Gospel.com Blog

Do you volunteer (or work) at your church? If you’re involved in any aspect of ministry, you’ve probably learned firsthand that there are far more ministry needs out there than a typical church or ministry has the time or capacity to address.

Faced with this reality, how do you respond? For many church workers and volunteers, the answer is to stretch themselves ever more thin to try and help as many people as possible. Blaine Smith of Nehemiah Ministries encourages us to respect our own limits while helping others:

At a staff meeting one Sunday afternoon a member complained to the youth pastor that many of us were feeling considerably overtaxed. He responded that we must learn to place some limits on ourselves. But, she replied, Jesus never turned his back on any persons need.

As quickly as the words left her lips he shot back, “But youre not Jesus Christ!”

It was at that moment as though giant chains dropped from my body. As a young Christian I simply assumed I was to imitate Jesus in every way possible. This meant striving to live at his energy level, and following his pattern of continually responding to an overwhelming variety of needs.

For the first time it dawned on me that there was a difference between how Jesus ministered to people and how I was expected to do so. God had put me within a certain physical shell, and I was to operate within its limitations. Not only was it okay to pace myself–I was required to do so. What a glorious insight!

However laudable the motives, trying to respond to every need or problem is a sure road to exhaustion and burnout. And this isn’t just a problem for church workers and volunteers–it’s easy to be overwhelmed by needs in our families and friendships.

What do you think of Smith’s advice? How do you draw reasonable limits in responding to needs?

I once worked with somebody who never took vacations. This was a point of pride for her; if you asked her why, she would explain that there was so much work that needed doing that she simply couldn’t justify taking any time off. While she never said it in so many words, her words contained the not-so-subtle suggestion that people who went on vacations took their work less seriously than they ought.

At the time, I was impressed by her dedication. In retrospect, her refusal to ever rest seems like a pretty questionable choice. Most of us would probably affirm the value of peroidically taking time away from our tasks to rest and recharge. But in this Daily Strength devotional, Joe Stowell reminds us that resting isn’t just a practical decision; it’s a spiritual mandate:

…for some reason, we sometimes seem apologetic about taking time off or needing a change of pace for a little while. It may be that our internal understanding of a real “work ethic” demands that we feel a little guilty about time that we’re not being “productive” or “efficient.” Or maybe we are concerned that those projects and clients we have been carefully nurturing along will fall to pieces if we put them on hold for a week or two. Maybe we are distorting Paul’s words to the Ephesians, resisting vacations and working nonstop so that we can “make the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:16)….

Reason number one: it’s commanded in Scripture. The fourth commandment tells us to “remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy” (Exodus 20:8). That means more than just going to church on Sunday. The principle of “Sabbath”—rooted in God’s example through creation of resting on the seventh day—intertwines with the Old Testament law code.

Occasional rest isn’t the enemy of a successful job, nor is it a disruption of your Christian walk. On the contrary, it’s an integral part of a balanced life.

Do you feel the temptation to never stop for a rest, perhaps worrying that taking a break is a violation of your “work ethic”? If you’ve been working too hard for too long and are starting to feel the strain of overwork, perhaps it’s time for a prayerful pause.

There are a lot of things that we feel we should do: church projects, ministry work, evangelism outreach, volunteering. And there are plenty of things that we want to do. Sometimes, those “shoulds” and “wants” overlap, making it easy to decide what to do.

But things get more complicated when the things we feel that we should do aren’t necessarily the ones that we most want to do. How do we know what opportunities we’re “supposed” to pursue? Is it wrong to undertake a project or make a commitment but not have our heart in it? Is it ever appropriate to decline an opportunity or a need because we don’t have the right level of enthusiasm or a sense of calling about it?

This Daily Encounter devotional addresses this tricky question, and cautions Christians not to let our sense of spiritual obligation become a weight that drags us down:

Have you ever been in a similar situation and noticed that there is a big difference between “shoulds” and “wants”? If I do certain things only because I should and my heart is not in it, how genuine is that? I am talking more about a type of compulsive “shoulds” that can be very confusing at times.

If you have ever struggled with even mild compulsive “shoulds,” how can you tell what is from God, from your own self, or even from the enemy?

Compulsive “shoulds” can come from various sources. They can come from a mental condition in the brain that is inherited, or from an over-dependent need to be popular, accepted and admired. They can come from a neurotic need for approval, from false motives, for payback or even to manipulate others. They can also come from a spirit of legalism which keeps one in terrible bondage.

Have you recently been torn between a “should” and a “want”? How did you resolve it, and did you learn anything in the process?

Burnout—if you’ve not experienced it, chances are you’ve skirted its edges once or twice. It’s a phenomenon alarmingly common in ministry professions (although it’s certainly not restricted to them); visit online forums frequented by pastors or your ministers and you’ll bump into regular requests for help with burnout, despair, and frustration.

So how to cope with burnout when you feel it crouching at your door? Legacy Youth Ministry Resources has a good article about detecting and coping with burnout. Here are their suggestions for someone feeling overwhelmed:

1. Take a break and get some rest. Understand your physical limitations and accept them. God probably has much less expectations of you than you have of yourself.
2. Change the habits in your life that are unhealthy – whether eating, sleeping, exercise, etc.
3. Write out a clear statement of your specific calling in ministry. Share this with a close friend. Make a commitment to not accept any offers that do not fit clearly into this calling and ask this friend to help you make decisions accordingly.
4. Make a list of everything you do in a week. Draw a line through anything that doesn’t help you accomplish God’s calling in your life. Next, underline the things that you do that could be done by someone else. Write the name of that person next to this thing. Delegate! What are left with should be the things that ONLY you can do. If these things are really God?s will, you have enough time to accomplish them without burning out. If not, you still need to draw some lines through more things.
5. Designate one day a month for solitude. Find a place with no distractions (including your mobile phone) and spend the most part of one day there.
6. Make a list of all the people that you spend time with on a regular basis. Next to each name, determine if they are drainers, average, teachable or fillers. If you find that you are not spending most of your times with the latter two, make the necessary changes.
7. Review your vision statement and the goals that you have set to accomplish this. If you have not yet written these things on a piece of paper, do this during your day of solitude at the monastery.

Read the full article at Legacy Youth Ministry Resources.

Those are easier said than done; of course. For further help with burnout, see also Say No to Burnout by Elizabeth Skoglund of the Psychology for Living ministry.

Have you lived through the nightmare of personal or professional burnout? How did you make it through, and what would you say to somebody who feels burnout coming on?

What do you think?