hi and welcome to the ministry network
podcast
i'm your host james baird today
we'll be talking with dr david murray
about burnout
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behind the pulpit now let's talk with dr
murray
well before we get started would you
mind opening us up in our word of prayer
sure sure james yep let's pray our lord
and god we
thank you for this amazing opportunity
to communicate from two offices
to hundreds maybe even thousands
of studies and ministers and their
families
and even to to transform lives to save
ministries
to improve ministries to restore joy
to ministries to help congregations even
to be more sensitive to
the needs of their pastors there's just
so much good that could be done
with your blessing lord and therefore
we pray for james and i as we try to put
this package together that will
we trust bless manny we ask for
clarity we ask for simplicity
we ask for sympathy
and kindness and for wisdom as we seek
to bring
all the resources you've provided in
your word and in your world
to the healing of the burned out in
jesus name we pray
i mean amen dr murray thank you so much
for joining us here on ministry network
it's a joy for me to be with you i'm
glad we're going to talk about this
important subject
me too well you've written a wonderful
set of books on burnout uh reset
and then you i believe you co-authored
refresh with your wife is that correct
that's right yeah that was that's more
for women the resets for men
refresh for women but we kind of
encourage men to read refresh and women
to read reset
so that they can understand one another
better because
i think male and female experience of
this is slightly different
yeah that's really helpful well can you
tell us a little bit
of the story behind you writing these
two books
yeah sure i wrote the book from a
position of painful personal experience
not from a position of great expertise
unfortunately well i see unfortunately
but i would say providentially
because god's in control and god brings
great good out of
our fails and our falls but
i suffered with burnout probably twice
in my life maybe
even three times actually the first
major one was
2011. ended up in hospital actually
james with blood clots in my lungs
and that might seem a strange connection
burned out
blood clots but as i processed this
went through this began to see the yeah
the unbreakable connection between
the body and the mind and the soul and
how
damaging consequences a stress lifestyle
creates a stressed body
which has damaging consequences
and you would have thought i would have
learned my lesson because that was a
that was a life-threatening condition
and as you know
people die from that even today but no i
unfortunately went back to my default
lifestyle not immediately i probably had
one or two good years where i was a good
boy but
yeah i went back to my my default deeply
inbred patterns
and i ended up in the same place with
the same problem
and that time was like okay
you know that's two strikes three
strikes and you're out
so i really did stop
and take stock and started thinking
writing
and as i did it became clear lots of
pastors men in general were in the same
position and so
publisher asked me to put it together
and resets the result
wow well we're so thankful for how the
lord used those struggles
and turned into a resource for all of us
well that's what he does isn't it he
takes our follies and our failures and
turns them into into jewels yeah
well we often hear the term burnout
thrown around a lot in our culture today
but it's actually kind of hard to
understand exactly what it is
could you help give us the definition
yeah um
so i think you can start with a kind of
literal
understanding of the word burn out so
it does depict an inner burning that
manifests itself eventually outwardly
and it's interesting because
those who have studied stress have found
that
one of the impacts of it is inflammation
in the body so like
if you were to look inside our bodies
when we're really stressed there's a
redness as a rawness
and it's like our bodies are burning
they're over
active they're and that eventually comes
out in our
in our words our actions our physical
health so we sort of
burn out from the inside out but that's
a
maybe a graphic way of depicting it i
think
to approach it more analytically
it's usually divided into three and and
the first one i think is obvious to
everyone
it's what everyone thinks of and that's
exhaustion so you just it's like you
know the candle
eventually it's burned out it's
exhausted of fuel there's nothing left
so you get physically
emotionally mentally relationally
exhausted that's the normal but
it's a bit more complex than that
because there's two other components i
think are really important to bear in
mind
one is cynicism so
you could conceive of somebody who's not
exhausted but is very cynical about
their
their colleagues their clients their
church members
they're they're working their colleagues
they get
detached they get frustrated they get
distanced
they don't see value in what they're
doing and so they just get very cynical
about their calling their work those are
trying to serve
and then the third element is
ineffectiveness so
there might be a lot of work a lot of
energy a lot of turning of the wheels
but you're not actually going anywhere
you're not making any progress
maybe you lack a sense of personal
competence and ability
so you kind of stagnate and you just
plateau
so when you do there's something called
the maslak burnout inventory it's an
online test you can take and
it's very helpful to figure out where
you're at
in the burnout scale because it is a
scale it's a spectrum going from
