Is clergy burnout really a crisis?

Is the crisis whether
we burn out ... or how we burn out?

Since this past Advent season when I watched the sanctuary fill with lights --
lights on the Advent wreath, candelabra alongside the pews, and "Silent
Night" by candlelight -- I have been toying with the image of the pastor
as a candle. The simple purpose of a candle is to burn and shine. When it
functions as it should, the candle necessarily changes and dwindles. The
candle's purpose actually requires its erosion; the flame for which the candle
has been made is necessarily its undoing.

The candle is not unlike the clergyperson. In a congregational call, the
minister as a priest comes into the presence of the Holy Fire and holds out
that Fire for her faith community. The minister as a prophet witnesses to the
Fire's searing and dares to feel the Fire on her own tongue. The minister as a
pastor welcomes persons to the Fire to warm themselves and have their own fires
ignited.

In other words, the minister handles Fire. It is her purpose as a clergyperson
to burn and shine with the Divine Fire of her calling. Naturally, such
intentional proximity to the Fire changes her. It melts her down, it burns her,
it undoes her with awe, it reshapes her, it puts her at risk, it forbids her
from getting comfortable (although she will try -- ha!). The Fire uses
her and burns her out.

The Fire uses me, burns me out.

But is burnout the problem? It seems to me that burnout is part of the job,
part of being a candle ... and if that's the case, then the actual problem is how
clergy respond to their burnout.

In 2010, reports of clergy burnout were all the rage in the news and in social
media. (The Alban Institute had a good summary of the
reports and reactions.) Yet a close reading of the material -- I haven't read
all of the articles nor all of the recommended books -- reveals that the
majority of reports lump burnout together with poor mind/body/spirit health and
behavioral/relational dysfunction. There is only the barest of distinctions in
much of the writing between burning out and handling burnout.
Burnout is unilaterally assumed to be negative and to be the result of bad
clergy care habits and/or unhealthy congregational dynamics. An un-panicked
consideration of burnout as a realistic dynamic of ministry seems to be
lacking.

Perhaps I am buying into the "culture of burnout." After all, I'm
into multi-media and multi-tasking. My BlackBerry is on 24/7. (Verizon had to
tell me that it wears down the phone's battery when I never ever turn it off.)
I'm a facebooker and blogger. Constant access.

Perhaps I have acquiesced to the unrealistic expectations of the church, which
many clergy cite (rightly so) in their departures from ministry. But if the
church has unrealistic expectations for me, well, so do I ... for myself and
for the church.

Perhaps I'm just trying to defend myself from all of the self-care hype (ROFL!).

Perhaps.

Basically, however, I just think that ministry is hard. Ministry is dicey. Hello,
handling Holy Fire in community??! Of course we're going to burn out --
pastors are candles!

Yes, all of the books and studies are correct that clergy and congregations
need to make healthier decisions and continually choose to support their
covenants to one another. Those things need to be done so that clergy can
handle burnout as it comes ... because it does come, multiple times,
like clockwork, even in the best of ministries and church-pastor relationships.
Being in this relationship takes work as any relationship does (including the
work of self-care and maintaining "outside" friendships and knowing
one's boundaries, for starters). Pastoral ministry takes work, and the nature
of this work changes us.

Bottom line: the so-called crisis of clergy burnout isn't in the burning, I believe
(although we don't need to pretend that the burning is easy or pleasant all the
time). The work is burning.

The crisis comes when we respond to the burning by taking it out on others
and/or ourselves, or when we refuse to be changed by the Fire, or when we
resist and resent being candles.

Originally posted at Faith and Water.