Recently I was asked again for our church’s sabbatical policy. It seems another pastor was nearing burnout at a church unaccustomed to handling it.
What is going on?
It seems that more and more pastors are facing burnout…dealing with mental health issues…stepping down from ministry…or falling into some type of serious moral failure. Several studies have indicated that 60-80% of pastors who enter ministry will not still be in ministry ten years later and only a fraction will stay in ministry for a lifetime.
Wow.
I can’t speak for all pastors but I can speak from my own experience. Exactly a year ago, I hit a major wall in ministry…feeling completely exhausted, stressed, anxious, and overwhelmed. Pressures, demands, and long hours piled up…and for years I made little time for days off or for true vacations.
I was doing good things…”God” things…so how could I stop?
I remember sharing my feeling of utter exhaustion with a retired pastor friend of mine. He listened and sympathized but couldn’t fully understand. He had served over forty years in ministry and had faced difficult, tiring, frustrating times…but never to the point of simply feeling like quitting…like stepping away from ministry.
To his credit…and to my benefit…he read up on pastoral burnout and became a needed advocate for me to take a sabbatical.
It probably saved my ministry…and my long-term health.
I have been in full-time pastoral ministry for thirty years. Over this time, I have seen and experienced the changes that are occurring in our culture and in the nature of ministry.
Here are five things that I think make pastoral ministry more challenging and more stress-producing than a generation or two ago.
Instant access.
A generation ago, if you wanted to get in touch with your pastor, you had to call the church office or perhaps even send a letter. Communication was slower. Access was more limited. Being out of town meant being out of touch. Now a quick text not only reaches a pastor instantly but also has a way of demanding an immediate response. After all, how can you simply ignore a text that says something like, “My marriage is falling apart. Can you please call me?” Add in the world of emails and social media and access is everywhere. A pastor can easily feel like he is always on call…never away…never truly “unplugged” from the demands of ministry.
Diminishing social supports.
Increased mobility and decreased family stability have left more and more people alone and without the typical social supports of a generation ago. Fifty years ago, a person in marriage crisis would often find practical counsel, support, and intervention from close-by family members or even long-time neighbors and friends. Social “capital” was more abundant. Today, as people become more and more isolated, they often turn to professional counselors or to pastors at the first sign of crisis. Thus, pastors are finding themselves encountering more people in crisis who lack social or family supports to provide immediate or long-term help. This tends to increase the burden and expectation upon the pastor.
Increased expectations.
Coupled with the lack of social support comes the high demand and expectation on the pastor and the church. I remember attending a pastor’s conference in the mid-1990’s when a Christian leader said that “discipleship in the 21st century will essentially be ‘re-parenting.'” His premise was simple: as the family breaks down, more and more people will come into the church without the basic skills of life that they should have learned in their family…skills like managing money, managing time, communicating, resolving conflict, even cleaning up after themselves. This prediction seems to be coming true as more and more people are looking to the church for financial counseling, marriage training, parenting help, conflict resolution, and life coaching. In many ways, it is a great opportunity for the church to touch people’s lives…but often all of that opportunity falls on the pastoral staff who have their own challenges and limitations in these areas.
Endless comparisons.
The internet has also increased expectations as more and more people are exposed to the gifts and strengths of more and more pastors and churches. People tend to take the best of everything they see and combine them into a composite picture of the “ideal church” and the “ideal pastor.” Thus, pastors today are often expected to be powerful preachers, motivational speakers, creative teachers, visionary leaders, cultural interpreters, political activists, marriage counselors, parenting experts, grief therapists, financial advisors, conflict mediators, life coaches, innovative evangelists, church growers, community engagers, administrative CEO’s, and loyal friends. It’s obviously an impossible task…but many pastors struggle to avoid the comparisons and often carry a nagging sense that they are always falling short.
Pervasive stresses, distractions, and temptations.
For every positive advance in technology, it seems like a hundred new stresses, distractions, and temptations come along with it. For instance, the smartphone has increased our ability to connect with each other, to get things done quicker and easier, to gain immediate access to information, and even to be better equipped with Bible study tools and devotionals. But at the same time, it has also made us more easily distracted, more isolated from face-to-face interaction, more prone to social media-induced anxiety and depression, and more tempted with online pornography. Pastors find themselves both ministering to people impacted by these pervasive stresses, distractions, and temptations as well as fighting their own battles against these things. And all of this is new territory…with every new piece of technology creating new challenges that are hard to immediately discern.
In reality, everyone is feeling the affects of our new age. As our culture rapidly changes, it is easy to feel like you are running on a treadmill that is constantly increasing in speed. You can try to keep up but eventually you will crash and burn. Instead you have to intentionally find a way to step off the treadmill.
You have to set apart the first part of your day to God.
You have to set weekly “fasts” from media.
You have to take care of your body.
You have to accept your limitations.
You have to cultivate your relationships.
You have to model Sabbath rest.
And as a pastor, you have to lead the way.