Out of Ur just posted about the recent New York Times article on pastor burn out. The article suggests:
“Members of the clergy now suffer from obesity, hypertension and depression at rates higher than most Americans. In the last decade, their use of antidepressants has risen, while their life expectancy has fallen. Many would change jobs if they could.”
Out of Ur pulled out some interesting observations that I found striking.
The article goes on to speculate on causes for the decline in clergy health. A key culprit: lack of boundaries. Pastors have an increasing number of expectations. Not only are they expected to function as CEOs for complex organizations, but also spiritual shepherds, teachers, and care-givers for large numbers of people.
One researcher from Duke University sums it up well: “These people tend to be driven by a sense of a duty to God to answer every call for help from anybody, and they are virtually called upon all the time, 24/7.”
Yep. My first thought was snarky. “Just one more bit of evidence that the church culture we’ve created is working.” ;-P How can people reasonably assume that following Jesus is going to produce life when its not for those who stand in leadership. The pastoral culture I’ve seen and observed, augmented by the article, is driven by a story of duty rather than love. And it’s crippling. We have to rather than get to participate with God. It produces a story that says they have to answer every call for help from ANYBODY.
Anne Jackson wrote a book called Mad Church Disease about this problem last year and after 93 reviews it still got a five star rating. For years ago I sat in the audience of Mars Hill at a conference. There were 2,500 pastors and leaders in attendance. Rob Bell asked how many were at the point of burnout and ready to give in. Three quarters of the audience raised their hand.
We’re addicted to ideas that don’t work. But I also realize that it’s not new. One of the ideas that I explore in my book, Discovering The God Imagination, Reconstructing a Whole New Christianity, is the idea that God allows us to continually explore the stuff that doesn’t work, so we’ll exhaust its value. Israel consistenlty ignored God in favor of its own and the culture’s ideas. It’s sad that we have to go through this period of discovering what doesn’t work in order to find what does. Much of my own work on church culture simply led me back to what Jesus did. Gather twelve people into a tribe and engage life together. We ended up calling it the Jesus Model.
If the culture of pastors has done anything, it has led us to the understanding that one person can’t be all things for all people. The traditional church culture doesn’t nurture discipleship or growth. It nurtures automatons that can reproduce a statement of beliefs. The current form of church (single speaker, passive audience, presentation of ideas) produces the lowest form of retention and learning, about 15%. The Jesus Model of intentional engagement produced arguably the highest for a follower, about 50%. The call to make disciple, which requires the individual to teach others, produces the highest for a leader, about 85%.
I cant’ wait until this era of professional pastors/CEOs finally exhausts itself.
Q – So have you seen or experience this problem in your community. Do share but save the names.
