How Do You Avoid Ministry Burnout?
by David K. Bernard
Podcast recording (no venue stated in the delivered transcript)
Kind: teaching

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/david-k-bernard--how-do-you-avoid-ministry-burnout
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

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That's an important question and I would first say you need to keep the vision alive. You need to keep focused on the big picture. What am I trying to accomplish for the kingdom of God? What is my purpose in life? What is our my ministry, my calling? You need to be constantly renewed through prayer and through godly counsel and through being exposed to uh anointed preaching and teaching of others to help you keep the vision alive. But second, I would say you need balance. You do need times of physical, emotional, and spiritual rest and relaxation. Now, while I do have a very busy schedule and sometimes everything gets jumbled up, my schedule's different every week.

I try to be very intentional about taking off one day a week. And if for some reason I get uh things piled on top of each other, I and I can't take it at the time I want to or need to, then I'll take two or three days off at a time. When I was a full-time pastor, Monday was my day off. I didn't go in the office. I didn't do work. Uh Monday evening was family night, but in the day I did something uh that I wanted to do and unless it was a true emergency. I didn't handle any church affairs and I didn't even I might do some personal reading and personal study but I did not try to study for a message or something like that.

Uh and then the evening as I said we devoted it to family uh events, family activities, family devotion. So that was how I did it. Now as a general superintendent, you're right. I'm preaching uh every weekend almost without fail, but often I will take Monday or Monday and Tuesday off or Saturday off. I would try to. And then uh not only do you need weekly times, you need um I I'm a firm believer in annual family vacation going over a weekend at least. And so throughout the years, my wife and I when our kids were at home, we would do that. Uh we would take an an annual family vacation of 9 or 10 days.

Um we would also take smaller times, just the two of us getting away for 2 or 3 days. Or if we were taking an overseas missions trip or some kind of special ministry trip to a different location, we might build in uh one or two days of rest or sightseeing. And then holidays were very important for our family and they still are. Now our kids are all grown and married. So we rotate. But one year we try to all get together for Thanksgiving. The next year we all get together for Christmas. And when I was a pastor, those were busy times for the church. Um so it was more difficult to take extended time.

But now as general superintendent, that becomes some of the best times. I can take a week off of Thanksgiving, a couple weeks off at Christmas, and I may do some work from home, but I have a more relaxed schedule. So, I do think it's very important to build these times in addition to that. So, you need rest, you need relaxation. So, you need hobbies um within reason. Uh but you should have things other than church that you want to do. Um, so in my case, I like I like to read. Uh, I like to travel, you know, do some sightseeing. I like to take pictures.

Um, I enjoy taking pictures of wild flowers because what that does is that forces me to get outside, which I enjoy the outdoors, walking, recreation, but it also forces me to focus my attention. So, I can't be thinking of something else while I'm intensely focused on finding, identifying a flower, taking a a good picture, trying to figure out if I've seen this before, what it is. So, you can't your mind can't be wandering while it's focused. But it all but yet it gets me outdoors. It doesn't require a long trip. It doesn't require a lot of money. I can do it for two hours.

I can do it for half a day. I can do it by my home. Uh, I can do it at a park nearby. And so it's a quick, inexpensive, uh, but yet focused activity. I've gotten into some bird watching and taking picture of birds the same way. In fact, I have a website of David K. Bernard Photography. I think it's david.jdard.com if you want to look at it. Um, but that so I'm suggesting you need some kind of hobby that forces you to get out of your your routine and to think and not to think about church or problems or ministry or things like that and you become refreshed.

Um, I've found, and this is verified psychologically, that a lot of times when you're wrestling with problems, if you'll be distracted for a couple hours, go read or go do something like a hobby that forces you your mind to relax or even get a good night's sleep, then after that, your mind is still working creatively subconsciously. And the next day you you may have some creative thoughts where if you try to focus and agonize and and be frustrated on intently getting an answer, you'll just beat your head against a wall. But if you distract yourself, get a good night's sleep, go do something else, you're thinking creatively and and freshly, and you might come up with a solution the next day.

Other hobbies I enjoy, I like to go swimming. That's uh and and that's a a big form of of um exercise. So I get most of my exercise either swimming or walking. So again I would suggest you do have get good exercise obviously your spiritual disciplines not just to pray or study for a message but just for your personal spiritual life. So daily prayer, reading and study of God's word, um all that is helpful to avoid uh burnout. So and then diet, watching what you eat. So a combination of rest, relaxation, hobbies, vacation, exercise, diet, personal relationships, your family, friends, doing things together. It doesn't have to be always spiritual things, but just getting together as a family uh or getting together with close friends.

A combination of all those gives you a well-rounded balanced life and help you avo helps you avoid burnout. If you see that you're getting very lethargic, depressed, anxious, want to sleep all the time, frustrated all the time, those are some signs of approaching burnout. So then you have to redouble your efforts, invest more time, the things I'm talking about. Um, after 40 years of ministry, full-time ministry, my wife convinced me that we needed a month sbatical. So, a couple years ago, we took a whole month off. We probably should have done that before and we we will need to do it again. But there's an example of we have to structure our lives.

We have to build in the time. I don't believe we're bound by the Sabbath laws of the Old Testament. But I believe the principle of taking off one day a week and a principle of appropriate physical, emotional, spiritual rest is vitally important. And I think with a combination of those things, uh, we can avoid burnout. There's an old feeling, you know, just wear yourself out for the kingdom of God. Just work all the time. I'm not not a workaholic. I I do work hard when I work, but I work with a goal of I want to get to the end so I can take time off and do something I want to do.

Uh and so we have to keep that focus. I don't believe that old school thought is is completely right because God wants us to be a good steward. So if we work ourselves so much that we burn out or we break our physical health or we die prematurely, well that's not being a good steward. God doesn't expect that. So yes, serving God, living for God and ministry is a sacrifice at times. Sacrifice of our will, sacrifice of our time, our energy, our priorities, our dreams. But there should be a balance. God does not expect us to harm ourselves. He wants us to have a balance so that we have a healthy physical life, a healthy spiritual life, healthy emotional life, help health healthy marriage, healthy family and and all of that is part of being a good steward and a servant in the kingdom of God.