People in helping professions of all kinds risk experiencing compassion fatigue and burnout, but ministers face an additional issue, clinical psychologist Don Corley of Waco, Texas, asserted.
“They feel the weight of carrying the spiritual pain of others,” he said. “Ministers care for others’ spiritual well-being.”
Scott Floyd, director of counseling programs at B.H. Carroll Theological Seminary, identified conditions that contribute to burnout:
Unrealistic job demands.
Unclear job expectations.
Conflict.
Dealing with individuals in distress.
Feeling that tasks are never completed.
Lack of recognition for accomplishments.
Feeling second-guessed or criticized.
“If I work with groups of ministers, read through that list and ask how many of them experience one or more of those, they usually just laugh, because they experience so many of those all the time,” he said.
Isolation can contribute to burnout, he noted. Ministers may not have friends outside the church in whom they can confide. If they have close friends in the church, sometimes they face criticism for “playing favorite,” he added.
Ministers often work long hours dealing with high-stress situations that naturally create fatigue, but Floyd distinguishes between weariness, exhaustion and burnout.
Weary ministers need a couple of days away from work and a good night’s sleep to rejuvenate, he noted. Exhausted ministers may require an extended vacation or a long-term sabbatical to rest.
Burnout, on the other hand, takes a deeper biological and emotional toll, he said.
“A pastor or minister can get into a cycle where you’re tired, so you don’t exercise, you don’t take care of your own spiritual needs, you don’t eat healthily. And so, it becomes part of cycle that moves downward,” Floyd said.
Warning signs
Early warning signs that may indicate a minister is approaching burnout include physical symptoms such as headaches, stomachaches, high blood pressure, tight neck muscles and difficulty sleeping.
“There is full-scale burnout that a person experiences, but there are a lot of ministers who seem to exist at a sub-level right under that,” Floyd said. “Some are functioning in the midst of burnout, but there’s another big group who are walking right along the edge.”
Ministers may find themselves emotionally numb — not experiencing expected joy or sorrow. Others may observe changes in their personality or uncharacteristic impatience.
A minister may also notice his or her mind wandering, lack of productivity at work and “replaying conversations over and over,” Floyd said.
Under normal circumstances, the burdens of ministry can take a toll. But in recent years, additional factors — namely political polarization and a global pandemic — have contributed to ministerial burnout, Floyd observed.
Both in society at large and in the church, he observed a tendency of people to “identify my tribe and the other tribe, and to locate you so quickly and so completely into one of those categories.”
He pointed to the challenge of “conversation and behavior monitoring” on the part of some in the church. Those individuals are quick to relegate a minister to “the other tribe” on the basis of a single word or phrase, or on the minister’s perceived failure to “go far enough” in taking a stand on a particular issue, he noted.
The time surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic — and its aftermath — led to a significant increase in burnout, he added.
Ministers faced criticism for “doing too much” or “not doing enough” in terms of protecting the congregation, he observed.
After the pandemic, some pastors also faced the reality of smaller congregations, smaller budgets and smaller staffs, he noted.
“I think congregations’ expectations of pastors sometimes can be so extreme that even if the pastor has less help and less budget, it probably doesn’t lower the expectations of what the pastor can or should do,” Floyd said. “Self-expectation and congregant expectations add a lot of pressure.”
Taking steps to prevent burnout
Congregations can help by designating individuals on a rotating basis to cover night and weekend calls, so the pastor is not always the first person who has to respond to emergencies, Floyd suggested.
“I think ministry staff can work with congregations to help them identify what realistic expectations of ministry are,” he said.
Corley agreed ministry is inherently stressful, but “stress is not the problem,” he asserted.
In fact, stress can be energizing and motivating if it is perceived positively, he said. The problem is an inability to handle stress in healthy ways.
Corley believes overworked ministers should add one more thing to their “to-do” list if they want to avoid burnout.
“Mitigate stress by adding activities that are uplifting,” he said.
He particularly suggested activities that foster relationships, such as coffee with a friend, dinner with a spouse or simply taking a walk with someone and having a conversation.
Corley believes ministers often fail to consider two key words in Jesus’ command to love your neighbor: “as yourself.”
“The standard of love we have for others is how we care for ourselves,” he said. “It’s circular, not linear. Love ourselves while also loving others. Love others while loving ourselves. One begets the other. They’re all wrapped up in one.
“If you don’t take care of yourself, you cannot care for others.”
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EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Ken Camp and originally published by the Baptist Standard.
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