{"id":7217,"date":"2014-07-13T01:49:41","date_gmt":"2014-07-13T05:49:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/allandouglas.dougbittinger.com\/blog\/?p=7217"},"modified":"2025-04-21T01:56:39","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T05:56:39","slug":"church-burnout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/church-burnout\/","title":{"rendered":"CHURCH BURNOUT"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Calvin\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Burnout in the church and with the church is a live possibility for many folk today.\u00a0 They either drop out of church altogether or move to another church they think would be less stressful.\u00a0 Church has a way of overworking the gifts and skill of the over-willing.\u00a0 Some folk have so much to do at church they never have a “Sabbath” experience.\u00a0 They get caught up in “church work” and lose sight of the “work of the church.”\u00a0 <\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 “Church work” is hard and demanding.\u00a0 It requires leaders to be on top of every situation, to manage conflict and to deal with interpersonal problems.\u00a0 These folk try to fulfill the wishes of a diverse body of believers and it is sometimes stressful.\u00a0 On the other hand, the “work of the church” involves everyone in doing\u00a0 missions and ministry.\u00a0 The “work of the church” is a cooperative effort where love, understanding, and shared responsibilities produce an effective witness.\u00a0 The focus is on the many and not the few.\u00a0 We must all be careful that “church work” does not hinder our vision of the “work of the church” or else burnout will occur.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Church burnout may have theological implications.\u00a0 Some may do their “church work” as\u00a0a kind of penance.\u00a0 It becomes an effort to atone or pay for their sins.\u00a0 If they work hard enough they hope to find some relief\u00a0for their inner guilt. Church burnout also comes to the overly pious.\u00a0 These folk overextend themselves in order to impress others with their commitment.\u00a0 Their struggle to be humble is frustrated by their proud intentions.\u00a0 They are so weary with “well doing” they lose the joy of what they are doing.\u00a0 Unwilling to accept their limitations they lose themselves in needless guilt.\u00a0 Having no theology of failure they lose their theology of hope.\u00a0 <\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 “Church work” sets us up for burnout because there is no finished product.\u00a0 It is never completed.\u00a0 We never reach all the lost.\u00a0 We never feed all the poor nor heal all the sick.\u00a0 We never fix all people’s lives nor eliminate all their problems.\u00a0 We never learn all there is to learn.\u00a0 We are unfinished participants in a task that is far bigger than our ability to perform.\u00a0 Because there is no closure to our task we can easily become overwhelmed and burned out.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The “work of the church” rescues us from trying to do it all to doing all we can together.\u00a0 We do not have a finished job description because Jesus does not call us to a job, but to an adventure.\u00a0 Only God knows what it is all about.\u00a0 In His love He recalls us, changes our direction, and offers us new challenges.\u00a0 We surrender our burned-out souls to His rejuvenating care and do the best we can for Jesus sake today.<\/span><\/div>\n

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     Burnout in the church and with the church is a live possibility for many folk today.  They either drop out of church altogether or move to another church they think would be less stressful.  Church has a way of overworking the gifts and skill of the over-willing.  Some folk have so much to do … Continue reading “CHURCH BURNOUT”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-matters-of-faith"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7217"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19167,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7217\/revisions\/19167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}