229: Ministry Burnout Is Real (But It’s Not Inevitable)

Burnout is real … but a lot of the time, we’re not as stuck as we think we are. We say we’re overwhelmed, but we’re still saying yes, still filling gaps, still stepping in “just this once.” 

At some point, we have to get honest about where we actually have a choice. Because if we don’t use it, we slowly build a version of ministry we don’t even like being part of. 

• Where we still have more choice than we’re acting as we do
• The difference between real limits and self-created pressure
• What it sounds like when we start blaming people, ministry, or the system
• Small shifts that move you out of reaction and back into agency

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Transcript

Laurie Graham Ertl 0:23

Hey, friend. Welcome back to the Small Church Ministry podcast. Today, we are talking about ministry burnout. In the States, we are getting ready to kick off our summer, and summer just brings some different changes around. I think it's one of the most perfect times to talk about burnout. a lot of things can shift in our rhythms, and it's just a great time to talk about doing things differently. honestly, I think the conversation of burnout is one of the most important conversations we can be having, not just right now, but pretty consistently throughout ministry. I don't think ministry burnout is fake. I know sometimes people roll their eyes like,"This is just life." I don't think people are weak if they are experiencing ministry burnout. And I believe that pressure is very, very real in ministry and in life in general. I think emotional exhaustion is real. It's not just in your head. It's not just something to push through. Compassion fatigue is very real. Church pressure is real. Volunteer overload is real. But I also think a lot of us have slowly slipped into a version of ministry where we genuinely feel powerless, and it's really not true. Not only is it not true anymore, but it's never been true. And it isn't because that pressure or that overwhelm or all the things to do aren't real It's not because boundaries fix everything overnight, but I really believe there's a conversation to have about more agency, understanding our influence, and how our personal choices in ministry rhythms affect not only us, but others. And we're acting like it's just kind of a have to or it's just kind of a given that this is what ministry is like. I also know that one podcast episode doesn't magically fix burnout, but I do hope that by the end of this episode, by the end of this conversation that's getting started just today, maybe we can notice a few things differently. we're gonna talk about the language that we use, and when I say we, I mean in general in the modern church culture, you, me, everyone, people inside your church, people outside the church that even describe the church. There's something really powerful about the language that, that we use and, I wanna dig into that a little bit. we're gonna talk about the pressure that we keep carrying, some of it that we don't want, some of it that we're choosing, some of it that we feel put upon, but we're gonna talk about that pressure. We're gonna talk about the yeses that we keep giving and we're gonna talk about the patterns, that I believe we're accepting as normal um, that maybe they are normal, but normal doesn't mean good, and normal doesn't always mean healthy. And normal also doesn't just mean that it was given by God to be that way. Burnout recovery,'cause we're gonna talk about that word recovery a little bit. Burnout recovery usually starts long before some giant life change. we don't have to wait till we crash to recover. We can build healthier patterns, start now. a lot of the times it really begins with honesty and authenticity and calling it out and naming it and noticing it and sometimes finally admitting that I don't think I can keep doing this the same way anymore. Now, if you're listening to this podcast, you are one of those core people that keeps small churches running, volunteer, ministry leader, pastor. And I'm kinda betting that you have said this at least in your mind before, in your heart if you've never voiced it out loud,"I don't think I can keep doing this the same way anymore. I don't think I can keep this up. I don't want to. I'm not able." And so often those thoughts or those feelings go through our heads and our minds and our hearts, and instead of actually noticing it and doing something about it, we do keep doing until we crash out. So let's talk about it, and hopefully before we crash out. one of the clearest ways that burnout, we're gonna talk about how burnout shows up, is in our language. The things that we say over and over eventually start sounding not only true, but normal. So I'm just gonna mention a couple phrases that I hear a lot in small church ministry, in our community, in emails I get, in calls, in the network. things like,"I have to,""There's nobody else,""If I don't do it, it won't happen,""I can't say no." One that I've been hearing more recently is,"They won't let me quit. There's no way to quit." And listen, I know sometimes these things feel true."I have to,""There's no one else,""If I don't do it, it won't happen,""I can't say no." Or sometimes getting a little spiritual with it, saying that,"God wants this to happen, so I need to keep doing it." We're gonna talk a little bit about over spiritualizing things or spiritualizing things that maybe don't need to be stated in the way that we've stated it. But sometimes these things feel true, as I've said. But sometimes we have repeated these phrases so long that we've stopped questioning them, and more than that, we've not only stopped questioning them, we teach them by our very modeling, by the way that we show up, by what we say in the presence or to other friends, leaders, and other volunteers. Do you see the helplessness in this