No sir, I'm not admitting to clergy burnout...

...and I'm guessing that most of my ministerial colleagues will be loath to make such an admission as well.

There is a perfectly good reason for such an attitude: No pastor wishes to be seen as damaged goods.


I have admitted to being "a bit tired" and did so many times over the past couple of years when people in my church would ask why I am retiring at such a young (er, 62, young?) age. A feeling of mild ministerial fatigue was for me merely one of the Lord's signposts that my ministry at the church I had served for almost 15 years was drawing to a close - a normal progression.

I will also admit to being attuned to articles on clergy burnout and depression partly because I have been around some colleagues who appeared to be significantly fatigued, er, burned out.

The Baptist Standard carried story out of Baylor University on the subject.

Seminaries try preventive medicine for ministerial burnout

The usual statistics are trotted out:

 

• 90 percent of pastors report working between 55 to 75 hours a week.
• 90 percent feel inadequately trained to cope with the ministry demands.
• 50 percent feel unable to meet the demands of the job.
• 55 percent say they are discouraged.
• 70 percent do not have someone they consider a close friend.
• 80 percent believe pastoral ministry has affected their families in a negative way.

I do not deny the problem here.  I have come to believe that after some years of service or after leading a church through a difficult phase of ministry that a wise congregation will work out some form of sabbatical, even if it is just a short stretch out of the pulpit. A month off would be reasonable.

After 30 years of pastoring where I had just a couple of occasions where I was out of the pulpit for two consecutive Sundays, I confess that an extended stretch away from routine pastoral responsibilities brought some benefits. Today, I would be less stringent about Sundays out of the pulpit that I have been over past decades.

Our seminaries, those ministerial seed beds do well to delve into this area, although when I read that the source for the story linked above shared a tale of clergy burnout after a year-and-a-half in her early twenties, well, there is a bit of a disconnect. Perhaps the addition of a  focus on ministers in a different stage would have added to the article.

Plodder's top candidate of an issue related to clergy depression and burnout: Ministers must stop being so mulish and stubborn and display a demeanor where honest conversations are possible with fellow ministers and church leaders. If this issue is not resolved, well, see the photo above.

I recognize that this is a tall order, the Mighty Man of God admitting some degree of humanity, but I highly recommend it.

Pastor, how about a month off?

"You bet," sayeth most all of us at one time or another.

Ah sabbaticals. I'm on one now but had to retire to get it. The usual route to a sabbatical for most of us is to (a) resign, (b) get fired, or (c) retire.

Back in 1999 Baptist Press did a piece on a small town, average sized church pastor who took a sabbatical. It was a story most of us could identify with:

“I was not overworked; the church was not asking too much of me. That was not the problem,” he said. “The problem was that I needed a freshness of purpose in my life and in the church’s life.”

The solution agreed upon was five weeks off, unheard of among SBC churches unless the church is a mega or large church.

I like the concept but am not certain that many churches would grasp it.

I can hear the conversation now,

"Brethren, I'm mentally and emotionally exhausted" the pastor might explain to the deacons, "could we work out a sabbatical, a month or so when I could be away?"

"But pastor," one of the deacons might respond, "you only work one day  a week anyway. How could you be exhausted?"

Megachurch pastors can be exhaused. Large church pastors can be thought to deserve a sabbatical every few years. But average sized churches? Probably not.

Bring up the idea of ministry burnout to your church and you're probably toast in their minds from that point on.

Be open and vulnerable and disclose that you are mildly depressed to the church and you are likely viewed as damaged goods to them, worthy of whispers in the hallways.

 Bryant Wright is on sabbatical right now. I don't begrudge him that.

Johnny Hunt gets every August off and two years ago notably extended that through mid-September.

I'm guessing that average sized and smaller churches do not love their pastor any less than a megachurch loves theirs but I'd speculate that smaller churches would look askance at a request for a sabbatical.

Here is one smaller church pastor's story:

On June 4, 2006, I drove to the church for evening worship intending to announce my resignation.  After 21 years as a pastor, and 27 years in professional ministry, I had hit a wall.  I was not only exhausted; I was empty.  My faith had not wavered, nor had my commitment to ministry or my church.  Like a car that had run out of gas, I just stopped.  Fortunately, by the time I pulled into the parking lot, I had reasoned myself out of such a drastic act.  When pastors run out of steam, they generally do one of three things:  they move to another church; they get sick; or they do something stupid.  I came very close to my stupid!  Instead of resigning, I walked into the service and announced that I was prepared to teach, but I was unable to teach, and that I would see them next week.  The congregation witnessed what I had been fearfully anticipating for several years – a total shutdown

His church gave him five weeks off.

Many pastors could identify with the problem, depression, burnout, shutdown, but few could identify with the solution, a sabbatical.

One of the ways that associational missionaries, state convention workers, denominational press, and SBC leaders could help the tens of thousands of workaday, average church, average pastors is to regularly promote the concept of an occasional sabbatical even in smaller churches.

Money is tight all around at every SBC level but I bet that there would be a lot less profitable ways for state conventions to budget money than to put a sum aside for grants to churches who wanted or needed to give their pastor a month or so sabbatical. This would give the idea a modest push among smaller churches.

I can envision a state convention program whereby churches were told, "We will fill your pulpit at no cost to you if you give your pastor a sabbatical month off." State conventions and associations would benefit by having an extended opportunity to share some of their work in a church over an extended period. Such an incentive would be persuasive to many churches who fret over finances and supply honoraria if the pastor is out.

In the past I have been pessimistic about the idea of sabbaticals being realistic in average and smaller sized SBC churches but I think it is doable and is certainly worth encouraging.

Some pastors might need to start thinking and praying about it, although you could just act like a fighter pilot and stubbornly believe that others may crash and burn but not you, you've got the right stuff.

I wouldn't risk it.