Confessions of a Burned Out Pastor
By John Nixon II
It had been 22 years of pastoral ministry and I loved every part of my job. I liked the stuff most pastors hated—board meetings, preaching funerals, hospital visitation, sermon prep—I enjoyed it all. But suddenly I hit a wall. I was no longer motivated, I was listless. I was missing some appointments and inadvertently double-booking others. I found myself avoiding things I needed to complete and I couldn’t figure out why. I was not emotionally available at home either. I was physically present but mentally checked out. Then came the big reveal. One day a colleague wanted to meet in private. It took him a while to speak freely, but with some encouragement from me he finally admitted he thought I seemed “disengaged.” I had never heard that word associated with me in all my 20+ years of ministry. And as he spoke I began to replay in my mind examples that proved he was speaking the truth. After some soul-searching I concluded that I was in the throws of occupational burnout—“a syndrome resulting from chronic work-related stress, with symptoms characterized by feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion; increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job; and reduced professional efficacy.”1 Ministry can be a rewarding and fulfilling profession, but if practiced with imbalance it will eventually steal your joy, sap your vitality and send you spiraling into depression. I applied for a 3-month sabbatical and it was granted. During my time away I learned many things about myself. I quickly realized that my burnout was avoidable and that it was completely my fault.
In fact, there are 3 things I had to confess about my ministry that were almost my undoing:
Confession #1: I was motivated primarily by guilt. Especially early on, guilt motivated me more often than any other factor in ministry. I carried its weight on my shoulders almost continuously. I felt guilty about loving ministry too much, not being able to solve everyone’s problems, not living up to my members’ expectations and that I just wasn’t doing enough. And church members knew how to leverage guilt to their advantage. It was a good tactic to keep me ever busy, but guilt as a ministry motivator is a killer. It will kill your drive and your spirit. Love is a much more appropriate ministry motivator (see 1 John 4:18). If I could have overcome the grip of guilt I may have never reached burnout.
Confession #2: I dismissed the importance of emotional health. I was always friendly towards mental health issues that needed medication like, bipolar disorder, manic-depression and schizophrenia. But somehow a person’s emotional state was not as important. And my own personal emotional health was never even on the radar. I was a pastor and things were coming at me all the time. I didn’t have the luxury of stopping to consider how I was feeling. But when I had the time to reflect I realized just how important mental, spiritual and emotional health is. If I had respected it earlier I may have avoided burnout altogether.
Confession #3: I treasured overwork as a virtue. There was always something tantalizing about being perceived as a hard worker. I actually love to work, it’s part of who I am. But there is something wrong with the way that we add virtue to never taking breaks. We love to talk about “grinding”, how we’re “always busy” and how we’re “constantly going.” We glorify overwork almost to the point of deifying it. But the truth is that we should live our lives with margin—deliberately adding downtime to our schedules. Overwork as a virtue is anti-gospel. Rest from our work is a physical demonstration of righteousness by faith. This should be our posture more often. We must normalize rest and shun overwork. If I had realized this earlier I might have sidestepped burnout.
I think my occupational burnout could have been avoided had I confessed a few things earlier in ministry—guilt as a motivator kills, emotional health is important and overwork is not a virtue. I invite you to embrace these truths for your own benefit today. Burnout does not have to be part of your story.
1 World Health Organization (WHO) of occupational burnout found here —
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_burnout
John Nixon, II, DMin is an associate director for Pastoral Ministries in the Potomac Conference.