Often I’m asked, “What can pastors do to stay healthy, encouraged, and not become another statistic?” Well, to be honest, that’s a difficult question to answer. There are no perfect solutions or preventions to stress or burnout or the other causes that lead people to leave the ministry. There are just too many things to factor.
However, thanks to our friends at John Mark Ministries, here are seven fundamental steps each pastor or minister can do to strengthen their walk with Christ and find a healthier balance to their ministry. This is no end-all but it’s a great start.
1. Find fresh spiritual disciplines.
A conference in California has the theme ‘One Hundred Ways to Pray’. Well, find about three or four, and shut the door as Jesus said (i.e. put the phone and laptop away), and learn the art of relaxing, contemplative prayer.
Then, as the New Testament suggests, don’t be surprised when trials come your way. Jesus promised us trouble. So, as psychotherapist M. Scott Peck points out in his brilliant book, The Road Less Traveled, when you expect life to be difficult, it is much less difficult.
2. Take regular time off.
You’re not called to work harder than your Creator.
Develop a way of being through for the day (at least most days). Take your full four weeks annual leave in one stretch (and make alternative arrangements for weddings, etc.). Encourage your denomination to include and extra two weeks, all-expenses-paid study leave each year. On your day/s off, do something very different from what you do the other days. Listen to Spurgeon: ‘Repose is as needful to the mind as sleep to the body… If we do not rest, we shall break down. Even the earth must lie fallow and have her Sabbaths, and so must we. Jesus said, ‘Come apart and rest awhile’. If you don’t rest awhile, you’ll soon come apart.
3. Get proper exercise and sleep.
Exercise fairly vigorously 3-4 times a week. Walk, swim, play tennis. Allow adequate time for sleep. Adrenal arousal reduces our need for sleep – but this is a trap – we ultimately pay the penalty. Most adults probably need 8-9 hours a night.
4. Relax.
The relaxation response is the opposite of the fight/flight response. Just 20 minutes a day when we’re free from the tyranny of things present is enough to counteract the harmful effects of stress.
Two ways to relax: tighten each set of muscles from your feet to your face, counting to five before relaxing them; or begin meditation by repeating a one-word or one-phrase prayer (‘Maranatha’, ‘Lord have mercy’), repeat it slowly over and over and enjoy the other side of silence.
5. Join a small support/prayer group.
Ministry peers will better understand your needs. Then there’s the classical discipline of spiritual direction (or spiritual friendships). Who is Paul to your Timothy? Who teaches you to pray aright, as John the Baptist and Jesus taught their disciples? To whom do you confess your sins (James 5:16)?
Luther said every priest ought to have such a father in God. Congregations can help their pastor by praying more than they criticize him or her; having open communications regarding goals and expectations; recognizing that the pastor is human and will make mistakes like all of us; being as generous as possible financially (e.g. encouraging study leave); and protecting the privacy of the pastor’s family life.
6. Cognitive restructuring (i.e. changing one’s thinking).
Take a personal audit. Reassess your goals; like your clothes, change them sometimes. Improve your self-attitudes. Learn a healthy assertiveness. Know your gifts, and your limits. Face your fears; don’t avoid them by pretence, or bury them in an addiction. Above all, avoid states of helplessness: take time to develop coping strategies for difficult situations. Learn not to make catastrophes out of ordinary events. Be a growing person: if God has yet more light and truth to break forth from his Word, what new understandings have you experienced recently?
Freudenberger suggests: Discard outmoded notions. Don’t wear points of view just because you used to! Like old-fashioned clothes, they may become ill-fitting and ridiculous as time goes on.
7. Have fun!
To belong to the kingdom you have to be like little children. They’re not bothered about piles of correspondence or running the world. They get absorbed in things, even forgetting to run their own lives! So develop a few interesting interests: buy a bird-book and identify 100 native birds; collect stamps; play indoor cricket; take your spouse to an ethnic restaurant; give each of your kids an hour a week, where you do together what they suggest; build something ; audit a course.
But do something! And laugh sometimes! Did you know your body will not let you laugh and develop an ulcer at the same time? “Do not take life too seriously, you will never get out of it alive!”
What steps do you take to stay healthy in your ministry?
These steps were provided (with some modifications) by John Mark Ministries.
You can find the source content here.
an associate pastor
Always so timely to reflect on rest. Always so difficult to do it.
Wish there was an easier way to have members of the church understand and support this without them feeling abandoned, because often it is our sense of guilt over the care we “owe” them that leads us to overwork.
Bo Lane
So true. Sometimes we need to take care of ourselves first or we’ll be no good at taking care of others. Thanks for the comment!
Steve
Very good tips. Recently regular exercise and eating well has helped me to de-stress and has improved my health and outlook.
Bo Lane
Absolutely! It’s an area I could’ve improved on over the way but it’s so important. Getting the appropriate amount of rest, physical and spiritual, is of utmost importance as well. Thanks for the comment, Steve.
Sparkling_jewel
A calling to full-time ministry is truly challenging, and it is irrevocable. Of course, it’s much easier said than done but why quit if you are the chosen vessel for His glory?
Ingrid L P, DK
I would also recommend to study http://www.abidinglife.com ; it was started as a ministry to defeated Christians and can lead you to the redemption of Christ in your life – incl. see Col 1,27: the secret of ‘Christ in you (who believe) as your hope of glory’!
Keith
Reflect on the fact that God doesn’t actually exist: it takes the pressure off and allows you to focus on the people.
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