in october 2006, lifeway christian resources announced that over 1300 staff members of southern baptist churches had been fired in 2006 alone. this is just one denomination and one year, so it’s not inclusive of all churches or all reasons for leaving a job (being fired or resigning or moral failure…or the ever-so-tricky “forced to resign”).
i left one southern baptist church in february 2006 after being on staff for a little over two years and now work at another southern baptist church. i can think of at least twenty (without even trying) people i know who have been fired, quit, moved to another church or left a church staff for health reasons between 2006 and 2007. max lucado himself is slowly stepping down from his responsibilities at oak hills church.
many of my good friends have been burned out by working at churches. my own father left the ministry in 1996 after being run over and pastoring four churches in ten years. early last year, i swore i’d never work in a church again because of the intense pressure (but fortunately, a couple of people were able to move me along, and although at times it seems insanely hectic, lake pointe has been such a place of healing).
i reflect today on this because in the last three weeks i have learned of a couple more of my friends who have left the ministry. my heart breaks for their hearts. for their families.
my heart is saddened by the general condition of the western church culture. there are so many health problems reported by church staff. i ended up in the hospital for a week in 2005. a friend in his early twenties who is a youth pastor developed ulcers. heart problems seem to be the norm though, with middle-aged pastors and stress (and perhaps the fact generally seaking, most churches serve junk food more often than communion?)
i cynically digress. please forgive me. i do not take the sacrament of communion in such light regard…
the sad thing is NOTHING IS GOING TO CHANGE ABOUT THIS UNLESS SOMEONE DOES SOMETHING ABOUT IT.
but what? seriously, what kind of example are we setting by turning ourselves into little, overworked stress balls with heart disease and ulcers? by our broken families? our broken dreams?
i dont have the answers, but i sure as heck want to talk about this.
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Great job at bringing raising this concern. I have no clue as to the answer either, but I think a lot has to do with congregations putting too many expectations on their paid staff, like they are the only “ministers” and they are supposed to serve them because that’s what they’re paid to do.
I know personally looking at our church, we expect our senior minister to minister to 300-400 people, but out of those 300-400 people, there is not a single person that is ministering to the paid staff.
I don’t know, I could be totally wrong, but I share your concern that this is a big problem!
I’m not in a paid position on a church staff. I have no aspirations (aside from the tax benefits for clergy – holy cow!) to ever acquire one. My perspective is as one from the “outside:” We’ve got to create church environments where the staff serves as facilitators for ministry, not necessarily “leaders” (this is admittedly a poor word choice, so allow me to explain).
Whenever I engage in a strategic planning retreat as a facilitator, my role is not to provide the answers, but merely some general structure and direction for the meeting. It is up to the participants to generate the ideas, strategies or whatever.
In the same way, our paid ministers should serve as guides, providing opportunities, direction and perhaps guidance, but not necessarily solely carrying the weight of the particular ministry.
This may be frightening for paid ministers as their worth is typically determined by their output, but if we can change the “lay members” paradigms, I think we might have a lower burnout rate than we do currently.
Just my two cents.
i’ve noticed that when i become stressed it’s because…for some reason…i start thinking that the spiritual well being of everyone in the church is up to me…(not the lord)
we make church about us (the leadership) to much…
I think the western church has divorced emotional health from spiritual maturity. The notion that one can have one without the other is simply absurd.
To me it is like school. Good memorization skills, good grades. In the church often it is good disciplines, good leader. While I am not going to devalue disciplines, the point is that many of them “can” emerge from areas of unhealth.
I think the more we disallow the separation of emotional health and spiritual maturity, the more we speak up for integrity (wholeness), the more this tide will turn.
I think Jesus was pretty clear on the “profit, but loose your soul” equation. If I read the post, ulcers, burnt out…those are a lot of souls.
thanks for the reminder of what i’m stepping into.
it won’t be the amazon cannibals that get me. it’ll be the southern baptist ones that finish me.
Make sure you have a job description for your job, this allows you to pinpoint areas for you to focus on. Say if I was the Worship Pastor and I was also involved in the youth ministry, I wouldn’t be very effective in my job because I was taking away time.
It also can become more stressful, continuely taking on more tasks. Learn to say ‘No’ its for your benefit.
I have been in the church biz for a lot of year now, and things are getting worse…and better. The church is so complex where a leader has to know marketing, counseling, teaching, theology, and business management and even technology. The human element of coaching and building reproducing people is being lost. (Otherwise known as discipleship). Production is cool. Facilities are cool. Color printers are nice. But changed lives is really what we need to work for, not all the bells and whistles. Why buy moving lights if you can’t pull off ministry with cafeteria lighting? This is what is burning a lot of ministry people out right now. I am not saying either or, as much as what should come first.
