If you asked the pastors of today’s churches about what most keeps them up at night, they might tell you about political polarization, or next weekend’s funeral-wedding combo, or Advent’s absolute grind. But none of those things are what burnt me out two years ago.
When I say burnt out, I mean it not in the millennial Instagram post sense, “I’m just so burnt out on politics right now.” There’s been some considerable “concept creep” as the word “burnout” has become one of our favorites in the 2024 cultural zeitgeist. My burnout was more clinical than all that. It felt like a literal representation of the phrase itself — the fire that was once within me was gone.
What snuffed out the incendiary passion that I once felt? The word I would use to best describe it is “pressure.” Ministry can feel like standing waist deep in the white waters of a running river. With some savvy you can withstand the current, but at some point the pressure will sweep you away. Where did this pressure come from?
Whether it was externally true or not, something inside me felt obsessed with the idea of numerical growth. Grow the church, Pastor. Make it bigger, Pastor. Make it better, Pastor. Preach it more charismatically, Pastor. Give us something to do, Pastor. Get Gen Z to love Jesus more than TikTok, Pastor.
Sociologist Hartmut Rosa reminds us that the core thesis of our current period of history (called “modernity”) is unmitigated growth and acceleration. Those who move the fastest — we call them influencers — have become our new mystics. Those who innovate the quickest — have you seen the new camera on the iPhone 45? — have become our new timekeepers. Churches, well now they come not just in small, medium, large, and extra large sizes. Like the soda in Parks and Recreation, churches are now “mega.”
Like every other institution, the church has been captured and enamored by modernity’s poisonous gift. Pastor’s conferences are rife with plenaries on entrepreneurship. Pastor is now CEO. And let me say that in all of this I have found some very helpful tips. It would be naive to suggest that professional ministry is just sacraments and sermons. There are staff to manage, buildings to raise capital for, and missions to organize.
Lesslie Newbigin said that another word for unmitigated growth for growth’s sake is cancer. That has a ring of truth to it. Still, I hope churches do grow numerically. I hope the narrative of church decline goes back to hell where it belongs. I hope the tide of decreasing religiosity turns and people throw themselves onto the throne of grace. I’ve seen glimpses of this already in my church context. But I am wary of a kind of ministry that makes growth a human end rather than a divine means.
Enter Eugene Peterson, the author of The Message translation of the Bible and a pastor’s pastor. Eugene tells the story of his early ministry. He had gone to several clergy events and been given a tool belt full of innovative ministry tactics to put to work on his people. One afternoon, he found himself sitting with a woman with cancer. He eagerly employed all the tips and tricks he had learned. But the woman didn’t seem to respond. He could tell the conversation was dwindling. He was missing something. Within him a voice arose and prompted him to ask the woman a question, “What do you most need from me right now?”
Her answer, “Pastor, I was wondering if you could teach me how to pray?”
Eugene says that at that moment, his entire way of ministering shifted. For forty faithful years, through countless books and a million little moments, he taught a small congregation how to pray. Growth? The Spirit took care of that.
In the clip below, which a dear friend Kollin sent me, a pastor interviews Eugene just months before his death. When asked to sum up what he learned after a lifetime of teaching people to pray, Eugene gently offers simple words that cut through the pressure cooker of modern life and ministry.
“God doesn’t want your tips and tricks. God just wants you.”
Maybe the God who calls us knows what he’s doing. I realized this at the bottom of my burnout. A pastor I deeply respect told me that passion may make the fire within us shoot and crackle, but at some point passion will fail us. Shoot for growth at all costs and you may actually get it, but if you got there without being the person God called, it may not last. I realized that it is purpose, not passion, that is the holy furnace that keeps the flame quietly lit. And maybe God’s purpose is somehow mysteriously and inexplicably linked to the person I am. Growth may come, but may it sprout from the smallest of seeds. For it is not I, but Christ who is within me.
Are you burnt out? Has the fire gone out in your life, in your work, in your ministry, in your heart? God’s grace is sufficient for thee. And don’t forget, the God who lit up Moses’ heart from a burning bush, the God who lit the fierce dark sky with a tornado of fire, the God who speaks in the language of flaming tongues, his refining fire never burns out.
He doesn’t want your tips and tricks, not really. God just wants you.
Thank you, this was refreshing and I am not even a pastor.
Thank you for this message as it has given me some knowledge what it is like to be a Pastor. It offers incite on how sacrificial being a Pastor is everyday.