Monday, May 27, 2013

Thom Rainer: Twelve Ways Pastors Went from Burnout to Vision


There are few vocations that can engender burnout like the pastorate. The demands on a pastor’s time, emotions, and energy can be overwhelming. When I was a pastor, I often felt at least the symptoms of burnout.

I recently spoke with 17 pastors who had experienced burnout, or who felt they came precariously close to burnout. The good news about these pastors is that they moved out of burnout; and now they are re-engaging in exciting and visionary ministries.

So I asked them the obvious question. What did you do to reverse the dark spiral of burnout? The question was open-ended, so they could respond with as many answers as they desired. When it was all said and done, I tabulated twelve different responses from the 17 pastors. Obviously, many of them gave similar answers.

Here are the twelve responses ranked in order of frequency. Each answer has a representative quote from one of the pastors.... Read more

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