominational committee. If ministers sense a burn out coming on, they would do well to consider these possibilities and determine which way they would like to move in order to renew their commitment. They should take an index of their capabilities and their changing interests, and then take responsibility for seeking the position that will best combine those interests and skills.
John Ridenour had devoted the “seven best years of my life” to a small Methodist congregation in rural Ohio. His work, however, had not gone unnoticed by his denominational board in Nashville. Throughout those seven years he had continually upgraded himself: a seminar in organizational development, two weeks in summer school, and so forth. It seemed as though John couldn’t get enough of this new world of organizational effectiveness. When his Methodist brethren said they wanted his expertise in Nashville, his parishioners were understandably upset. But what they didn’t know, for John had shielded it from them, was that John had sensed two years before that he was growing weary of some of his pastoral responsibilities. He had become interested in helping the larger church become more organizationally effective. He applied for and was given a job with the Board of Evangelism as the editor of a devotional magazine. Thus John renegotiated his “contract” with the church-at-large and took a new lease on life.
Third, burn out often follows vocational ineffectiveness. Four dimensions necessary to job success have been identified through vocational studies:
¥ Interest in the work
¥ Demands of the job
¥ Skills required
¥ Fulfillment provided
It is rare to find a situation where all four dimensions are of equal strength, where one enjoys and does well what the job requires, and where the job satisfies long-range goals. Conversely, burn out can occur when only one of these dimensions is weak or missing.
Although ministers should work toward maximizing the four dimensions of vocational effectiveness, they also should give themselves permission to be less than perfect in any of the areas. All careers are idealistic, but all jobs are realistic. No one is ever fully happy, successful, skilled, or satisfied. The call to ministry is a call to work in the world, and perhaps ministers would do well to remember the admonition of Paul in Philippians 4:11; ” . . . for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.” Paul doesn’t mean one should cease efforts to maximize interests, skills, demands, and destiny. He does mean one should cease thinking the inevitable solution is to change jobs. Effort must be put into job enrichment, retraining, renegotiation, and, above all, in prayer that asks God to help one find one’s calling.
This is precisely what Peter McWilliams did. He was the minister who grew “tired of doing what ministers do.” A ministerial friend recalled Peter’s earlier experience with the career development center and was wise enough to ask him, ‘What did you learn about yourself there?” It set Peter to thinking. He was inspired to reach into the back of a file drawer and extract the results of the tests he had taken at the center. Somehow, in his present frustrations, he had forgotten all the “plus” features about himself: his wide-ranging skills, his ability to empathize, and his way of helping people in very practical ways. He had also forgotten his promise to reduce his workload to forty-five hours a week so he and his wife could go camping in the mountains. This unhurried review of “counting his blessings” gave him a new perspective on things. No longer was he tired of “doing what ministers do.” He began to rejoice in what ministers are free to do, a freedom enjoyed by very few.
Finally, burn out is occasionally kindled by a crisis of faith, and causes the individual to truly “leave the ministry.” This situation is created by a loss of confidence and trust in what was believed, and in the church’s purpose. In the business world it is similar to a salesman who no longer believes in his product, or an executive who ceases to trust the policies of his company. Of course, basic values such as religious faith are nearer to the nexus of identity in ministry than products and policies are in business. Thus, as one might expect, admission that this is the issue is rare. Leaving the ministry is most often rationalized from other perspectives.
What about burn out provoked by a crisis of faith? Religious professionals should consider the possibility that doubt is a mark of healthy faith, not its nemesis. Pastors who over-emphasize their obligation to be models miss the chance for identification with their parishioners, all of whom have periods of doubt. The best pastors give themselves permission to doubt.
This is what happened to Ron Harris, pastor of First Church. Ron was anxious about his doubts concerning some of the basic tenets of the faith. He worried even more about what some of his parishioners would think if they knew he doubted. One day while in prayer, he recalled some words chiseled in stone across the doorway of his alma mater: “Cherish the Doubt; Low Minds Exist Without.” He remembered how once those words made extremely good sense to his scientifically-inclined mind. If they made good sense then, why not now? And why not invite a few of his trusted parishioners to “cherish the doubt,” if indeed, the expression of doubt might lead to questioning, and questioning might lead to an even deeper faith?
Hurting people are helped most by those who know they don’t have all the answers, but who do have a willingness to love and guide those who are lost. Thus they become “wounded healers,” as Henri Nouwen terms them, and thereby increase their effectiveness with their people, not impede it. The crisis of faith then becomes a channel for grace rather than an occasion for guilt.
Ministerial burn out is here to stay, but with better understanding, it might be forestalled. Renewal comes with a base of sound principles and sacred trust. Only then can those who are tempted to leave the ministry-in fact or fantasy-find courage to persist. –
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