In this week's episode on the Church Juice podcast, we discussed healthy ways to identify, manage, and prevent burnout. Burnout happens everywhere, and ministry is undoubtedly no exception. Ministry burnout can creep in, sometimes without you even noticing. After all, it can be challenging to set boundaries in ministry because there's often no "off" setting; people serving in ministry need to be readily available for the unexpected. We recognize that burnout can and does occur in ministry, so we devoted our discussion to helping you identify burnout in ministry, manage burnout when you experience it, and prevent burnout from happening in the future. In a nutshell, here's what we discussed.
Identifying ministry burnout
Identifying that you're currently facing burnout can be difficult at first. But in the podcast, we discussed three characteristics that can help you recognize ministry burnout: Are you exhausted, or have you been experiencing a prolonged season of stress? Do you feel hopeless or sense disengagement from your work and ministry? Are you carrying a weight of helplessness or feeling ineffective or unproductive in your ministry work?
Additionally, it can be easy for people serving in ministry to experience compassion fatigue, which is not necessarily the same as burnout. Compassion fatigue is an element of burnout unique to people who provide support for others. In ministry, it can be difficult to provide nonstop care and compassion for others and their needs while not providing care for your own self. While burnout is usually directly associated to your workload and responsibilities, compassion fatigue aligns more closely with the role and desire to help others. For both burnout and compassion fatigue, it's important to care for your own spiritual, physical, and mental health.
Managing burnout or fatigue
Recognizing that burnout, or compassion fatigue, is taking place means it's time to stop and manage your health well—otherwise, burnout or fatigue can lead to disastrous results. As Christians, we can recognize the importance of spiritual disciplines in our lives. The array of spiritual disciplines provides a great way to help you manage your health (and stress) in a Christ-centered way.
One critical discipline that will help you manage burnout: rest. You may want to consider managing burnout by taking a break. When you have a day scheduled as a "day off," take it off. Unplug and enjoy time away from your everyday routines. Let others know you're taking time to enjoy your Creator and his creation—after all, sabbath rest is a good thing.
Focusing on additional spiritual disciplines can be a great way to help you manage your health in a Christ-centered way. Prayer, journaling, meditating, confession, and many others are great disciplines to help you manage work-related burnout or compassion fatigue.
Preventing burnout from creeping in
Burnout sneaks in, regardless of your role. And compassion fatigue can arise seemingly out of nowhere. So taking preventative measures to help you avoid future burnout is critical to your long-term health. These measures also help you remain focused on the gospel-oriented work you're passionate about and love!
Be intentional in creating healthy boundaries for your work and ministry alongside your personal life. Invest in others so they may carry some of the ministry load in the long term. Create systems that allow you to take time off to invest in yourself, your family, and your relationship with Christ (while further developing spiritual disciplines). Begin having, or continue having, conversations with others to remind you that you're not alone in this work. Last, find ways to build in breaks—for yourself and your volunteers—to help everyone enjoy the role from a position of rest rather than exhaustion.
Hopefully, these things we mentioned here and in the podcast are a launchpad to help you identify, manage, and prevent ministry burnout. Do you have other ways that have helped you with compassion fatigue or ministry burnout? We'd love to hear about them. Hop in the Church Juice Insiders Facebook group to let us know what healthy rhythms you've developed!
