Death by Ministry

By Mark Driscoll

At our recent Reform & Resurge Conference in Seattle, my good friend Pastor Darrin Patrick from The Journey in Saint Louis spoke frankly of the burden that pastoral ministry is. I have pushed myself to the edge and over the edge of burnout throughout my nearly ten years in vocational ministry. Subsequently, I have been doing a great deal of research that I am compiling in hopes of not only improving my own life but also the lives of the leaders at Mars Hill Church and the churches in our Acts 29 Network. As a leader I commonly set the pace of ministry for those under me, which can lead to wholesale burnout of others if I don’t learn this lesson and teach it to others. The following points that I pray are helpful are some brief thoughts from what God has been teaching me as of late. Lastly, the fact that at least twenty-two separate organizations exist in the U.S. solely to deal with pre- and post-pastoral burnout indicate that this is a widespread problem that has only been identified and researched since the 1950s.

Part 1 — Some Statistics

The following statistics were presented by Pastor Darrin Patrick from research he has gathered from such organizations as Barna and Focus on the Family.

Pastors

• Fifteen hundred pastors leave the ministry each month due to moral failure, spiritual burnout, or contention in their churches.


• Fifty percent of pastors' marriages will end in divorce.


• Eighty percent of pastors and eighty-four percent of their spouses feel unqualified and discouraged in their role as pastors.


• Fifty percent of pastors are so discouraged that they would leave the ministry if they could, but have no other way of making a living.


• Eighty percent of seminary and Bible school graduates who enter the ministry will leave the ministry within the first five years.


• Seventy percent of pastors constantly fight depression.


• Almost forty percent polled said they have had an extra-marital affair since beginning their ministry.


• Seventy percent said the only time they spend studying the Word is when they are preparing their sermons.

Pastors' Wives

• Eighty percent of pastors' spouses feel their spouse is overworked.


• Eighty percent of pastors' spouses wish their spouse would choose another profession.


• The majority of pastor's wives surveyed said that the most destructive event that has occurred in their marriage and family was the day they entered the ministry.

Part 2 — Some Signs

The following are indicators that ministry leaders are heading toward burnout, if not already there. Sadly, we too often become so focused on our tasks and responsibilities that we fail to see these warning signs until it is too late.

• unusual mood swings that may include weeping without just cause, anger, or depression


• Exhaustion


• Paranoia and suspicion


• Weight change, including gain or loss


• Moments of panic and feeling totally overwhelmed


• Fantasizing about dying or running away to get away from the pressure


• Fight-or-flight cycles where you rise up to intimidate and conquer others or run away from difficulties just to avoid them


• Insomnia, including difficulty falling asleep or remaining asleep, which can lead to a reliance on sleeping pills


• Too frequent use of alcohol or tobacco


• High blood pressure


• Comforting yourself with unhealthy foods packed with fat, sugar, and simple carbohydrates


• General irritability


• Reckless driving


• Change in sexual desire of either noticeable increase or decrease


• Notable ongoing sexual temptation


• Health-related issues such as irritable bowel syndrome, headaches, heart trouble, chronic sickness, and stomach problems including ulcers


• A victim mentality that sees the world as against you and everyone as an enemy to varying degrees


• Shopping sprees and unnecessary financial spending


• Reliance on caffeine to self-medicate


• Children, friends, and loved ones begin to feel like yet another burden

Part 3 — Some Solutions

The following are simply some things I do in my own life that I have found helpful to prevent me from dying a death by ministry.

