Sitting one evening in his basement, Robert Knowles had an epiphany. “I am not doing something tonight for the church,” he thought. “And that’s…okay.”

For Knowles, senior pastor of New Minas Baptist Church in New Minas, Nova Scotia and author of a doctoral thesis on longevity in ministry, this night marked a turning point. By starting to set boundaries, he made a conscious choice for healthy ministry.

Real concern

For churches and pastors alike, clergy burnout is a real concern. Geof Cornelson, director of clergy care at the Vancouver-based Clergy Care Network, a national phone ministry to pastors and their families, estimates that 100 to 150 Canadian pastors leave the ministry each month.

The cost of these departures is high. Stress often leads to moral failure, Cornelson says, which can shatter a church. One denomination puts the price tag at $10,000 or more in such cases, once counselling, interim staffing and legal costs are factored in.

Burnout has hidden costs as well. Short-lived pastorates generate a climate of instability in the congregation, says Knowles. Energy for mission is depleted, just around the time when a pastor should be at the peak of effectiveness—around the five-year mark.

Worse, churches can gain reputations as clergy-eaters if they go through several ministers in short order. Congregations who lose pastors to burnout may also grow disillusioned or wrestle with feelings of betrayal.

How can pastors and churches avoid such ruin? Learning about burnout, its causes and prevention, is a key starting place.

Burnout, or compassion fatigue, is a state of emotional exhaustion. According to Knowles, symptoms include physical exhaustion; sleep problems; chronic ill health (backaches, constant colds); irritability; disillusionment; emotional distance; preoccupation with ministry; procrastination and difficulties making decisions.

Of course, if you suspect you (or your minister) are already burned out, the time for prevention has passed. Instead, schedule an appointment with your doctor and a counsellor, rest, pray and scrounge up a little TLC from loved ones.

“Some leaders are burned out because they’re working from an empty tank,” Wilson says. Pastors may lack the character, skills or sense of identity needed to competently carry out their work. Living in a state of depletion, such pastors are ripe for burnout.

Sometimes, pastors have the needed skills, but place unrealistic expectations on themselves. Lack of awareness of their own personal thresholds in terms of capacity for work can lead pastors to push themselves too hard.

Cornelson goes so far as to suggest a theological root to this problem. For too long, he says, Christians in North America have assumed that pastors are superhuman. It’s an assumption that many pastors have bought into, at their peril.

The tendency, Wilson says, is to view burnout as the problem of the individual. “But communities can facilitate burnout in the people who work there,” notes Wilson, author of How Do I Help a Hurting Friend? (Baker, 2006), which inclues a chapter on burnout.

Expectations can be high, and the pressures of ministry overwhelming. Cornelson rhymes off a list ranging from heavy workloads and little time with family to feelings of isolation and financial stress.

Of course, it’s not all bad news. There are, in fact, some practical steps pastors—and others—can take as insurance against burnout.

Address incompentencies. If you need more training, get it. If you struggle to evaluate your skills in ministry, Knowles says, then put in place annual reviews so you can get a better handle on your strengths and growth areas.

Most importantly, recognize your own limits, and remember the grace of God. As Wilson points out, we shouldn’t minister in order to be accepted; instead, we perform because we already know ourselves to be accepted by God.

Feed your soul. One of Knowles’ findings on longevity in ministry is the important place of spiritual nurture. “When we don’t keep ourselves spiritually fresh, I think the enemy uses that to lure us away to places of destruction,” says Knowles. He encourages pastors to spend time in Bible study and personal prayer, and to seek good support networks.

Keep the Sabbath. This was one of the discoveries Mark Buchanan, lead pastor of New Life Community Baptist Church in Duncan B.C. and author of The Rest of God (W Publishing, 2006), made when he had his near-burnout experience.

In the course of exploring the place of rest in the context of God’s sovereignty, Buchanan discovered rich ways of keeping the Sabbath. He shared this, in turn, with his congregation, in the hopes of moving together towards a more biblical way of being.

“We’ve defaulted [in the Church] to biblical activism without balancing it with this call to restfulness, to reflectiveness and quietness of spirit,” Buchanan says.

Have fun. What could be more simple than that? And yet, Knowles says, many pastors struggle with relaxation. Knowles recommends pastors find hobbies and learn to set boundaries. Create an appointment for yourself in your PalmPilot and keep it, even if the appointment is simply to go to a movie with your spouse.

Care for your health. In other words, listen to your body. Often the first signs of overwork come out in our health. Since your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, take care of it through exercise, adequate sleep and good nourishment.

Of course, it’s not all up to the pastor. Congregations have a role to play in preventing burnout. In fact, forward-thinking boards can take real initiative on this front.

Compensate appropriately. Pastors are not the richest people, Knowles observes. Congregations can help relieve some of those strains by providing money for further training and personal development. And of course, there’s no harm in ensuring your minister receives a fair wage right from the start.

Encourage refreshment. Every pastor should have at least one day off during the week, Knowles says, a time when she is not called upon for meetings or visits. Lay leadership can encourage the honouring of the pastor’s Sabbath.

Buchanan notes that boards can also take charge when pastors are looking worn. He recalls a time when he was working so hard, his board came to him and said: “We’re worried about you, so don’t make us court-order you to slow down.” Theirs was a serious threat, too.

Buchanan and his leaders have, from time to time, asked staff to take anywhere from a few days to a month off in order to recharge. Buchanan calls this an extravaganza of care a blessing that works best if it’s given gladly, not grudgingly.

Guard against inflated expectations. As Wilson notes, assaulting staff with impossibly high expectations is a recipe for disaster.

Honour the leader. More than once, Knowles has seen churches that call a pastor for a certain purpose—like leadership—renege on their support when they don’t like the changes he brings.

Knowles says that in an ideal world, congregations would shift from a “if we hire a pastor, we can fire him,” mentality, to one of calling from God. When congregations and pastors begin to think of themselves less as adversaries and more as a part of the Body of Christ called together for a purpose, then ways of relating become healthier as well.

Pray. One of the greatest gifts you can give to your pastor is to pray for him, his family and his ministry.

For Buchanan, the price of burnout for pastors is so high he feels he must safeguard his passion and energy.

In the end, he says, “I can’t afford not to be excited about the gospel.”