The Burnout

I saw an article on another website about burnout and being burned out in the ministry.
It made me wonder why burnout happens. Does it happen when you are doing so much that you don't give yourself time to relax and your quiet time for prayer and meditation gets smaller and smaller?

This is the only thing I can think of because if God is our strength He would give us the strength to continue on.

Do people get carried away and not realize it until burnout happens? Burnout can also cause people to become agnostic as well as athiestic as well.

What do you think?

John,

I was watching this question, waiting on someone else to answer your question but since no one did, I will try.

I have experienced burn-out. Your evaluation as to why it happens is true, especially the concept you shared in your first paragraph: "you are doing so much that you don't give yourself time to relax and your quiet time for prayer and meditation gets smaller and smaller?"

But this is not the only reason. The Scripture gives us another one found in Matthew 24:12: And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.

It happened to me after I was at the Crises Pregnancy Center for five years. I got so sick and tired of these people coming in...they would not listen to anyone but then they wanted you to get them out of the jam they got themselves in to. Or, they wanted your approval to sin more by destroying the consequences of their sins. Or, they then expected you to render them assistance in order to deal with the consequences of their sins. But they refused to repent and still expected you to provide them with goods....and so it goes....

Doing volunteer work at a CPC is hard work: trust me - did it for fifteen years. One can only do it with the grace of God empowering you. Eventually, I got to the point where I asked God to only bring in those people He has been dealing with and it made a huge difference. I could always tell when we connected in our spirits...this in itself is empowering, and a blessing.

Standing on the rim of hell, warning people to STOP and they not giving you a decent listen speeds up the burn-out process and knowing that their failure to do so will sometimes result in a child being murdered...

There. You have my experience. Don't know if this is what you were looking for or not...

ginnyrose

Ginnyrose

Thanks for the input! Your experience reminds me of my women's studies professoer. He has a masters in psych and has told us of his experiences. He said he found that it was very easy to get involved in the patients lives and end up running yourself down to where you might find yourself rocking in the corner somewhere. He says that a person has to learn to separate themselves from the patients lives and make it only business otherwise you will find yourself in trouble.

Then yesterday I was in JC Penny and my wife happened to work with the cashier some years back. This cashier is an adjuster with her full time job. She said in the beginning she felt so sorry for people and their issues but now she is grown cold and her attitude is 'so what'. So based on those examples, I can understand why 'love' would grow cold. I am thinking the same could be said of a pastor? I suppose in the end a person has to balance themselves in quiet time, rest and nutrition otherwise this earthly body will burn out.

Given a females' nature to nourish it is extremely hard to see another person choose to live a destructive lifestyle. Not only is there grief, there is anger. Many times you wish God would have allowed the church to apply some milestone therapy to rebellious folks...

For me, the solution came when I felt led to pray that God would only bring in people who he had been working with. When you had these people, you knew you connected on a deeper level. All you could do was affirm to their spirit what God has been telling them.

I quit CPC when the Holy Spirit told me my time there was over. I tested the LORD to make sure I was hearing correctly. I told Him to not have anyone call me nor come in for four weeks if this is what He is telling me to do. In the meantime, I was closing out my cases. No one called me nor did any one come in for four weeks. Very unusual, but this is what happened and I quit. (The demand for our services was dropping fast before this incident.)

I would suppose my experience with burnout is not all that unusual - could happen to anyone, including a pastor or anyone who has to listen to the gripes, complaints of folks. Some are honest, others are not and how will you discern this?

Your solution to this problem has a lot of merit...

Good topic to discuss and be mindful of. Much of burn out is due not to the weakness of the person, but from the weakness of those around them. Indeed, the burned out p[erson may have been quite strong...so strong that they invite the emotional burdens of those around them.

Those who are in leadership, whether formal or informal, often find themselves in an emotionally hazardous job. People are vessels overflowing with problems... and all those problems trickle upstream it seems. It can be overwhelming to have so many issues to deal with at the same time.

In my own position of watching over a company, I have found that I cannot trust people to know their own limits. I need to insist that people take vacations, and keep overtime to a minimum, because people do not know themselves as well as they think. The very ones who see themselves as heroes, are the ones who implode at the worst possible times.

Blessings,

Mike

I have to wonder, does burnout take place in those countries who persecute christians? We hear about people praying during the night and miracles happen BUT do they ever suffer burnout and if they do what is it due to?

I may send an email to VOM and see what they say as well.

Martyr

If those persecuted christians in restricted nations don't have an option for burnout then what reason would American christians have for burnout? Selfishness? Letting the 'fire' go out because we allow 'love' to grow cold?

I don't think that YHVH will burden anyone, anywhere, with more than they can do if they will pray, eat, and sleep appropriately, and keep right relationships in some balance with their mission.

We do not have the power to go on indefinately in our own strength, though we try it, and suffer the consequences.

In my case it was a 24/7 business tied to a 24/7 spouse.

Not healthy, particularly as the praying was very sporadic at that time, and the marriage an unequal one, broken by the burnout and loss of business.

For a Pastor, it would not be very different, except that hopefully he would marry within the faith, and his wife counsel him on not doing so much that the body gives out.

GinnyRose's position, of counselor to those who wish to shed innocent blood to save themselves to a worldly life, would be even harder than most burnout's, since the grief and mourning would be so heavy all the day.

Letting love grow cold in us as Believers is a characteristic of living too closely to the world, for our senses are dulled by the extent of the pain we witness, and to not feel that pain, we must pull back a little of the love, if we would maintain the closeness to the world, or begin limiting contact with the world until we have our spiritual and physical balance back.

I have not seen a Believer lacking the necessary anointing unless they try to go further than YHVH's purpose for them. Evidently the time when love grows cold is upon us, for if we turn to the world, we will love Yeshua the less.
The further we go from Adonai to the world, the less anointing we are enabled to receive to love others, unless we spend a good deal of our time in communion with Adonai that He may choose to continue the anointing.

GinnyRose is again a case in point, since she sensed the Ruach HaKodesh telling her to pull back, as the anointing on that ministry was being lifted, and she felt her own strength also dwindling amongst all that pain and rebellion.

If you will note, no one burn's out by God's purpose, but generally by going past their own strength when Adonai has already pulled the amount of supporting grace.

Q

Isaiah 40:31. They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.

"renew" is to sprout like a plant, new life!

I am sure there are several views of what it means to "wait" upon the Lord, so with fear and trembling, I proceed with my small offering.

Time spent alone with God in the secret place, where we pour out our heart, where we know Him and He knows us, and He pours out His heart to us.

Walking with a continual "looking to Him", not the pressure or circumstances in front of us.

We dry up "burn out" when we cease to drink of Him the fountain, the river, of Life.!

Some feed on worldly wisdom (psychology) or other empty options and wonder why they faint in the heat of the day, and in the heat of battle.

How could "burn out" EVER happen when we are one with Him?

Russell