1. Fill your plate

In a conversation with Pastor Wayne Cordeiro of New Hope Christian Fellowship in Hawaii, he gave some very sagely advice. He said that each person’s plate is a different size; each person needs to first find the size of their plate and then fill it only with those things that are of highest priority. And, before adding any additional things to our full plate, we must take something else off to leave space for the new duty. Finding the size of one’s plate takes time and attention. For example, I have personally seen that high-level leaders have an energy level that is unusually high and those working under them who seek to keep up with their pace find themselves quickly burning out

2. Exercise

Sadly, most pastors and Christian leaders I know are woefully out of shape. Many of them pound their pulpits against rock music and alcohol while their huge gut jiggles in mockery of their own gluttony. In the early years of our church plant, I ate poorly, slept infrequently, and lived off of the constant adrenaline of perpetual stress. As a result, I weighed 235 pounds at my highest point. Through regular diet and exercise I dropped back down to a lean 190 pounds. But in the past year I have seen my weight climb back up to 210 pounds as my diet and exercise routine has been trashed by laziness, travel, and the constant state of emergency. So, yesterday I cleaned out my garage and plugged my treadmill back in so I can resume daily running and lifting conveniently at home. I got started exercising this morning. I find that when I work out, I drop weight, feel better, sleep better, and am better able to lead out of health with energy. The experts say the best time to exercise is in the morning and those who work out early in the day are most likely to remain on an exercise regimen.

3. Do not allow technology to be your Lord

A recent issue of Fortune magazine had an insightful article about the average day of some of the most successful CEOs in the country. These people lived lives ruled by technology, including spending whole days each week doing nothing but obsessively responding to every single email they received. The article mentioned that the average American worker is interrupted once every eleven minutes and takes twenty-five minutes to refocus on their original task. The problem is that the alarms and bells of our technology deceive us into reacting to them even when the matter they call us to is neither urgent or important. So, turning off the chime and vibrate on your phone, only checking your voicemail and email on certain days at certain times, and turning the notification off on your email will itself go a long way toward your healing. You won’t have the unpredictable fire drill caused by the bells of technology. Imagine what the world must have been like before the 1200s when the first mechanical clock was invented, or before minute and second hands were added in the 1600s, or before 1879 when Edison produced the first light bulb, thereby enabling us to stay up all night.

4. Sabbath

This includes taking five minutes off every hour to catch your breath, go for a walk, stand up at your desk, etc. It includes taking thirty to sixty minutes off a day to nap, go for a walk, read, garden, or whatever else releases your pressure and helps you to relax. This also means taking one day off a week to Sabbath, including a date night if you are in a serious relationship or married. This also includes a day or two off a month for silence and solitude and a few weeks a year for an actual vacation that does not leave you more tired than before it began.

5. Pick a release valve

Because ministry causes pressure, any leader without an acceptable release valve will either burn out from stress or blow up from sin. So, the key to releasing pressure is to find and use an acceptable release valve. This may include exercise, gardening, a hobby, journaling, or my favorite, dropping the top on my Jeep and heading into the mountains for a day of adventure to find new lakes to swim in.

6. Work on your life, not just in it

Rather than just pulling more hours and trying harder, time needs to be regularly taken to pull back and look at your life so that you can work on it rather than just run in it. For me this includes printing out my schedule every few months to review how I spent my time and inform my assistant of what was a waste of time that should not happen again. This also means taking time to read books on the issue of time management and burnout and biographies of great leaders to learn from their lives, and possibly even taking time to meet with a Biblical counselor to get insight on your own life and tendencies.

7. Leave margin

When we push our bodies, schedules, minds, and budgets to the point where there is no margin, all that it takes to destroy us is one unforeseen expense, one small emergency, or one small cold. Therefore, leaving margin is the key to not being crushed when life does not go according to plan. This means leaving extra money in the bank, leaving extra time between appointments, and preparing to arrive at places early so that if there is traffic you will still be on time and not stressed.

8. Spend most of your time training leaders

While thousands of people came to see Jesus, only a handful really knew Him, and only three knew Him intimately. This is because Jesus spent his time training leaders to do ministry and without doing the same we will die from our work and sadly see it die with us as well.

9. Work from conviction, not guilt

Conviction comes from God and guilt comes from people. The key to being both fruitful and healthy is to do what God wants and not always say yes to or let yourself be pushed around by people who are demanding and have perfected the art of making you feel guilty if you do not do what they demand.

* Originally prepared for an elders' meeting at Mars Hill Church on May 22, 2006.
** © 2006 Mars Hill Church. (This material is free to use, but not to be re-published or sold.)