Transforming Burnout
By Dr. Michael A. Milton
“As I remember your tears, I long to see you, that I may be filled with joy.” (2 Timothy 1:4, ESV)
The Presenting Issue of Burnout
Pastoral burnout is a reality. The damaging effects of pastoral burnout are experienced by the pastor, the pastoral family, the congregation, community, and the Church at large. But burnout can happen to anyone. It often happens to, of all people, those who trust in Christ, clergy or not.
Burnout comes from many things, but mostly false expectations meeting reality. We anticipate one thing and get another. That leads to a loss of meaning. A loss of meaning leads to spiritual depression. That is burnout. It is quite different from fatigue. Burnout is an existential crisis of faith or even of living. It is a build-up for a Christmas morning from a Hallmark movie only to wake up in Phoenix in a hotel room, or even more deflating, awake to see piles of presents but no change in your heart when the wrapping is thrown out.
Burnout is not rare. On the contrary. My experience is that burnout happens to all of us at one time or another. I have known it. Perhaps, no one has known it more than those who give their lives to preach the gospel. Charles Haddon Spurgeon experienced what we would today call “burnout,” and it caused severe depression and months away from ministry. Billy Graham experienced it. We all do. Mercifully, the Bible is not about fairy tales. The Bible both defines life and reflects life as it is lived, not as it is dreamed. So, the Bible treats burnout.
The Pastoral Epistles, 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus are very good places to go to learn about how God can transform our seasons of burnout. Paul is brutally honest about ministry. Think about this one verse: “As I remember your tears, I long to see you, that I may be filled with joy” (2 Timothy 1:4). In just one verse, we can witness the effects of ministry: Sad memories, tears resulting from existential pain in ministry, separation, isolation, and a longing for joy.
In the Pastoral Epistles, any false expectations are not only bashed against the jagged rocks of reality but cared for through God-ordained prescriptions for not only defeating burnout but transforming it. According to the Pastoral Epistles, the expectations for ministry are many and are often quite different from academic notions of ministry. Indeed, for those who have been in ministry, the Pastoral Epistles paint a remarkably accurate picture of our shared realities in ministry. Those realities involve the presence of bad actors, the need for confrontation and correction, and the necessary requirement for pastors to be built up in faith in Jesus Christ and in our calling to meet the trying realities of ministry to broken, hurting, manipulative, and struggling human beings.
The failure to be honest with biblical expectations (or the choice of holding unrealistic expectations) for ministry produces burnout: i.e., a loss of meaning that can give an opening for sorrow and in some cases sin.
1. False expectations of others cause burnout. Transfer your expectations of good to God.
Jesus is reliable; humans are not so much. Paul addresses this in 1 Timothy 1 with false teachers. "As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith."
Timothy became pastor to a ministry that was rife with error, theological errors that led to very tangible sin. Those who preach the gospel and all of us who are in the church must realize that the ideal is not a person but a Savior. Though the Bible teaches we should demand a long obedience in the same direction, that is a sustained faithfulness, of those who shepherd the churches, we know that we are all on the way.
Burnout comes from false expectations of others. New life comes from a transfer of trust to Jesus.
2. False notions about a relationship with God cause burnout. But God relates to us by a covenant of grace.
The default human framework for a relationship with God is transactional. It could be summarized like this, “I will do something for God and He will do something for me.” Paul addresses this in addressing Timothy’s need to focus on the grace of Jesus.
Paul addressed this with Timothy early on. Paul models how to live and how to minister with his testimony of God’s grace: “I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service, though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.”
Thus, our relationship with God is grounded in grace made available by repentance and trust in the resurrected and ascended Savior Jesus Christ. Salvation is grace plus or minus nothing. Grace by the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus is the supernatural activity of God that transforms. It is the transforming power of evangelism. Our testimonies of God’s grace through Christ coming mercifully to us remains not only a Spirit-blessed way to witness to others but to encourage our own lives. Bear your testimony in your own life. It is your one sermon that you preach no matter where you go or what happens. Burnout can produce a new sprig of hope when we live out of the nutrient of God’s grace. Grace converts. Grace heals. In a word, grace transforms.
3. When we think we can go it alone, we burn out. God has provided a means of grace to grow in Him.
“Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you. Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress” (1 Timothy 4:13–16, ESV)
Ministers cannot rely on their own strength. All believers can come to believe that we have enough manna stored up from prior time with God that it will get us through. You might have enough power in your smartphone to go without charging while you drive to the local grocery. But would you take off on an extended journey without a source of power? In a similar way, Christ saves us once and for us. He makes us to be His own. But the power to walk in this life, to walk away from sin and toward God, requires His presence and power. And that only comes through Word, Sacrament, and Prayer.
Intersecting Faith and Life:
Burnout comes from false expectations. The remedy is to have faith in God, not others, be strengthened in God’s grace to you, not in a theological formula, and to practice the life of a disciple according to the Scriptures.
The intentional, controlled burning of a cow pasture is necessary to return nutrients to the soil. The grass is greener. The livestock is healthier. And so, it is with faith in Christ. Burnout does not have to be the end. If Christ can redeem a cross and make it a crown, He can cause your burnout to turn around. For in the gospel life, as in the gospel story, the things that seek to break us become the things that bless us. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
A Prayer
O God, who before the passion of your only-begotten Son revealed his glory upon the holy mountain: Grant that we, beholding by faith the light of his countenance, may be strengthened to bear our cross and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen. The Book of Common Prayer (2019).
Further Reading:
- Spurgeon’s Sorrows: Realistic Hope for those who suffer from Depression by Zack Erswine.
- 8 Tips for Pastors Struggling with Burnout by Tim Stevens:
- Songs in the Night: How God Transforms our Pain to Praise (the Audible version) by Michael A. Milton, performed by Brenda J. Davis.
- Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cures by Martin Lloyd Jones.
Photo Credit: ©iStock/Getty Images Plus/fizkes
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