burning to burning out to burnt out and
it will also help you discern
in which of these three areas are you
most burned out
is it an exhaustion is it in cynicism is
it an ineffectiveness
for a lot of people the hardest step
when you're burnt out
is actually acknowledging what's going
on can you help people understand what's
unique about
burning out versus having something like
a full-on mental breakdown
and particularly i think for a lot of
people
we don't like to talk about it so you
feel alone
and it might be helpful to see just how
common burning out might be
yeah so a lot of the depression anxiety
that we're seeing today
is a result of burnout it doesn't tend
to go the other way that depression
anxiety causes burnout but
burnout leads to anxiety eventually to
depression and
then that makes sense because you know
if you're burning out you're just
existing at such a fast pace eventually
you run down your resources
and you'll lose a sense of just normal
functioning
i liken it to so if you're out in the
woods you see a bear
your fight or flight system kicks in and
that's a good thing
you know you want cortisol you want
adrenaline you want all that
flooding your system because it makes
you stronger faster quicker
you don't bleed so quickly the problem
is that that system should shut off in
about 20 minutes either
you've run away from the bear you've
fought the bear or the bears had you for
breakfast
but what happens with stress with living
at that kind of
pace is it's like our fight or flight
system switches on maybe not at a high
level at bare level but above
normal level and it keeps going and it
never turns off and
eventually it's just like if you're
sitting in a car and you keep your foot
on the accelerator
eventually that car is going to fall
apart and
so the i think you've got to realize the
long-term consequences of this you might
not feel it at the time
but you know gradually you're wearing
down your body and
you're going to end up falling apart so
it's to try and see the
the warning signs before that happens
and to look out for some of the things i
listed and reset in the initial
checklist
that will help you stop and i always say
to people
talking about it is 50 of the remedy
now that might seem a bit of an
exaggeration but i say it that way
to get attention to this that it's
almost half the battle
when you're willing to admit it to
yourself especially when you're willing
to admit it to others
all the steps after that can are
actually usually
a lot easier and they're a lot easier
than you
think they're going to be as well but
that first step of talking about it
especially for men
extremely hard but it's really the the
break point
it might be easy to think that people
who are in ministry would be less
susceptible to burnout
you dedicate your whole life to being
around the things of god to talking
about the gospel of peace
but oftentimes people in ministry find
themselves
burnt out often why might that be
yeah i think one reason is is the
endless demand
the you can never finish the job
there's always more people to visit
always more people to evangelize
always more sermons right always more
books right always more
perfection to bring into your ministry
so there's that sense of you're never
quite
finished it's just that endlessness
overall a lot of jobs are like that
today but
the ministry is especially like that i
think as well so much of ministry is
unseen so you know you're you're behind
your
office door you're preparing sermons
you're praying you're
nobody sees these things and sort of
people expect to see the pastor they
want to see him doing and being
and therefore you're tempted not just to
do all the things you need to do
privately and
behind the door but then get out and be
seen and
noticed and i'm busy so i think that
element is there
i think the ministry is so enjoyable and
you know and that's
in my own burnout i i like i was doing
good things it was
you know it's conferences and preaching
and teaching and all that
and it's so enjoyable i mean there's
nothing more enjoyable as you know
you're in
you're in ministry james yourself it's
you know you're serving the lord you're
seeing change in people
you're helping them you know you're
discipling you're seeing soul saved
that is like there's nothing like it in
all the world
so in a way limiting your
ministry hours and labor is an act of
self-denial
in a way for your own good but also for
people's good as well
so i think these are some of the
complications in ministry that we have
to
recognize are not in other jobs
you mentioned the diagnostic tool which
you include in your book
which helps people measure how burnt out
they might be
are there other tactics that people in
ministry could use that would help
raise the alarm when they're getting
close to burnout you mean
things people see in themselves yeah
yeah yeah i think i mean i'll just speak
from personal experience here
and maybe also yeah from others i've
talked to some common things i've heard
i think shortening of prayer personal
prayer
is a big indicator of something's not
right
um where the apostles ask for deacon so
they could give themselves to the
ministry of the word and prayer
so that's a big component of ministry
life if it's not there
something's in its place i think the
sleep thing is a
really big one am i taking long to get
to sleep am i waking up early in the
morning am i waking up
frequently through the night i think
that's a really good indicator of
where you're at in the burnout scale and
i think your wife's a great resource or
if women are listening
your husband is a great resource they
know us best
and i know for example my own wife can
actually
tell where i am better than i can
