“Burnout” is a common experience in life and in the church. Church leaders and volunteers feel “burned out” when they feel the crushing weight of their responsibilities without any relief, when they feel trapped or stranded in their role, or when they’ve just taken on too many tasks. There are probably times when they just need a break, when they need to serve in fewer capacities, or when they need to say “No.” I want to be sensitive to people in those circumstances. But that’s not what I’m addressing here.
It seems to me that burnout is often linked to our motives for service, where we get our energy to serve. I recently had a friend tell me that he was feeling close to burnout in his role in the church, and he confessed it like one confesses a sin. He knew it was because he’s often compelled by the wrong motives to serve. He feels like his service is a duty that he has to perform, or else he’ll feel guilty, like a failure. (That kind of stress quickly becomes paralyzing.) Some would say, “He’s serving in his own strength,” rather than in the strength that God supplies. Even though he’s aware of that dynamic in himself, he still struggles to feel rightly motivated and energized in his service.
There have been times in my ministry when I’ve felt this way, too. I’ve gotten some gray hairs from some hard conversations over the years. Often I’ve just forced myself to continue, gutted it out, done the right thing, pep-talked myself, followed orders like a good soldier, et cetera. A couple years ago, while “venting” (read, “complaining”) to a fellow pastor about the hardships of ministry, he asked me, “So why are you doing this job?” I told him, “I’m happy to do my duty.” I actually felt good about that answer. He pointed out that it was, of course, the wrong answer. “If you’re not doing it to draw closer to Jesus,” he said, “then it’s probably not worth doing.”
So, my motives were wrong and things were becoming too stressful, almost unbearable. I was linking my identity to my ministry, finding my righteousness in my ministry, trying to maintain autonomy and manage my own life through my ministry, looking for approval and acceptance through my ministry. I had to do ministry, because my life depended on it. But when you’re called to minister the grace of Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit to others for their life, it would probably be good if those were the fuel source for your life as well. The Gospel should be amazing enough to motivate and energize us to serve. Let me rephrase that: the Gospel is amazing enough to motivate and energize us to serve. If we don’t find it to be so, there’s something wrong inside of us, and we need God to change that by his usual means of grace.
It struck me then—profoundly enough to have some lasting effect—that it was probably possible to do very difficult things without burning out. What happens when you ask God to help you to serve from a changed heart, with real love, his love? What happens when you ask the Lord to make you a joyful servant, to make his own joy your strength (Neh. 8:10)? What happens when you abide with delight in Jesus, in the Triune God of love? “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).
Is this too cliché? “I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Phil. 4:13). Paul wrote that from prison… to say that Jesus equipped him to handle all kinds of stressful circumstances with contentment… in a letter about joy. He’s saying that knowing God in Christ gives him fuel to persevere in service without burning out. You can know God this way, too, through the Gospel. Your relationship to him, your love for him based on his love for you, his own love in you by his Spirit who dwells in you, can strengthen you to pour yourself out like a drink offering in his service (Phil. 2:17; 2 Tim. 4:6). If you don’t know what that means, you should ask him to show you.
