Let’s talk about a word that has been heard many times over the past couple of years, “burnout.” Oh, and we are not talking about taking your favorite fast car and doing some “burnouts!”

Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines burnout as “exhaustion of physical or emotional strength or motivation usually as a result of prolonged stress or frustration.”

I have been in burnout, in some form or another, for approximately the past 900 days. Pretty specific right? Well, I knew the summer of 2020 that I was no longer passionate about what I was doing and I felt very frustrated and at times lost and alone. Many things were happening in my life; family issues, health, ministry challenges and more. Oh, and burnout takes time to walk through, its not take two weeks and you are all better.  

I was pretty much done with it all, but I was so exhausted mentally that I couldn’t figure out what to do next. So, I pretty much did nothing. Our church had some pretty big changes in 2020 and I was feeling it all. We were about to start a search for a Lead Pastor and then covid entered the picture. Now as much as that caused a lot of stress, it also pushed me to do something. I couldn’t keep doing what I was doing, because it wasn’t working and I felt myself fading away….

Now, this is not about me, it’s about you: the ministry leaders at large. If you want to know the rest of my story, contact me and we can meet up for some coffee and I’ll share.

I learned quite a bit in this phase of life. I learned that I “didn’t have it all together” but I also learned to lean on some key people for guidance and overall help. I read, a lot. I read many books on burnout or anything dealing with it and deep dived into scripture.  It has been an adventure of finding my way through and I want to share a few things about what it looks like and a few tips to walk you through in finding a way through.

These come from copious amounts of notes from books and blogs read and podcasts that I listened to.

There are various thoughts and definitions of burnout, along with a variety of phases or stages offered by many experts. And when you read enough, you will see that there is quite a bit of overlap of areas, so today I want to share three stages of burnout:  Stressed, Overwhelmed, and Crispy. When I came across this, I found it very helpful and easily understandable of where I was.

Stressed looks like:

• Irritableness
• Anxiety / Worry
• High blood pressure
• Insomnia
• Loss of Appetite or Stress Eating
• Unusual heart rhythms (skipped beats, rapid pounding)
• Struggle to concentrate/forgetfulness
• Headaches

Overwhelmed looks like:

• Increased negativity
• Withdraw
• Lateness for work
• Procrastination
• Dreading returning to work
• Increased marital conflict
• Decreased sexual desire
• Social withdrawal (from friends and/or family)
• Cynicism
• Resentfulness
• Increased caffeine consumption
• Increased alcohol consumption

Crispy looks like:

• Sadness or depression
• Stomach or bowel problems
• Mental fatigue
• Physical fatigue
• Headaches
• Hopeless Discouragement
• The desire to “check out” or run away from friends, work, and perhaps even family
• Occasional thoughts about ending your life

Many of you just had a lightbulb or two go off, didn’t you? Yes, we can find ourselves in any and all of these stages throughout our lives, but when things line up in such a way that they become building blocks, well then you are walking down the path of burnout.

So, what do you do?

• Pray for and seek out a mentor. Trying to work through burnout alone, will cause more stress.
• Get a counselor.  You need to “download” to a neutral party to help guide you through emotions and behaviors, etc.
• Take time away. Reassess why you do what you are doing.
• Remember to celebrate the victories, but also grieve the losses.
• Learn to say “No,” even if you could easily say yes. You cannot do everything and you cannot be everywhere.
• Pray, REPEAT, Pray again.
• Take time for yourself. This might mean taking extended time off, don’t get caught up in who will teach, or manage the day to day, etc. You need to do this for you, your family, and the church.

I honestly believe no one is immune to burnout, but you can take the above tips and put them into practice and set in place to help lessen the chances of it happening to you or your staff. I also found guidance in these books: Didn’t See It Coming: Overcoming the Seven Greatest Challenges That No One Expects and Everyone Experiences by Carey Nieuwhof, Reset: Living a Grace-Paced Life in a Burnout Culture by David Murray, and The Comeback by Louie Giglio.

Remember, ministry is not about you. It’s not about how many seats you fill, how many people you say yes to or how many hospital visits you make. Don’t make it about yourself and what you think you can do. He can do so much more through us if we get out of His way! Don’t forget that you have been called to your position and this was done by our God. Ultimately we work for Him and if you are obeying Him, you are building His kingdom. But, if you are obeying self, you are building your kingdom.

About the Author: Dennis Wagner, Executive Pastor at Skyline Church. Married to his best friend, Susan, for 25 years and has been involved in ministry as a volunteer / staff for over 20 years. 

God puts words in our hearts and minds to grow us and to share. I am not a theologian. I don’t have a Ph.D in biblical study, but I took CTI classes for three years. There I learned valuable tools to help in ministry. I rely on God’s spirit, prayer, and study to gain wisdom for life and ministry.

I am nothing special.

Much like Moses, Abraham, Noah, Elijah, Ruth, three Hebrew boys, Paul, etc. who were just people who put faith in God more than anything else. That is my goal. To understand as much as possible, sure. But, to have trust and faith to receive peace from God is more important.

The truth is I cannot and will never understand it all. The Bible, God’s wisdom, humanity, life, all have mysteries and questions. Some of those questions are hard and the answers to them are even more difficult to hear.

Imagine if God told you to sacrifice your son on a mountain but didn’t tell you why. Imagine being told to pack up and go to a new place that you have never seen. Imagine taking risks as a woman to protect people and generations to come in a time where you were supposed to stay quiet.