I have only been a paid staff member of a church for about 10 months, but i did a 2 year internship with the same church that i work at now. so 3 years in ministry…
I find for me that when i begin to stress that it is because i have taken my perspective off of what i am doing this for and put it on what i am doing.
If i am not in prayer and keeping my perspective on the fact that ministry is not about me and my work, but about the people that we as a church body get to minister to. If my perspective is right i dont burn out, i dont get offended with wht my boss might ask me to do.
I think so often ministry flows out of our own strenght….but to be in ministry i think that we have to rely more on God than our own strength, because you will screw up on big things (like accidently shutting all the lights off on stage at the easter service) and the little things (losing a receipt for a check request). If ministry flows out of your strength and you dont involve God then of course you will burn out.
mmm … hard topic I think there are only 3 of us from about 29 of my original bible college class still in ministry.
There are as you say a number of reasons for the casualty rate, but the church as the church must take some big responsibility. I certainly found that I could not reach the level of expectation that people had of me as a pastor. I was expected to visit every member, preach great sermons, be a sympathetic counsellor, a wise and inspiring leader etc, etc, etc. I almost made myself ill trying to please people.
That said I think those of us in ministry often operate with a false sense of what it means to be God’s servants, and so put ourselves under unnecessary pressure. The single thing that has helped me most to be healthy in ministry is Steve Seamands book MINISTRY IN THE IMAGE OF GOD. I would make it compulsory reading for all staff.
One word answer…
Sabbath.
As a church staff member I have tramped all over the command to keep the Sabbath. Sabbath is an excercise in faith…faith that says that God will take care of it all.
Exodus says that you will remember that it is the LORD who makes you holy. For me, I remember that it all the Lord.
Sabbath gives us perspective on our work. Jesus said that Sabbath was made for man…this means that we NEED it. I NEED it. It is an act of faith for me to stop all of my very important work…so I rest…by faith.
Maybe burn-out is simply a failure of allowing God to remind us every week that we need to entrust our work to HIM by resting.
I am slowing learning this lesson (I feel as if I am riding the short bus).
Anne,
I must remain anonymous here as I do on Los’ blog. Partly because, well, I’m afraid of anybody in “ministry world” who might know me might read these blogs….but blogs like yours have been my lifeline in the last 6 months, so THANKS! If this doesn’t give you a hint as to how “dangerous” it is working at a church, I don’t know what does. :) I know it’s not the Sopranos or anything, but it sure feels like it some times.
I am a worship leader who has had his life completely destroyed by ministry-namely a church plant in the Northeast. I now live vicariously through Carlos’s blog because I admire and think a lot of the dude. :)
I feel your pain. I spent 2 weeks in a psychiatric unit last year after losing it all-including my mind after a church plant who wanted to be the next Mosaic, Willow, Mars Hill (fill in the blank). As a result of the pressure (and some of my own doing) I lost my family, my job, my sense of dignity, life savings. I’m 31. Some days I feel like my life is over. I struggle on a daily basis to hang on to God right now. I have no idea what I am going to do next & most days are spent struggling with life. Right now I’m trying to find meaning and identity away from ministry and my role as a pastor. It’s weird. It’s grueseome. It sucks. But it’s good. It’s human. It’s redemptive. It is the scar that has made me more human than ever.
This “Death By Ministry” syndrome is happening all over, but I wonder–Was it, or has it ever been any different?? Reading the letters of the Apostle Paul to the churches in the New Testament it makes me wonder. Has it always been this way?? I wonder what someone like D.L Moody, or Luther, or whoever would have had a blog and could have “taken off the mask” would have said in their day.
I wonder if Paul didn’t stay up at night with clinical depression some nights and now know about it becuase it wasn’t diagnosable then…but talked about it in terms like “thorn in the flesh” …ya know..??
Once you get out in the church world you see it all…the problems, the egos, the selfishiness (Which we all have to a certain extent), the workohalism, perfectionism, drive-you-to-the-ground work of working at a church…the power struggles, the lack of communication, the sexual and other immorality, the pride, etc. It’s all in there. Add to that a touch of Consumerism, American Dream, Corporate Mentality, Pastor as CEO, of the current church & then you have….well, you have the current church in America that expects their pastors to be superhuman & in turn Sr. Pastors expect their staff to be that way, and it’s a trickle down effect…
I think it is healthy that more and more pastors and ministry leaders are realizing that they don’t have all the answers & getting professional help for their issues. Medications, anti-depressants, etc. I wish I would have done that. It could have saved me. It could have saved my marriage, my family, myself.
Rock on
i think it’s more like that old wive’s tale: the shoe-maker’s kids don’t have shoes…health care workers have crappy health insurance (i personally know about that one), etc.
we’re so busy pleasing other people, taking care of other people, getting our self worth from what we’re doing for other people that our families and our own health suffer. we don’t know how to take a break, we want to be indispensable. our self worth is wrapped up in doing what we think only we can do. so we never take time off, because either 1. we’re afraid everything is going to fall apart if WE’RE not there or 2. we’re afraid someone will be better than us and replace us in the job that gives us our self worth.
sad.
instead we should have more the mentality like on an air plane, if the oxygen masks come down, you secure your own before you help someone else.
taking care of yourself, your spirit, your mental health means you will be better at taking care of others.
