Clergy Burnout or NOT Clergy Burnout

This post is an open forum. Your thoughts are strongly encouraged:

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Tom Nees, consultant and coach who has served as director of the Nazarene Compassion Ministries, USA/Canada, has written an interesting article on the topic of clergy burnout. Here is an excerpt to give context:

"The plight of stressed-out pastors has attracted a great deal of attention since The New York Times front-page report, 'Taking a Break from the Lord’s Work,' by Paul Vitello and an op-ed response, 'Congregations Gone Wild,' by Jeffrey MacDonald. The Huffington Post followed with 'Soul Care and Roots of Clergy Burnout' by Anne Dilenschneider citing a new report from Clergy Health Initiative at Duke on the poor mental and physical health of pastors."

Nees points out the importance of sifting through what is truth and what is myth. He shares 4 myths about burnout:

Myth One: Taking time off is enough to prevent stress and burnout.
Myth Two: Clergy leaders are in poorer health than the general population.
Myth Three: Older leaders are more likely to burn out than younger leaders.
Myth Four: Clergy leaders are dissatisfied with what they do.

Take a moment to visit the entire article. Then come back and share your thoughts on the topic. Is Dr. Nees right on? Are there more myths?

 

Comments

[Jim F.]

I love how he ends the article by saying - "Managing stress is part of our calling."

I see this as the truth of the matter. I worked in the counseling field for over 11 years before going into full time Christian Service. I would often hear other counselors talking about being "burned out". No matter what the vocation there is always stress and dealing with the stress is part of life itself. I think for us clergy we are to model how to deal with stress in a positive way.

He has some good suggestions on dealing with it.

Interesting article - thanks for sharing it.

[Scott Couchenour]

Thanks for the insight Jim. Being a model takes a lot of work in managing your own stress. I trust you are finding adequate resources for your own modeling. God bless!