yep you know every man laughs at that
point
you know you're sitting at the dinner
table and you think you're there
you know i'm there and she says hey
david you're not here
you know where are you you know all
right okay and if that's happening
regularly then
again something's wrong the switch isn't
going off properly
yeah not making time for friendships
when every relationship is a pastoral
relationship there's something wrong
so i don't know the everyone's different
but these are common
features oh yeah one let me give you one
more james and that is
pastors not taking a full day off a week
that
you know the they might take an hour
here a couple of hours a year
afternoon but you know failing to obey
the sabbath
principle in their lives is also a
common indicator of something's wrong
so here's a tough one as if i haven't
asked tough questions already
i went a little off script to uh to make
it a little bit more fun so
thanks for hanging with me okay okay
this one's on the list though
so you're in ministry and you're burning
out
how do you talk to your session your
congregation
how should you think about talking about
that topic with your church
i think that ideally you talk to a
trusted
elder first of all and i'm not saying
all your elders aren't trustworthy but
usually a minister has an elder that
they have a
special relationship with and
you know he'll be able to tell in a way
that better way than we can what is the
best way to go
in this setting in this congregation
is it best to take this to the whole
elders is it best to take it beyond that
to the congregation i
i mean i always think it's best to take
a graduated approach rather than just
like go the full way you know
break down in front of the congregation
and just
yeah so you know start with one elder
and
you know just take some advice see if he
can help you tweak things
then if you know bigger measures are
needed and you need to inform your
elders then you would go to elders
and again hopefully this would make it
unnecessary to
go to the whole congregation so you're
trying to protect yourself you're trying
to protect
that's not to say ultimately you don't
tell the congregation of course that
might come
even if you get better i always think
it's good for a minister to be
transparent and maybe especially to do
so to prevent a recurrence
because it's you know there will be
patterns of ministry that have led up to
this patterns of expectation
unless these are addressed and changed
then we're going to end up in the same
place again
so you'll never get full understanding
full agreement
in a congregation you know a lot of
people
still don't quite understand what
ministers do and why it should be so
stressful but
i would think most christian people
today actually would be a lot more
sympathetic than they used to be
i mean very few people want to lose
their pastor so it's kind of
self-interest as well that a
congregation gets around
them passed on his family and helps them
through this
and changes some patterns and
expectations
well what can someone in ministry do to
help
recover from burnout
yeah i i once um talked to a christian
friend of mine who works in the field of
psychology and he
he i asked him what does he do for
people with depression and he said three
pills
and i was like oh boy this is like all
the caricatures confirmed he said
good diet good exercise and good sleep
now
he wasn't saying that was all that was
needed but he was saying here's your
foundation here's where we begin
and so there's even someone i know close
to me who
we've just started a google doc with
three measures
that are daily tracked and he has to you
know enter
and i can see every day where he's going
so i think
keep it don't like try and attack it on
10 fronts
try and go for the low hanging fruit
what gives you most return on
investment and i think once you've got
that
and get some accountability whether it's
a wife an elder friend
fellow pastor and then once you've got
that i think you may be in a better
position to begin to address some of the
false thinking the false ideas the
false theology actually that is behind
burnout usually you can't see that when
you're
unhealthy when you're exhausted when
you're run down when you're lacking
sleep and
but once you begin to get a base not a
high level but a base level of health
physical health you can begin to think
more deeply about okay
who am i and who is god and what is
ministry and what is the gospel
and you can do that in your own i think
it's also good to process it with
someone else
a christian friend christian counselor
biblical counselor someone like that
that can really just you know be more
objective in your life
and that's what i've seen a lot in in my
own life too
i learned more theology through burnout
at least experientially than i did in
seminary
because you know you you've wrong views
of god wrong views of yourself
wrong views of what it means to be a
servant and
to be sacrificial and so you just learn
a lot through this and it's a joy to see
that actually in many man's lives and i
always say to anyone who contacts me
with this
problem you know there's actually great
that's going to be born from this
there's a lot you're going to learn
i know it's painful none of us want to
go through it but you're going to learn
your bible you're going to learn about
god you're going to learn
about the gospel in brand new ways that
you will never forget
you'll forget your seminary classes you
won't forget this
join us next time as we continue our
conversation with dr murray
in the meantime visit
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piper
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