There was fear and concern and hesitation I’m sure, but faith can defeat those feelings. Faith is more important than feelings will ever be. Jesus felt many things on the cross, I’m sure, from physical and mental pain as well as spiritual pain from bearing our sins. I’m sure Noah felt embarrassed, when building a big boat for unlikely rain. Paul felt the ways he felt were right and knew a lot about how to share truth.

Feelings will hold us down or lead us to make wrong decisions. Faith and trust in God gets things done!

Jesus asks us to put our faith in Him, which is putting our faith in God as well. We are asked to deny ourselves. That can look many different ways, for example: our priorities, luxuries, time, family or friends, work, ministry (when it’s about you more than God), ideas, opinions, feelings, lust, desires, goals, money, sleep, comfort, rest, etc. So many things can get in the way of our relationship and faith with Christ.

When we deny ourselves, we then must pick up our cross. What does that mean? For some, it’s like pulling teeth to tithe or volunteer and serve others. Maybe it’s complaining that people wear different clothing than you at church or trying to mix the way of worship to lead people to partake more. Picking up your cross is so much more than that.

It’s a way to mimic Christ. WWJD? It’s striving to practice the fruits of the Spirit. It’s being kind to and helping others. It’s selflessness! It’s making sure Christ has our heart every morning and throughout the day, more than anything else does. It’s slowing down to hear from God for your purpose in the short term and long term. It’s not always going on a foreign mission. It may be stateside missions. It may be taking someone shopping, visiting the lonely, listening to the unheard, hugging the scared, or buying for the broke.

It’s putting others first. Jesus put you first, by going to the cross. God put you first by raising Him from the grave.  We are living in a season where good enough isn’t enough. The mentality of “I did my part” is giving up on the Kingdom. God wants us to help Him build His kingdom as much as possible before it’s time to reunite it with eternity.

The American church has been in decline over the years because the church hasn’t stepped forward. “He must increase, and I must decrease’’. We lost the vision of what we were created to do and saved to be empowered to do to help build the Kingdom. We get offended or distracted. We lose trust and time by not focusing on God enough!

Good enough is complacent. There is no time to be content with the Kingdom. The Kingdom has plenty of room because of a plentiful God. The world is speeding up and moving away from Him, and we need to chase people down. Love on people and show compassion. Put down your stones and sit down to feast with them!

Faith and trust in God are what matters, even when it’s hard, even when it’s scary, and even if you don’t understand or comprehend. Worship Him through it. Praise Him through it. Look for Him in the fire. Hallelujah.

About the Author: My name is Grant Johnson and I serve as the student pastor at Halltown GB Church in Portland, TN. I have a beautiful wife Heaven and a dog and a cat. I’ve grown up around ministry my whole life and the best thing to do is stay prayerful and obedient to Christ. 

One of my favorite snacks is popcorn. If you spend much time around me, you’ll eventually find me snacking on a bag. I like all kinds of popcorn, from movie theater popcorn to popcorn popped in a pan at home. I like caramel corn, kettle corn, cheese corn, and even microwave popcorn. The list could go on, but I think you get the point.

Last week, I was making popcorn for the family when the inevitable happened; I burned a bag of it in the microwave. I didn’t just burn the popcorn a little; fire alarms actually went off at my house because of the smoke billowing out of the microwave from the burnt popcorn. Fortunately, nothing caught fire. Quickly my entire house was filled with the acrid smell of burnt popcorn. Windows were opened, outside doors were opened, and fans were turned on.

None of this took away the smell very quickly. We cleaned the microwave thoroughly, we even took the vent off and replaced the air filter (I had no idea there was a filter in there before this incident). Still, the smell persisted! It took most of a week for us to not notice that odor anymore.

As I thought back on the incident, I had to figure out how I could have burnt the popcorn. So many other times I have made popcorn in the microwave and not had this type of outcome, there had to be a reason. The reason comes down to this, I pushed the wrong button.

On our microwave, we have a group of “one touch” buttons that can be used for warming up food or cooking specific things like popcorn. As it turns out I had pushed the “potato” button that was right below the “popcorn” button then left the room for a few minutes. That one little mistake unleashed a smell in my house that greatly overstayed its welcome.

This incident reminded me that the details count. It’s a lesson I keep learning throughout my life. We care for one another in the details. It takes little effort to ask someone how they are doing, but to listen with compassion is a detail we often forget. Within that moment of listening are the richer and deeper details of life. In these times we find the extreme elation or crushing disappointments of life. Responding in these moments, to these finer points of life, makes all the difference in any relationship.

The ironic thing is that we often tell ourselves that we don’t have time to listen with compassion to the tone, affect or non-verbal communication from a friend. It’s as if we think the next thing we’re doing is always more important than the person right in front of us. Maybe we like to think of the next detail, rather than the one staring us in the face.

In Ephesians, Paul exhorts us to pay attention to the way in which we live our lives. People are watching, and waiting for someone to notice, these details make a difference. Consider verse 15 Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise. I don’t know what that means for you today, but I do think there are details that, if missed, could lead to missing out on a greater blessing for you and the people around you.

Ephesians 5:15-20

“15 Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, 16 making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. 17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. 18 Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit, 19 speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, 20 always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

About the Author: Brian is husband to Dottie and father of two children (Emma 21; Nick 19). Brian has served as Executive Pastor at Real Life Church in Springfield, Il for 16 years. He has maintained a private counseling practice for over 20 years and has worked as a school psychologist for over 25 years. Outside of his work life, you might find him tinkering with old motors, spending time with his family, or fishing lakes and ponds.