The Burned Out Pastor

How about this scenario.....on Saturday evening you feel the foul mood coming on, the wife notices and stays away. Sunday morning you get up and talk yourself into being excited about church, and it's working.....until you pull into the parking lot of the church and it's like this black cloud that weighs hundreds of pounds falls onto your shoulders. The oppresion is unmistakable. You walk into the buidling and start turning on lights and the whole way you have a list in your head of things that are wrong, uncleaned, disorganized, unfinished and of course out of place. The last thing you want to do is see a bunch of people who are expecting you to "be excited" and pump them up for another week of making stupid decisions and blaming God for it. And then the thought that you know is there finally comes to the front for acknowledgement, "I can't stand these people and I would rather be anywhere in the world but here". And then the next thought is "Holy cow, how can I even think that? I'm supposed to be the Pastor, you know, Mr. Spiritual and always on cloud 9 and always the encourager of others. I must be a horrible person on the inside. If they only knew that I'm a fake and a fraud they would never show up again to listen to anything I have to say."

If you can relate to this train of thought, maybe even be brave enough to admit that you have had this conversation in your head, you are a Burned Out Pastor! So many thoughts to share about this topic and so many revelations that I have been given by the Lord that apply to this topic. If you read that paragraph and your thought was "that guy should resign immediately, he has no business being a pastor of any kind", then you are more than likely one of the pious-gasbags I was referring to and you should have hit the back button instead of entering the site. The other optmistic option is of course that you are completely ignorant of the experience because 1.) you have not been called by God to fill this position in His church. 2.) you have not been in the fight long enough to experience the fatigue of the battle 3.) You are probably a volunteer instead of being a drafted person. Explanaion on this later in the site.

Here's where we start with the whole "truth" thing. Christ said that the truth will set you free, so then it stands to reason that without the truth you are not free. Let's take it a step further and state that without the truth we remain in bondage. Yeah, you read that right. I believe that unless we face the truth, regardless of how ugly it might be in our lives then we will never be able to break free of that bondage that we live under. I attended a 2 week seminar in Pheonix called Victorious Christian Living a few years ago and one of the principles that I came away with from the teaching was this, "the truth starts with an honest appraisal and builds from there". The problem is that most of us are very afraid of an honest appraisal of ourselves. I think probably Jack Nicholson in his famous role as General Jessup in "A Few Good Men" put it best when pushed about "the truth" in a scene that we all can see in our minds as we read this quote.

"You can't handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has walls. And those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives...You don't want the truth. Because deep down, in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall. "

The truth is most of us can't handle the truth, the real truth. We have talked a lot about the truth, now we return back to Pilate's question to Jesus, "What is truth?". In our case the truth is that we who are an imperfect vessel have been chosen or volunteered to serve a perfect God in a position that we can only fail in. Failure is our only choice? Did I read that right? Allow me to explain by giving three scenarios which go different directions but in our minds we end up in the same place.

Scenario #1- An all too familiar scene, regardless of how much good we do for the Kingdom of Christ it can all come crashing down in a heartbeat by our humanity (remember the imperfect vessel?). How about if I just explain it by giving you a few names and let's see what comes to your mind. Ted Haggard......Jimmy Swaggart.......Jim Baker......I think you get the picture. Failure. Now for the pure optimists out there (of course that's an oxymoron for someone that is on this site) I know you are saying that I have no right to "judge" these guys. Whatever, stick it in your self-righteous ear. As a person who has invested most of my life furthering the Kingdom, as well as having at least half of a brain, I think I can safely make this call. Failure. Not what God has planned for the shepherd.

Scenario #2- A lesser known but more ocurring scene is the Pastor who sacrifices his life, his marriage, his children all in the name of "the ministry". When it's all said and done he has touched a few lives but he is now divorced and his children won't have antyhing to do with church or God. Not going to mention any names because most of them aren't on national television or in the media. But believe me they exist. You might be one of them, maybe your on the verge of being one of them. Regardless, it's failure. Not what God has planned for the shepherd.

Scenario #3- This is the one that I would like to say happens the most but I don't know that I can. A pastor who treats his wife and family with respect, his church is experiencing changed lives and he knows that he is making a difference. But because he loves the Lord so much and wants to do more for Him and he is so humbled by the call, it is never enough. One of the characteristics that I suffer from and I have found that many other BOP's seem to have in common is being a perfectionist. And when you are a perfectionistic, it's NEVER enough. EVEN IF your motive is pure and righteous. If you aren't a perfectionist then right now you are reading this and going "huh?". (Read the article about how Satan can and will use our God-given desires against us entitled "Satan is obviously a duck hunter".) In my mind, failure. Don't talk to me about what you see because that doesn't matter to me. It's what I see through my eyes, and that is failure. I could have, I should have done more. Chances are good that if you are reading this then you are probably in this group. Not what God has planned for the shepherd. Keep reading if this is sounding all too familiar.

By the way, a great look at this reality comes from Rob Bell's first book "Velvet Elvis". I would highly recommend this book for many reasons but one is the "behind the scenes" feelings of insecurity and unworthy feelings that Pastors suffer from. Paraphrasing, he shares with us the real thoughts that he had of bolting out the back door right before he was to go out and teach because of the battle that raged inside of him. And what makes it more amazing is that if you read the story of how this church that he started took off like a wildfire, any of us would consider it a "great success" and yet the same thoughts were there that the Pastor who struggles to get 30 people into his congregation has. You see, this is what I want to expose to you. The commonality of the attacks across many different size churches, different denominations, different personalities only proves to me that they come from the same source or else there would not be the commonality with all these variables in play.

So where do I go from here........there are other accompanying articles on The BOP site that will focus on specific topics that all tie into the whole "burned out thing" but I guess I need to put some positive on this and maybe answer the question that you are probably asking by now. Why are you still doing this? Or as my wife so eloquently puts it "Why don't you go ahead and quit if you really are that miserable?". Good question and I have asked myself and continue to ask myself this question from time to time. Here's the answer that I come up with and can't seem to get past. Because there is still that nagging sense of duty, the calling, and oh yeah, love and thankfulness. Sounds like someone who suffers from multiple personality disorder, doesn't it? Unless you are a BOP, then it probably makes more sense than anything you've heard in a long time.

This would probably be a good place to mention that I believe that there is a difference between a volunteer and a draftee when it comes to the ministry. So far with the people that I have talked to in the ministry that seemed to suffer from the "burned out" syndrome, approximately 99% fall into the draftee category and not the volunteer. (Read the article "Are you a volunteer or have you been drafted into the service?") This seems to be one of the characteristics that accompany the perfectionist trait in the BOP's. I have already decided that somewhere in the next few months I am going to make a compilation of characteristics that fit the majority of the BOP's.

Are you a volunteer or have you been drafted into the service?

Satan is obviously
a duck hunter

Does the Shehpherd
take orders from
the sheep?

Letters of Testimony
from other BOP's

Are you a
"Professional"
Pastor?