language,"I have to,""If I don't do it,""I can't say no"? There's a helplessness in this language that really leans into an emotional reality. It's like over-functioning not only has become normal, but it's become true. It's just true that it has to be this way, and I need to push against that because it's not true. It does not have to be that way. We have seen so much health grow in ministry settings where there was none before inside the small church network. we see it. We see people changing. We see church culture changing. So if you feel like you're stuck in that over-functioning or in that busy season that never seems to end. Like, sometimes we stop even saying it's a busy season,'cause we just start saying that life is busy. Busy is an interesting word, which we can unpack at another time. But sometimes things are truly required. Like I get that. I'm not saying there aren't times when we have to show up and something is required, but some things, and I will say most things in small church ministry, are patterns that we have stopped examining it. I just wanna say that again. A lot of the things that we believe are true, that we say are required, are patterns that we have stopped examining. Have you heard that word recently? It's been popping up for me in a lot of different conversations just with friends and in some ministry settings, the unexamined life or when we stop examining the things that we're doing. It's very similar to being intentional, like actually living intentionally, making our choices intentionally. I really, really wanna bring up that much of our burnout is ingrained in patterns that aren't normal, aren't good, aren't healthy, and also are not required. Sometimes, and I would say it's the exception when we would say,"Well, maybe I have no choice in that," but what we often mean is,"I don't like the consequences of my choices." You know you can say no, you know you can walk away. We all can. Agency, free will. We are human beings. A lot of times we just don't like the consequences of our choices. Now, that's not shame, that's a lot of honesty, and I wanna flip the script on a lot of this and saying the consequences of saying no. we have this, list of all the negatives that could happen, what people might think of this, what might happen to the ministry, and we forget about that other side, that pro side,'cause there's a lot there. I think it's really important to start asking ourselves these questions regularly. What have I started calling required that might actually just be a habit? So that's one question I want you just to put in your mind. What have I start calling required that might just be a habit? And then other question I want you to think about is what consequence am I afraid of most if I step back? If I do say no to this, if I step back from this, if I start doing it differently, what consequences are you afraid of most? This is just about examining our lives and our choices. The consequence you're afraid of might not be the same as the consequence I'm afraid of. Probably isn't. But honestly, most burnout doesn't happen because of one big decision. It happens because of patterns. It happens much slower than that, and a lot of it gets wrapped up in our language. I think we, perpetuate almost this culture of burnout. I think a lot of ministry burnout is built through this accumulation the pileup of one little yes into another yes into another yes, and then it becomes this pattern of always saying yes, and usually it's because we care deeply. I wanna call that out. You're only listening because you care. I love that. I care deeply. This is why we wanna help. We don't wanna disappoint people. We don't wanna disappoint God. We don't want ministry to fail. We don't want our churches to go under. We want to be known as reliable and consistent, so we step in again and again and again, and under the surface of that, burnout is often building up. Usefulness can become our identity, and by the way, that is a deep thing to uncover. That is not norm- Most people who, like usefulness or productivity is their identity, most of the people who are living in that don't identify it for a while. So even if you're like,"That's not me," it might be. Panic serving. Have you ever heard that phrase? Panic serving becomes normal. I serve because I'm panicking, I don't know what else to do, and I wanna help, and something's going under, or just this once. I'll do it this once. I'll do it short term. It adds up over time. Um, again most ministry burnout, I'm not even gonna say a lot of it, most ministry burnout isn't one big decision. Even if you feel like your becoming a pastor led you to burnout, right? It's the 500 tiny unexamined ones underneath that umbrella. If you're burnt out as a ministry leader, as a volunteer, you know, who's serving in the hospitality area, it's not that decision to step up that created the burnout. It's all the little decisions underneath that. So I just want you to start noticing if you have little edges of resentment or dread or numbness, just feeling numb or detached or irritable, or you have a constant urgency. That's the flip side, right? Like, maybe you, you feel very positive, but there's, like, this urgency or anxiety to serve all the time. Now, I don't want you to become aware of that as shame. This is not... Again, I'm I'm gonna call this out in a, in a second, but this isn't a spiritual thing like you're failing. This is very, very human, and just look at that as information. Like, where do I feel a little bitter or a little resentful? Um, I had that happen the other day just in, in an area in my life that wasn't even in the church. I was doing something, and I'm like,"Oh my gosh, I'm feeling a little bitter about this." Like, I was almost, like, angry cleaning or something, you know? And it was just some information. Like, what is... What's happening? Why is this? And honestly, I think the church