Anne Jackson asked her readers about burnout yesterday. She wanted us to offer what we’d like to hear at a conference breakout session on burnout. Church work often leads to burnout, and Anne talks all about it in her book Mad Church Disease, coming out next February.
I responded with two related thoughts:
1. The gospel we preach produces the churches we get. (Scot McKnight)
2. The system in place produces the results we get. (someone else, but I got it from Jack Allen)
If the gospel we preach produces the churches we get, and the churches we get produce the burnout our pastors and staff experience, then something is broken. My experience is that church “staff” are guilty of either doing too much or doing too little, with little accountability in either circumstance. In both cases the system is still the same- a church “staff” with church “members.” There is a power structure in place that seems to create an us/them mentality.
Biblically, we do see an authority structure in the church. Here’s a diagram from one of my church planting classes (click for a larger image). The structure exists to help the leadership focus. Christ set before us a vision and direction (”Love God, love others, and go make disciples.”) Leadership exists to guide the church to fulfill that vision. As the diagram shows, the direction and ministry filter through different levels of church participation to the community.
The values in place help us keep focus on fulfilling the vision. Often we don’t have a good set of measurable values in place to keep all levels inside those pyramids accountable. Without values the levels of leadership can become unbalanced- the overseer can overstep his responsibilities, whether on purpose or not, and become burned out. The church members can choose not to participate in ministry, causing imbalance. It’s of the utmost importance to have a solid measureable set of values to keep everyone focused on fulfilling the vision set before them by Christ.
So what are some values? It’s been beat into me over the last four years- the core values that led me to Hope Church in Fort Worth. The core values taught to me by the aforementioned Jack Allen. The Heart Attitudes. I encourage you to explore those values and see if they’ll help you.
One thing I know for sure is that the system in place often causes the results we get. The system and structure of a church probably impacts its leadership burnout. Whether anything else I’ve written in this post helps stop church burnout, I can’t say. That’s for you to figure out. But it can’t hurt to examine your system and consider implementing some changes- for your sake and for the sake of the Church.
