Posts Tagged ‘Church’

“Boy, Steve sure is touchy today,” the pastor commented to his youth minister. “I only asked him if he’d be at the revival meeting tonight, but he just stared at me and never said a word. Maybe Steve’s one of those guys who thinks revival is for everyone else!”

“Well, pastor,” the youth minister answered, “Steve has been rather busy lately, what with the new junior high Sunday School class, his work on the building committee, and choir rehearsals. Plus, his wife just had a baby, remember?”

“Well, I guess we’re all busy, aren’t we,” the pastor replied sarcastically. “You’d better remind Steve that all Sunday School teachers are required to attend the revival as a good witness to their class members. Be sure to tell him, huh?”

Church volunteer burnout is a major problem throughout the Christian community, and it seems to be growing. Are church volunteers just getting more lazy and irresponsible, as implied by the pastor in the scenario, or is there really something to burnout?

WHAT BURNOUT REALLY IS

Everyone gets tired once in awhile from hard work, daily stresses and strains, and plain getting older, but a little rest is all that’s generally needed to recharge our battery. Burnout is a different phenomenon altogether, however. It makes us feel tired and lethargic even after prolonged rest.

More psychological and emotional, rather than physical, burnout results from prolonged stress, overextension, and hurriedness. The nervous system gets stretched until it loses its resiliency and renewal capacity. The burnout victim finds it more and more difficult to snap back from hard work, to “get up” for challenges, and to adequately rest. Then the “blahs” set in (the so what? feeling) even in the absence of hard work and stress.

That’s when you know you’re suffering from burnout. You’re tired all the time even though you haven’t done much of anything. You feel like withdrawing, even from activities previously relished. Before long you start to feel worthless.

A PORTRAIT OF BURNOUT

Let’s see how Sunday School teacher, committee leader, choir member, new father Steve (from our opening scenario) burned himself out. For starters, he didn’t fully anticipate the challenge and difficulty of ministering to junior high kids. In fact, he had to push himself most Sunday mornings to go to class. He thought that singing in the choir would be fun but hadn’t reckoned on all the rehearsal time, special performances (such as every night of the revival), and his need to practice at home.

Steve joined the building committee thinking he could help supervise the grounds maintenance crew. Instead he wound up mowing the grass himself. And the building committee wasn’t always one big happy family, especially when it came time to discuss the annual facilities budget.

Steve felt guilty whenever he missed a church function, like the Sunday night his new daughter was born and the church had its annual anniversary pot luck supper. Eight people asked him where he’d been, and Steve couldn’t determine if they truly cared about him or were checking up on him. Feeling that way made him feel even more guilty.

While Steve’s wife, and junior high helper, recouped from the birth of their fourth child, Steve tried to find a temporary helper to fill in. Three people said working with junior high “wasn’t their thing.” Two wanted to “pray about it,” and the one guy who promised to help out “for a little while” never showed up.

Steve’s recent job promotion didn’t help matters either, because now he’s on the road more. But at least the modest pay increase would ease the financial expense of his new daughter.

When the youth minister finally corralled Steve about his “duty and responsibility” to attend every night of the revival, Steve didn’t get mad, he just went limp and started thinking about the “small, simple” church his family used to belong to and how nice it would be to return.

Steve’s trying experience is all too familiar to a growing number of conscientious Christians today who unknowingly fit the burnout syndrome to a “T”.

THE ROAD TO BURNOUT

• Overcommitment (always in motion);
• Inadequate breaks and rest (continuous ministry involvement);
• Idealistic standards;
• Constant low-grade stress (occasionally interrupted by crisis!)
• Lack of help and assistance;
• Chronic fatigue from pushing oneself (”hitting the wall”);
• Strong sense of responsibility, even when others “dropped the ball”;
• Guilty feelings about missing church events/activities;
• Heavy job and family responsibilities/expectations;
• Inability (or strong reluctance) to say no.

BURNOUT REALITY ORIENTATION

Burnout happens to nice guys—to the dedicated, loyal, idealist church member who wants to make a difference. That’s the problem: this all-out commitment drives some Christians to take on too much, too soon, too often. They overlook their heavy non-church responsibilities at home and on the job.

Constant challenge and activity carries stress in its wake—”getting up” for ministry activity, putting out brush fires, coping with diverse personalities, making do with scarce resources. And don’t forget the strings attached to becoming a ministry leader: visitation, showing up every time the church doors are open, maintaining an exemplary witness at all times, attending (seemingly endless) meetings.

Sometimes the pastor and staff get a bit out of touch with grass roots volunteer busyness. They’re so busy (and under-appreciated) themselves, chronic overcommitment is simply a way of life. The idling majority of the congregation conveniently assumes that “everything is running smoothly, so our help isn’t really needed.” Others, not so naïve, know the tremendous sacrifice required of ministry involvement and want no part of it.