has sometimes made this harder to become aware of this because we over-spiritualize so many things. We over-spiritualize our emotion. Like, if we're angry, we're not submitting, or if we're... You know, just so many different emotions that we count as negative. But we've over-spiritualized burnout even as maybe being disobedient or choosing the wrong things that God didn't want us to choose or not being faithful enough. We over-spiritualize burnout instead of helping people, including ourselves, recover from it. If we put this feeling of shame on burnout, like it's my fault, I failed God, you know, whatever is failing around you, or shame of not being good enough or strong enough or faithful enough, there's no way to recover from that when we throw shame on something. So let's not over-spiritualize this. Church culture sometimes sends really mixed messages about burnout. If you're exhausted, get these two counter points. I, I've heard both of these, okay? If you're exhausted, maybe you're failing spiritually. Because if you were close enough to God, He'd be filling your cup, you'd be serving out of gratefulness and joy. And, like, if you're exhausted, maybe you're failing spiritually. But on the flip side, have you ever heard this one? If you're exhausted, maybe that means you're deeply faithful. Like, we're burning out for Jesus. If you're exhausted, that's our example, because they are serving at the, at the cost of their own health sometimes, at the cost of their relationships. You know, we throw in that, that scripture verse about leaving your family for Jesus, things like this, okay? We're not gonna unpack that today. But honestly, neither one of these, like, extremes is automatically true. Burnout is not a sign of weak faith. Burnout is also not proof of holiness. I think we gotta scream that one out. Suffering for Jesus does not equal chronic emotionally depletion. We've got to quit af- equating these. That isn't even what scripture meant. Exhaustion is not spiritual maturity, and I will say that straight up. Exhaustion does not equal spiritual maturity. God created us human. I wanna... I kinda wanna over-spiritualize this part, that God is the one who created us human. Like, can we just, like, embrace that? That God made us with limits on purpose? That God made us to require rest Why do we push against that? That God made us to need connection with other human beings who are emotionally supportive and wonderful? Like human, as humans, we have needs and we have limits on purpose and God designed us this way. Sometimes we've spiritualized burnout more than spiritualizing the way that God created us to be. Like, can we pay attention to the fact that Jesus rested and Jesus withdrew and Elijah collapsed emotionally? The book of Psalms, like it's honest. It's emotionally honest. And instead of leaning into these things and embracing them and taking them as information and taking care of ourselves, we push against it like, like we're either supposed to embrace it or we're supposed to like be shame-filled about it. God created us human beings, not ministry machines. Burnout is not always a sign that you're outside of God's will. In fact, in fact, I would say it's not. It's also not proof that you're deeply obedient. This is also why burnout recovery takes a lot more than behavior change. This is possibly one of the most important parts of the podcast today. Because so oftentimes when we are in burnout, we, well-meaning people will tell us what to do. That we need to rest more, that we need to say no, that we need to take a break, that we need to set boundaries. And I will also say those things because those things matter, okay? But if you've ever rested more or said no or taken a break or set boundaries and not had like a deep recovery time come to Jesus, not a moment, but like a season, usually we fall back into the same pattern again. What we do matters a lot. But what happens when you already know all that? I'm honestly betting if you're listening to this podcast, you have heard all these things. In fact, you've probably taught these things to people that you've seen on the edge of burnout or being exhausted. Rest more, say no, take a break, set boundaries. These things matter. But what happens when we know these things and we teach these things, but we still can't seem to break the cycle? That word recovery is so interesting. When I think about it with, um, like addiction recovery, uh, do you ever think addiction recovery is one and done? Like, no. Addiction recovery takes ongoing support and encouragement. Me- much addiction recovery like, like even centers around a sponsor and around ongoing meetings. Why do we think we can just recover from burnout one and done? We know it, we can practice it, we can do it. Recovery is deeper than productivity. Unhealthy ministry patterns run deep, and by the way, I believe most of us have been taught unhealthy ministry patterns. We can't even take the full blame ourselves because it's what we've seen our elders do, the pastors who've served before us. Or when we, when we're baby Christians, we have so much zeal we over-serve, and it feels great, and we think we can do that forever. We can't. God didn't design us that way. Guilt and identity are often involved in this pattern of over-serving or moving toward burnout. Guilt, feeling guilty. Identity, believing that a lot of our worth comes from serving, which by the way I've heard taught in sermons. It, it's taught in this undercurrent way, like, of course, you know, that it's not transactional, but God needs us. God requires this. God... And I'm not saying that we're not called to serve, but we've got to unwrap guilt and identity from all of that. And also accept and lean into the fact that healing takes time. Recovery takes time, and it takes effort. It is not a nap, and it is not a one-time sabbatical either. Healthy rhythms have to be practiced