Between my husband and I, we’ve been on church staff in some form for about 14 years. I have no answers…. I have lots of stories and anecdotes that add to the furor. I also live the constant tension of staying true to ‘a call’…. standing up for what I wish our church–or more honestly, what WORKING at our church–would be like… being willing to sacrifice whatever it takes to do the ministry well… wanting to take my family under my wing and run as far away from church as possible. Ministry is so tightly intertwined with my relationship with God; it’s hard to keep perspective on which gives guidance to the other. What I really think is true is that to effectively be a leader in a church, you have to give all of yourself to it, fully throwing yourself into the community. But to do that, you have to do your homework on the community itself. Diving into murky, stagnant water does a dizzy diver make. You also run the same risk as with any relationship…. the more of yourself you give, the more of yourself stands to be hurt if things fall apart.
See? No answers….
Any happy stories?….
Doug,
I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to Geico.:)
Doug….good stories…
working in ministry with really amazing people… being a part of the spiritual development of entire families… seeing students experience God… seeing people figure out what their gifts are and using them to serve other people… living through a church crisis alongside lots of other people, all of whom wish they could bail but have decided to stay… experiencing God through the prayers of the church… experiencing redemption of a church… learning the world doesn’t revolve around my preferences…
anyone else have some?
I believe it is a combination of things. I can say this seeing as how I have been let go from 2 churches within the past year. God did some amazing things through it, which I can share if you want to know (just email me), but it was extremely painful. I think one of the primary issues is lack of positivity. Having served in both of these churches and having many friends and hard working volunteers, I was thankful. However I began to realize, we are just doing the work. We aren’t telling people about how great things are going. Unfortunately the ones that did not like the direction things were going in were talking, and they were talking A LOT! So I think we need to speak up sometimes. Burn out for me happens a lot when I feel underappreciated. I wish laity knew how much a little card or just a thank you means. Last, I think too many times, we as staff get too busy doing the WORK of God that we forget to just BE people of God. We have to start BEING people of God and pray that our influence changes lives. I am striving to be a better City on a Hill!
Expectations have a lot to do with the problem. Many times we don’t have an accurate job description so expectations are fuzzy – on the minister’s part and the congregation’s. Many congregations want to grow, reach young people (youth and adults), baptize, be fed the Word, but don’t know how to qualitatively express that in a job description.
Many congregations go out and ignore the man who fits their job description and call someone who is just the opposite — then wonder why things aren’t going like they want and expect. A nearby pastor was ‘forced out’ because of this.
Church search committees draw up ‘profiles’ for their next pastor, and forget to consult the Lord about who HE wants to be their next pastor. When things go “Crash!” they wonder why.
Many church search committees rush to fill their vacant pulpit and usually get someone who’s trying to get out of a bad situation; and their church becomes his next “bad situation.” There’s a church in central Texas that has been searching for their next pastor for over 2 years. That’s really “waiting on the Lord.”
As a pastor, I’ve served on 2 DOM search committees. We prayed earnestly, like most search committees, sifted through the resumes, and only 1 man “rose to the top.” He and his wife processed through all levels excellently, and were affirmed by the association.
I believe the same is possible in church search committees. But it will take some major changes in the process that is utilized by most committees if that is to happen in the churches.
First, throw out the “Church Search Committee Handbook.” That’s a corporate methodology, not a church methodology. The church’s methodology should be complete reliance on the Holy Spirit’s leadership and the Lord. If He’s the head of the church, he knows whom he wants for under-shepherd, better than a search committee that may be looking at the wrong traits. That’s the difference between choosing a Saul and a David.
Second, rely on secondary recommendations, not primary ones. Primary recommendations are close friends; secondary recommendations may not be that close. May even be more objective.
Third, pray often — as a committee, as a church. A church is most prayer-mobilized when it is searching for a new pastor. Then, when the new man is called and on the field, the praying decreases. He probably needs more prayer in his first two years then he will for the rest of his ministry at that church.
THanks for the run at this topic.
I love how I’m “people”. ;-)
And, I love that I get to work in the same building as you… (I’m SO gonna make it a late-New-Year’s-Resolution to walk your way more often!!)
until people stop viewing themselves as customers of the local church and start serving—staff will continue to bear the weight of doing the churches job for it.
1+1=2
1+1=2
1+1=?
if you want to change the end result you have to change the formula.
God is the only customer of the church…we as Christians are the employees.
When we begin to remember and live that…..
then things will begin to change.
I would love to talk more about this to anne.