The New York Times recently published a piece about a rise in clergy burnout. Health researchers are finding evidence of stress such as depression and hypertension. The story point to some of the wisdom of tradition—that everyone needs time off. The catholic church even requires their priests to take time off, something protestants seem to be learning from later than necessary.
I am a big fan of Dorothy Bass’ work on Sabbath keeping. We all need to take care of ourselves and take time to build relationships with others. One point Bass has made that really resonated with me is the idea that if you think you’re too important to take a break, you probably have an inflated sense of your own importance. I think overworked and stressed out clergy are simply one symptom of a culture where we are all working ourselves to death. Of course, the protestant tradition, at least, has a long proud history of overvaluing work. See Max Weber’s treatise on the protestant work ethic, for example.
I also wonder if lay congregation members bear some of the responsibility for their clergy’s health. The NYT followed-up with an op-ed about the demands of a consumer attitude pressuring pastors away from careful theology and toward feel-good sermons. I think a consumer approach to church extends beyond sermon content, however, and I do think it contributes to a lot of our problems. I think we hold the minister responsible for the health and growth of the church, at the expense of taking responsibility.
No doubt, strong leadership and quality preaching are crucial to the life of a congregation. But there is a lot more to a vibrant church than a minister. I wonder if part of the problem is that so many people come to church looking for something to get out of it instead of what they can put in. Would it be less stress on our clergy if we all took responsibility for our church being the kind of place visitors want to come back to? Of course, making lay church members feel guilty doesn’t make everything better, but I can’t help but think there’s a problem in our communities that is leading to these health problems.
Perhaps we expect too much of our clergy and not enough of ourselves. After all, our jobs and family responsibilities are so important. Oddly, these questions have brought me to a counterintuitive conclusion: maybe we need to work less to work more. That is, we need to allow ourselves to take a break from our weekday pursuits and take a Sabbath, and that very break would allow us to pour more of ourselves into our church communities. Perhaps that would lower the strain on ministers.
I know a lot of clergy read this blog, so perhaps they can speak from experience and improve on my hypotheses. Are there ways congregation members can lighten your load? Can a denomination add new or different systems to keep their clergy supported?
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Comments (9)
At my last church I was friends with all five of the pastors that served during the 10 years I was there (four of the pastors were couples that served as co-pastor). It was a small church and there was only one board. I served on the board during all three pastor's terms.
One thing I tried all three times was to ask the pastor(s) to track their time and give regular reports about what they did so the board would have a sense of how they spent their time. All three were resistant for one reason or another. One thought that time card was beneath them. Another thought that it was too intrusive to the pastoral care issue. But in general the pastors just thought it wasn't worth the effort.
But the point of the time tracking was to show how much work they really were doing (all of them were working more hours than what they should have been.) Once a congregation (and really the church leadership) understand what takes up a pastor's time, there can be a real discussion about whether the pastor should be cleaning bathrooms, or responding to requests for food from church members, etc. Many of the jobs that take up time can and should be done by others.
The other part of time tracking is to hold pastors accountable for taking time off and spending time with their family. The best way to lower stress is to encourage people to take appropriate time off.
The sad part of this is that once I moved, one of the pastoral couples was fired within six months. The verbalized reason was that they were not really working. (The reality was that they did not bend to the will of a very powerful lay member.) But had they communicated better their vision for ministry and how they were working together to achieve that vision, I do not believe they would have been fired. The powerful lay member was guilty about his wealth and wanted the pastors to run full scale social services without any staff. It just wasn't reasonable. The church ended up splitting and was without a pastor for almost 3 years after that.
Secondly, we have asked “Pastors” or “Preachers” and “Priests” to be solitary supermen. The idea that one man (and unfortunately in most denominations it is usually a man) should give a lecture to a passive audience from a podium twice on Sunday, once on Wednesday, make the business decisions (churches have become multi-million dollar businesses), administer the physical plant and rule the congregation is an alien concept to the New Testament. Just the pressure of giving spiritual advice, doctrinal guidance, parental advice, career counseling or marriage counseling all while being an evangelist from a pulpit sets the fallible minister up for unreal expectations.
You only find the word Pastor mentioned once in the New Testament, yet we have made it the focus of our shared Christian experience. Conversely, the word prophet is used 157 times in the New Testament. Explicit instructions are given about the role and ministry of prophet, most congregations had multiple prophets and we see that it is shared between men and women. Elders are mentioned 12 times. Multiple elders were appointed at each church, the role and qualifications are proscribed clearly. The office of deacon is refered to 5 times. The ministry of teachers is mentioned 11 times, the evangelist twice. Yet we have collapsed all these offices and functions into one ministry mentioned only once in the New Testament. Is it any wonder we have burn out? Thank God for hard working, faithful pastors, but they are shouldering too much of the burden and we need to recognize that they are only one member of the body.
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I sense 2 problems:
1) Clergy are ultimately responsible as they lead and feed the congregation. While congregations may be putting on the pressure, clergy set up the situation.
2) We too often look to what others are doing rather than seek wisdom on how to best minister and be the local church God wants us to be.
I'm a third generation pastor and it is fascinating how the ministry has changed during the 20th century. My mother often comments on how different it is today than when my father was starting out. Church officers have to figure out how to care and feed their pastor, but pastors too need to practice good self-leadership and help educate the church's leadership in these matters.
Part of the difficulty here is that pastoral work is notoriously border-free and pastors themselves are incredibly diverse in terms of interests, gifts, focus, etc. Churches and their traditions also vary widely in ways that impact this area.
For me a big help has been to continue to work on sharpening my focus of what the gospel is and how it connects with the rest of life. I believe a pastor has an area of unique ownership in the broader labor economy of the church and it is not always easy to articulate it and defend its boundaries. I find Eugene Peterson very helpful on these matters. pvk
The other point I would want to make is to question the source of our strength as ministers / elders / deacons / church members. We are called to spend and be spent in the Lord's service. There will be trying and tiring times - where do we look then? When we are exhausted, discouraged, fearful, where do we turn? Our prayer must be that in those times, the Lord would sustain us, and meet us in our every need, that we would be able to run and not be weary, walk and not faint. It is, in the end, an issue about the exercise of our faith.
Paraphrasing Oswald Chambers if we in ministry would focus more on developing our personal relationship with God, yielding to His will and purpose, we might ultimately see more redemption, less stress, and subsequently more progress in all areas of our ministry. I'm currently reading a book entitled "Confessions of a Pray Slacker" that has strongly challenged me in this area of my life.