Weekend Reads: Encouraging words for weary and wounded shepherds

Christopher Ash never makes the obvious pun (Ash assails burnout) in Zeal Without Burnout: Seven Keys to a Lifelong Ministry of Sustainable Sacrifice (The Good Book Company, 2016), but he does recount some harrowing stories of ministry professionals very nearly reduced to ashes. Consider the pastor who simply walked away from his pulpit halfway through a sermon, went home, and locked himself in his room for three days, or the young woman who spent about seven months trying to get back to work despite being told by her doctor that she would not recover unless she quit her ministry job outright.

Sacrifice for Jesus is not burning out for Jesus. Burnout is wrong. We need sleep, Sabbaths, friends, and inward renewal—and God does not. So trying to go without them is effectively declaring that you are a little more godlike than everyone else. Instead, beware celebrity. Whatever your ministry in the body, rejoice most of all that God has shown His saving grace to you. That’s a lot better than the greatest gifts, even the gift of exorcism (Luke 10:20).

When Shepherds Weep: Finding Tears of Joy for Wounded Pastors (Weaver Book Company, 2015) maintains a similar emphasis on the need for grace. Its clear target is the success syndrome that Ash calls the “celebrity” mindset. Author Glenn C. Daman insists that success in ministry is not about numerical growth; it’s about spiritual growth, especially your own. Much of the time, such growth will not be visible. A tree’s greatest growth “in the volume of board feet comes when the tree becomes so large that it no longer appears to be growing.”

Ash focuses largely on the physiological side of endurance. He begins by insisting that we are creatures of dust. For Ash, the most sustainable ministries are “long term and low key.” When you increase the duty cycle, increase the maintenance cycle. Have sexual relations with your spouse more often. If you want more uptime you have to take more downtime.

Daman’s advice is complementary, focusing largely on the mental side. “When confronted with the challenges” of ministry, we don’t need pain relief but “a change in our understanding of God and ministry itself.” For Daman, the most sustainable ministries are conducted with an eternal perspective and realistic expectations. Culturally, we often believe that pain is a sign that we’re doing something wrong, whereas comfort and success are signs of God’s blessing. But this, in turn, implies that all pain in ministry is the result of someone doing something wrong. Either I’m in sin or the people I’m ministering to are in sin. “No!” says Daman. That’s the attitude of Job’s three friends, Bildad, Eliphaz, and Zophar, and it’s dead wrong. Suffering is God’s tool, and submitting to it teaches us total dependence on Him.

Sometimes, shepherds need to weep. We must rid ourselves of the idea that suffering is always harmful. The way to deal with suffering “is not to change our circumstances to alleviate our pain, but to change our view of God.” In other words, though physiological helps have their place, the ultimate solution is theological. You must embrace your calling as a slave of Christ and thus as a slave of His people. A shepherd sacrifices and suffers for the flock. But he does it not out of ambition, but out of love. The contemporary church’s greatest need: Shepherds who are willing to lay down their lives for the sheep.

Be the tortoise, not the hare, says Ash. Take up your cross, says Daman. To avoid burnout, I’d say: Do both. Let God be God. Submit, and He will do the rest.