How to Prevent Burnout in Ministry

I was recently interviewed by CalledToYouthMinistry.com about thinking about and preparing for how to avoid burnout as the school year begins. The roundtable discussion is found here.

But I'll give my full responses below. I pray for any of you who read this and are in youth ministry and say, Slow and steady stays in the race. Give these disciplines a high priority. Just like the safety drill on the airplane tells you to put on your oxygen mask first before helping others, it's crucial to maintain persistent self-care in order to be truly available to others.

Here goes!


"Don't Burnout This Time Around - How to Prepare for a New Year of Ministry."

Questions:

A new year of ministry is ahead. It's exciting... and intimidating. How do you plan on dealing with burnout this year?

I have practiced 4 things that have sustained me very well. I suffered major burnout in my 3rd year of vocational ministry, nearly crashed out of ministry, and mentors helped learn how to apply these important habits to foster sustainable ministry:

• consistent (as in weekly) days off; 
• Sabbath-keeping (learning how the Bible and church history understands it); 
• scheduled vacations that focused on rest and recreation, not just exhausting adventure.
• keeping track of how many weekends I am expected or asked to be gone, and saying no to things so that I am not gone more than one weekend per month.

What situations tend to really make you feel burned out? How do you deal with them?

I am burned out mostly by three things:

1. running events, which require the management of loads of details, demand constant flexibility and adaptability, and run the risk of being amazingly successful or dreadfully horrible! I know how to run events rather well, but did not realize that so many plates spinning at once create a great deal of stress for me. If I'm not careful to allow some margin between events, I rapidly lose steam and become short-tempered and quite unpleasant.

2. camp, which is just about the most effective tool we have in youth ministry, but absolutely exhausts me now that I'm older (I'm 51). As I got older, I realized I just needed more boundaries in my work with students. In other words, I needed more personal space to sleep well and recuperate from the never-ending line-up of activities, conversations, lousy food, dirt and dust, and spiritual intensity. After the age of 40 I worked with the camps to allow for me to stay in a room by myself. The leaders, all much younger by and large, were very supportive and understanding. Having a separate room allowed for me to have meetings with leaders and offered a space for them to get some rest as well.

3. crisis and conflict, which are obviously draining. I have found that these events sometimes come in clusters, and cumulatively create a massive need for recovery as I seek to be available to students, families, friends, etc.

To really stay refreshed, our walk with the Lord needs to stay healthy. What advice would you give the youth leader that's dealing with burnout to keep their foundation strong?

I think that my response to the first question mostly addresses this one too. However, I would add that huge chunk of the problem is due to a lack of clarity in regard to job descriptions and time management. Most youth workers lack clear expectations in terms of what there job actually is, and even if they have a realistic job description, this information is not shared with parents, who then place their own uninformed demands on the youth ministry. Furthermore, I have found that the majority of those in vocational ministry (not just youth pastors, but senior pastors are equally guilty) do a terrible job of managing their time well. They are reactive and crisis-orientated, giving in to the "tyranny of the urgent," rather than focusing on healthy, proactive projects and priorities.

New Thoughts on Sabbath

I'm listening to a fascinating interview by Terry Gross about Sabbath on NPR. I also read something about this author (Judith Shulevitz) in this past week's NY Times Sunday Book Review. (Random trivia: during the weekend my brother told me that Shulevitz used to live 3 doors down from he and his family. I've even referenced Shulevitz in an article I once wrote about Sabbath several years ago. What a strangely small world we live in.)

There are some things she says that I don't connect with -- this woman, Judith Shulevitz, is not very strict in her spiritual practice (in this case, Judaism) in many ways. She says she doesn't pray, and she's not very consistent in going to temple. She even acknowledges that while she practices Sabbath, she's also ambivalent about it. And her husband isn't observant.

Regardless, she finds herself irresistibly drawn to the idea, reasons, and many of the habits of Sabbath. She found herself wanting more out of life. So it's a quizzical interview in some ways, but lovely in many others. Perhaps I also enjoy hearing two people spend time talking about the appeal of knowing God, without fully knowing him. It's so enlightening and fresh... Good reminders to people who maybe spend the majority (or all?) of their time with others with whom they share the same beliefs.

I've always understood Sabbath to simply mean "stop" -- a time to remember that we are human beings, not human doings. More importantly, it is to be a time to practice what we are going to do forever: to enjoy the presence and worship of the Lord unhindered.

I don't want to give too much away, but two things that Ms. Shulevitz said really struck me, and enlarged my understanding -- and hopefully, my practice. Her latest book is a result of extensive research into the history of Jewish Sabbatical practice. She says that Sabbath is intended to be a collective rest. Not only a time set aside for spiritual devotion, but a time where that worship is to be shared. People are to enjoy restful meals and conversation and leisure together. I did not know this. I've usually used Sabbath to get time alone, to reflect, to turn off -- and use that time to read and be quiet, often outside. But she says that Sabbath is not intended to be a time of "personal liberty and unfettered leisure." Hmm.

Furthermore, she says that the goal of Sabbath is that "you as a human should not be exerting mastery over the world." That is why the Jews have so many prescriptions to not do any work. She points out that during the other six days of the week, we exert great effort to conquer the world and have dominion over it. We seek to harness resources, to make our own mark, to maximize our efforts. But one day a week, Shulevitz states, "let the world be as it is, and you be in it." Wow.

These both feel much bigger than what I have understood Sabbath to be. Like Shulevitz (though for entirely different reasons), I am ambivalent about them. In a small, almost two year old sort of way, I want to stomp my foot and just say that I like my Sabbath keeping the way it is. They are life-giving for me, and I look forward to them every week. So her challenges sort of bug me. But I cannot deny that there is a remote, faraway appeal that I can't ignore. I've been so focused on getting Sabbath to be "less of me and more of Thee" that I have neglected the larger community focus (both personal and global) that her statements point to.

See what you think. It's about 40 minutes. Well worth the time.

March 31, 2010 Fresh Air with Terry Gross