deeply, not just daily. Healthy rhythms need to be practiced deeply enough to stick. So burnout recovery, it's not just behavior change. It's healing. It's unlearning, and a lot of unlearning for many of us. It's emotional recovery. It's spiritual reframing. It's learning healthier patterns deeply enough that they stick. Here's what I would love for you to do this week or this weekend. If this is hitting you a little bit like,"Oh, this is something I need to learn," or,"This is something I need to teach somebody in my life," or,"share with my pastor," or,"share with my team," or,"share with my friend," I don't want you to think drastic. I don't want you to blow up your whole ministry schedule. I don't want you to, to quit serving. I, I don't want you to make some giant emotional decision overnight. But I do want you to notice something. I want to suggest that you notice the thing that instantly creates pressure in your body or, like, a feeling of heaviness or, um, sometimes it's anxiety or sometimes- I don't know, sometimes we shrink a little or, like, our, our shoulders shrug a little, like we almost kinda collapse into ourselves just a little bit. Like, start noticing your body. But I want you to think about the thing, that idea, the ministry area, the ministry task, the request where there's an automatic yes or there's a responsibility that, like, it's inside, like you're carrying something heavy. Maybe there's a little resentment. Maybe there's not. Maybe there's a place where your language, e- even your internal language becomes,"I have to. No one else will. I don't have a choice. If I don't do it, no one will." Just notice this. Notice this thing. Try to identify what it is, what the ask is or what that ministry... It could be a whole area. It could just be a quiet preparing for something. But instead of immediately reacting with, with a yes or whatever your response really is, just pause long enough to ask, you know,"Do I have a choice here?"'Cause I believe we always have a choice. But I just want you to pause long enough to ask,"Do I have a choice here? Is this mine? Is this something that God is asking of me now? Is this something I've had for a long time and I'm, I'm just kinda hanging onto out of habit or pattern? Am I serving from calling or guilt or panic or pressure or fear?" And just notice it. Notice whatever feels a little heavy or a little cringey, and just notice it. Because maybe the goal isn't so much continuing to, to do all the things we've done. Maybe the goal is noticing what we don't have to do anymore or what would be healthier not to do. Just to be noticing these, these things, to get into a practice of examining our yeses. We're gonna talk more about our yeses next week. Yeses are really interesting because we say that, you know, we quote that scripture,"Let your yes be yes," right,"and your no be no." And then in ministry we say we don't have a choice. I'm just like,"Which is it? Which is it?" Either God gave us permission to say yes and no To understand ourselves, to grow in health, to grow in leadership, to grow into new places, to become a different person than we were yesterday or the day before. Like this is the transformational life. And the transformational life I do not believe is just I became a Jesus follower. I wasn't before and I am now. Like so many people look at that as the biggest evidence of God at work is that I wasn't a Jesus follower and now I am. I believe the biggest evidence of God at work is our transformational lives ongoing. When we were crabby and now we're not, people notice that everybody. Like anybody can start speaking Jesus and giving Jesus gifts and quoting Jesus frosting and quoting scripture. Like you can do that without a heart change. You know what takes a heart change is a character change. And maybe part of that, part of that transformation, transformational journey is becoming, moving from a person who has to do it all. And honestly, when we're that person, we create anxiety in other people. To becoming people who maybe are doing less, but doing, having more impact intentionally. Maybe we're doing less, but the things that we're doing are amazing and exciting and are having different kind of fruit because we're able, actually able to focus on them. Burnout recovery. We're going to talk a little more about this in the coming weeks in a few different places. Burnout recovery isn't just stopping and having a sabbatical. That's not the, the recovery is a changed life. It's a changed life. Don't you think a healthier version of ministry? Now, I know that everyone listening is not an over-server or a person who panics or has endless like work going on. But I just want to consider the general modern church culture is a lot of over-serving. It's a lot of one church is existing and there's fewer people doing most of the work, the 80-20 principle, or there's a hierarchy of leadership who has a lot of pressure on them and other people or the whole consumer Christian culture, which I hate that term, by the way. I actually will talk about that in the future because I think it's really, really wrong to label that in that way. But the people that we look at generally in the modern church culture are doing a lot and often too much. And I believe a healthier version of ministry probably looks a lot different than many of us were brought up with and many of us were even taught. There's less panic, less worry, less fear over something not going right or something not working or even our church folding. I think there's less panic. I think there's less proving, less proving that we're worth it, less proving that our church has a right to exist, that we're doing amazing things, like less proving of that, less pressure to prove. I think there's a lot more honesty, a lot more sustainability, a lot more humanity of being able to call off when we have a migraine, of having systems around us that