The Church Answers Podcast
How Pastors Deal with Burnout When Their Churches Are Not Supportive
- Welcome to the Church Answers Podcast, presented by Chanian Associates. Chanian Associates are the accounting firm for the church. Now get ready for fast-paced insights on key issues affecting the local church today. We release three episodes each week, so make sure you've seen or heard them all. And now, here's the CEO of Church Answers, Tom Rayner. - Welcome to the Church Answers Podcast. I am Tom Rayner, I'm joined by Jess Rayner. We're talking a lot of things about church's church leadership, of course. That's why we call it the Church Answers Podcast. Not only is it the name of our organization and ministry, but it is the name of this podcast because we try to provide succinct answers and about 10 minute bites for things that may interest you, maybe things upon your mind. If you didn't hear a previous podcast, go back and listen to it, podcast number 220. Jess had some very fascinating points about when you have to make change and a sermon at the last minute. I'm not going to get into that, but we want to thank Chanian Associates, the accounting firm for the church. If you know, if you've heard anything that I've been saying, we are so grateful for Chanian, Steve Chanian, dear friend, for being the sponsors. They're the only sponsors and they've also done something really neat. They are the presenting sponsor for our first Church Answers Research Project. What is that research project? Well, basically, we're looking at attitudes about local churches, but we're looking at it from two perspectives. Same questions asked to the unchurched and to those in church. There's a lot of fascinating results. When you look at how unchurched view church versus those who are active in the church. Jess, I know you haven't seen it yet, but there's a lot of good information on that. I'm looking forward to seeing it. It's a good report, good report. Okay, most of us in ministry are going to experience burnout. Burnout is a loose definition. It can be very serious. It can be a time when you're just tired for a while. So the definition has to be set somehow. Is this a major collapse or do you just need a quick break? So we're going to talk about burnout and then we're going to say, what do you do if you have an unsupportive church? Now, the first thing I want to direct to you, Jess, is you have a supportive church, an unusually supportive church, regardless of burnout. Right, yeah, and I know I feel very blessed as a pastor to have such an amazing church that is there. I don't take it lightly, I don't take it for granted. And so there are times in my season of ministry that I've had some hard seasons, some tired seasons, some burnout seasons, and I've been super grateful for my church. But I know that's not the case for other pastors. They may be listing this and feeling like they could care less, they may feel that way. It may feel like that their church doesn't care if they truly are burnout, or they don't know if they can communicate it, they don't know how the church will receive it, there's maybe some fear about what could take place, there's an unknown of what would happen. And so hopefully pastors can, through this conversation we're having, understand a little bit of things they can begin to do to help themselves and help lead their church even when they feel tired. - I learned one thing from coaching a pastor in the last three weeks who went through burnout, he's coming out on the other end of the side of it, I should say. And I asked him to talk to me about his burnout, and it was pretty severe the way he described it, almost where he could not function anymore, he just had to stop for a while. And he was afraid to tell anybody, I said, "Why were you afraid?" And this is a previous conversation that I'm going back. And when he thought about it, all he could see was one or two people, and what their responses would be. He looked at the biggest potential critics, and he let them frame his lack of communication. I think that that's one of the first things that we could say is don't assume that everybody is going to be negative if you are willing to say, "I need a break." - Right, right. And just to even back up just a little bit more before that, it's important that you understand your warning signs in the pasture. And I know there's books, there's blogs, there's a whole thing about this. And so take some time, even if you're listening to this after this podcast, to go like, "What are the warning signs of burnout?" 'Cause you don't really need to get to burnout. Pastors don't need to get to the burnout stage. They need to get ahead of it. And when they're tired, when they feel like they're struggling in some ways to be able to get ahead of it. That being said, I think one of the best things you can do is have an outside mentor. So this, this pasture that you were talking with came to you. You know, maybe it would have been helpful. I don't know, I can't, I don't know the situation. I can't speak into it, but maybe it would have been helpful if this conversation would have happened six months earlier. And so I know for me, one of the best things I'm doing is communicating to an outside mentor. That helps hopefully prevent burnout, but also in the seasons where you just feel like, I'm just exhausted, it gives you an outside voice that can maybe help you make some of the hard, seemingly hard decisions like this one particular pastor. Like I couldn't, I couldn't say anything because of two people outside mentor to be like, help point that out. So that's one of the key things that you can do as a pastor is make sure you have someone outside the church that's speaking in your life on a pretty regular basis. - So if you're following us, we have at least two checkpoints right now that I want you to hear. One, as Jess just said, how the outside mentor coach or someone and outside means beyond the church, someone that you can talk to, that will help you burnout immensely. Another point