A STRATEGY FOR AVOIDING BURNOUT

It’s easier to avoid burnout in the first place than it is to overcome it. Here are 10 do-able strategies for escaping its clutches:

• Rest, relax, recreate, renew. It’s God’s way of sustaining us for the long haul.
• Pray for your ministry responsibilities. Let God perform the work, using His infinite strength and perfect wisdom.
• Give something up before taking on a new commitment or responsibility. Don’t keep “adding floors” onto your already towering skyscraper of activities.
• Learn to say no and to set up reasonable boundaries around your involvement. Specify the help you’ll need and the constraints on your time.
• Set priorities and consult with your family. Church work occupies an essential role in our lives but must never take priority over family. Look for ways to team up with your spouse in ministry activities. Be willing to occasionally say no to low priority church activities when they conflict with quality family time.
• Get away from it all on a regular basis through hobbies, recreation, short-ministry “sabbaticals,” and sometimes just being a couch potato.
• Listen to your body’s stress warning signals, such as headaches, backaches, dizziness, insomnia, and unexplainable fatigue.
• Cut out the hurry and worry. Stress is the natural byproduct of trying to stuff 10 pounds of potatoes into a 5 pound bag. Do only what you reasonably can in the time available and with the resources available.
• Keep those to whom you relate informed of your changing commitments and priorities. Stay away from guilt trips.
• Emphasize grace over works. We don’t earn God’s blessings by the amount of church work we do. He wants us to lead healthy, balanced lives where ministry service is a joy and source of deep personal fulfillment. In the absence of such joy, ministry turns into burden and burnout.

Jesus knew of the burden of burnout. His words in Matthew 11:20, 30 are extremely comforting: “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest…For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Our solution to burnout? “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me…Ye shall find rest unto your souls.”

Why do we make all the efforts to share the gospel with people, get them connected to a local church, and then let them drop out?

Why was it easy to drop out?

1.  No place to serve.

I could tell stories, but this venue isn’t the place to air them. Let it simply be said that, I had nothing to do. The end result: no purpose, no job, no joy.

In the second place, we stayed for two years yet never found a way to serve in a way that fit the church’s schedule with our life.  We tried one ministry, but it was so disorganized that it hurt to serve.

2.  Not enough connections or deep friendships.

It was very easy to leave because there was hardly any social network to withdraw from.

In other words, it didn’t hurt to leave.

We didn’t really have anyone to say goodbye to.

Sure we had a few friends, but we saw them in other ways, spent time at their house, our children played together.  We still had meals together and talked on the phone.

But the pain of saying good bye to close friends didn’t exist.

After we left, it didn’t feel to us that anyone noticed our absence either.  With one or two exceptions, no one called to see why we were missing.

3.  Not enough common experiences

We eventually saw that we were missing out on various community building events.   We missed them for various reasons, most of which are good and understandable.

But the end result — we lacked the communal experience that bonds a group of people together.

We didn’t get to build a house together with Habitat.

We didn’t get to serve together in a neighborhood outreach.

We didn’t get to connect or contribute in small groups.

We didn’t get to grow with people through common experience. . . .

We didn’t get the announcements of events that were happening. . .

The end result: Marginalization.

We didn’t drop out the back door over theology.

We didn’t drop out the back door because of how the pastor treated us.

We didn’t drop out the back door from some offense between someone and ourselves.

We dropped out the back door because we were in the margins

We couldn’t stay in.

We couldn’t get in.

The therapist will wonder what root behaviors caused this to happen.

They psychoanalyst will try to find fault in my family of origin.

Others will try to find some kind of problem within our family that caused this to happen twice.  Still others will blame the church.

We don’t.  It’s life, it happened, we go on.

I am not sharing this to have people counsel me, but to look at my story from a church growth / evangelism perspective.

If it was easy for me to drop out the back door, what can you do to help close that door.

Closing the back door.

1.  Build systems that allow friendships to happen.

As you think of your visitor assimilation process, what can you do to help new church visitors build relationships and keep them in your congregation?

Small groups, cells, service events are all excellent ways to provide a context for friendships to happen.

I came across a statistic that said that at least in North America, if a visitor doesn’t form a primary relationship with someone other than the pastor in the first six months, they will leave.

Close the back door by helping people develop new and meaningful relationships around faith.

2.  Help people serve and contribute

There are many practical ways people can serve in a church.  Ask the already overworked volunteers what they’d like to delegate, and you’ll find some new spots for new people.  Or, use spiritual gift inventories to help new people discover where they can serve out of their gifting and passion.

Close the back door by empowering others to serve out of their gifting and passion.

3.  Plan common experiences

Some of my closest friends walked with me for years as we did ministry together.  There were lots of common experiences around camp fires, retreats, events, prayer times and play times. Some spent time at a pancake house after Sunday services, others spent time at my house on Tuesdays.

We simply had opportunities for life together.

Take the principle and apply it to a church level — what are some common experiences that you can plan that will help your church bond with each other?  For many, it’s various community service outreach events.  For others, it might be an adopted mission project — this is what “we” do.

Close the back door by building community through shared experience.

4.  Foster the DNA of care and seeking

In otherwords, encourage people to always be looking for who is missing.  This is obviously very easy when the group is small.  It gets challenging when churches get bigger.

How you do this is contextually dependent.

But developing the DNA to notice the missing and care for the hurting will help keep your people from walking out the back door.

Close the back door by caring for those who hurt.

Close the back door by noticing who is dropping out.

Connect