allow for us to be human, to take breaks, extended breaks, to take time off, to work more in teams, to have more happiness, more relationships, more friendliness. Burnout affects us. It affects how we show up. If you have a person in your church maybe that you've stayed away from because they've become crabby or they're just not as fun to be around anymore, can we have some compassion? There's probably some burnout going on under there, whether it's ministry burnout or personal things. Burnout, being stretched too thin affects us in all sorts of ways. There's less smiling. There's a lot more dullness. And by the way, one of the first signs of, of burnout is when we start feeling dull or a little disconnected, like we've lost our passion, right? And oftentimes when that happens, many of us who are brought up with scripture or have well-meaning people around us, they talk about returning to your first love. If you return to your first love and you fall in love with Jesus again, that all this is gonna return to you, and you're gonna be excited about ministry again. That is over-spiritualizing something that has so many dynamics to it. Falling in love with your first love again, Jesus, doesn't fix being physically exhausted, having bad habits, building patterns that are not sustainable, that are much more machine-like than human. We've got to be careful. Sustainable ministry matters. You matter. Your happiness, your ability to connect with joy, freshness, creativity, it matters. It makes for better ministry and a happier, more whole you. Serving out of capacity instead of being overextended, it is such a different way to serve. If you're not in it now, do you remember it? Do you remember when serving was more joyful? If you see it in people around you, let's not add more to people who are overextended. Healthier rhythms are possible. Joy matters. Long-term faithfulness matters, but it doesn't look like what many of us have been taught it looks like. Long-term faithfulness includes withdrawing, resting, yes Taking breaks, yes, but deeper than that. Long-term faithfulness includes growth. It includes becoming better as humans, more connected with Jesus in deeper ways, learning better skills, better habits, practicing those kind of habits and rhythms that you would love to teach the younger generation, so they can live better too. Maybe the goal is building a version of ministry that we can actually remain healthy inside of instead of that guilt and that pressure and that,"I can't do one more thing, but I'm gonna do it anyway because I have to." Honestly, this whole discussion about burnout recovery needs a lot more than quick tips and surface level fixes. We don't need more advice, we need healing, we need healthier patterns, we need support. Learning how to actually live and lead differently. Whether you are a volunteer, a ministry leader, or a pastor, this is for you. Um, on June sixth this year, if you're listening live, twenty twenty-six, um, we're hosting a live online event called Ministry Burnout Recovery. Now, if you don't have Saturday free for a couple hours, there's a replay. There's honest conversations. We know you might not be able to fit this in, and that's okay. If you can, highly recommend you carve it out. But we're gonna be having some really honest conversations around emotional exhaustion, around healthier ministry rhythms, around recovery, around emotional health, what it looks like to stay connected to Jesus without losing ourselves in the process. It is completely free to attend live, just like all of our live events, or at least all we've done so far. There will also be, um, a really great companion, optional companion resource available for purchase for people who wanna go a little deeper into the work. Um, I'll share some more details soon, but I really hope you'll be able to join us. Burnout is real. If that is where you are right now, I hope this episode helped you feel seen and not shamed. I hope you feel that sense of we, like you and me and us, and not a finger pointing at you. I also hope that maybe you noticed a few things a little more honestly or a little more authentically or a little more, maybe with more freedom and less guilt, that language that kind of helps ministry burnout persist. Uh, the pressure, the patterns, the yeses, the places where we have a lot more agency, agency meaning a choice, than we realize.'Cause again, the goal should never be showing how much that we can carry doing it all. Not showing just others. I'm not saying you're, like, trying to get other people's approval, but there's something inside many of us, like we wanna do more. for Jesus, for God, for ourselves, to prove it even to ourselves. But what if we flip the goal to be building a healthier, more sustainable way of serving for the long haul? And honestly, that kind of recovery starts much smaller than we think. It starts with noticing. It starts with honesty. It starts with one little shift at a time. So thanks for being with me today. If this conversation strikes you, please share it with someone. Um, share it with somebody in your friendship group. Share it with somebody in your church. Like, the more conversations we have around these issues, the healthier we're gonna be. Next week, we're gonna go a little deeper in a healthier way to lead ministry, what it looks like to step back, and that doesn't have to mean losing momentum. Please share this podcast. If you're loving it, if you're learning along the way, please leave some stars. Give us a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps more people like you find us. Um, let's do our best to spread healthy ministry news, healthy ministry rhythms, healthy ministry patterns, healthy ministry ideas to as many as we can. Small churches out there need the hope that we're finding right here. So leave us some reviews, and come back next week. We'll see you soon. Be a light.