is don't assume that your worst scenario is the actual scenario if you need to communicate that you are burning out as well. What other advice Jess would you have for these who are going through burnout with pastors and particularly going through burnout? If they are fearful right or wrong that their church is not going to be supportive, is there, where does family come into play? And what do you do in the situation where you're just saying I've got nobody to turn to? - Yeah, I think it, depending on where the pastor is. So if the pastor is in burnout currently, if they're in this place where like, I don't know if I can keep doing this, I have nothing left. I'm close to saying I'm just, I'm done. You know, that requires more of an immediacy behind it. That requires you got to get to someone outside the church. Hopefully there's at least one or two people within the church that you can trust and you just need to take that step and just go talk with them and just be honest with them and not let those fears. Satan's going to keep telling you as a pastor, you can't let anybody know. You can't let anybody know. They're going to think differently of you. Those are all lies. Like you can't let those lies overtake your step to actually, you know, church it's family or brothers and sisters in Christ. And there will be, well, there's going to be critics or there's going to be hard people. Find those few people, those trusted people. The other thing looking at it is maybe you're in that tired stage and you're listing this. You're like, I don't want to get to burn out. One of the things that I've done that has been really good for me and being in a church plant, I kind of, I've been able to help guide the culture of the church so that I'm able to kind of implement this is really protecting my family time. I, you know, Saturdays, it's off limits. That's just something for me that I, and everyone in the church knows it and they're fine with it. Like they get it. Like some people are like, hey, can we meet this Saturday? I'm like, that's my family time. And they're like, oh, okay, no, no problem. And they're totally understanding of that. And so creating that rhythm for you as a pastor to make sure at the bare minimum, just one day a week, that you're out. The other thing is protecting those vacations. I think they're really important as well. To let, especially if you got younger kids, like I do, letting them know that dad's gonna be there. Like, you know, they're Saturday, but also there's that week long, maybe longer season that you can just begin to kind of protect as a pastor. 'Cause you do, you do a lot of pouring out. You do need those moments of Sabbath. You do need those moments of recharge. So one final question and this one is related to something that you've done. Subtitical didn't work so well for you. There are several factors. I don't think we can isolate it that it was just too long or just this, but talk to us about this because you're sick as much as you're comfortable, by the way. Talk to us about this and what happened there. - Well, maybe you need to make a note. This needs to be another podcast for a whole other time. You can talk about what sabbaticals look like. - We'll do that, but was it not precipitated by some sense of weariness? - So for me, I had communicated to my leadership team, where Elder led at our church, my leadership team, that I needed a sabbatical. This was like April of a given year and I had, or maybe March of a given year, I said, I need a need to take just three or four weeks off. Like, I need something. I've been going hard for six years in the local, in the church I'm at, 10 plus years overall without any significant break. And what happened was this little thing in 2020 called COVID. And so actually, I think that was January or February. And so I was already at a place where I was like, I need that. And so I didn't really get a chance to take us a sabbatical. Oh, I think it was 2021, or I can't remember. 2022 maybe, honestly, the years are blending together. It was a year plus. And so what happened was I was burnt out. I was very tired, let me put that way. Then I walked into one of the harder years of ministry that I'd done, and I'm sure a lot of pastors, and that took a major toll on me. And so I wish I would have been more proactive when I really felt that tiredness setting in. Not quite burnt out and really fought a little bit harder to do it when I needed it before. And that's the main thing is, you know, maybe sabbaticals aren't always, and there's different forms of sabbaticals. I've become more of an advocate of one form over the other. But you need to take that time. You really do. And in the other day, you know, I know a lot of people have, they're fearful of communicating this. They feel burnt out, they feel scared. You've got to take the time. I really believe it. Pastors need to take the time 'cause what we're walking through is very, very difficult, very, very draining spiritual warfare. Everything that goes into what we face as pastors, you've got to make sure you're getting ahead of it and not letting those fears and lies that you can't do it or you shouldn't do it. It's very important to have that Sabbath and that rest. - Good word. And again, the summary is if you're saying your church is not supportive, it may not be that much of a blank check for everybody, it could be just a few in the church. We'll talk about that. We'll talk about the sabbaticals it's some other time too. That does a good pivot. Just save some of that for another time. As always, thank you, Chaney and Associates for being our sponsor. They are the accounting firm for the church. They serve over 1100 churches. They are an incredible organization. If you really want your finances, you're accounting done right, done well and done with great stewardship, contact them. You can see chaneyassociates.com. You can just look in the show notes or just look them up on Google, Chaney and Associates. 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