121: ENCORE: Part 1: From Burnout to Balance: A Guide for Ministry Leaders

Are you determined to steer clear of becoming the 'Crabby Pastor,' exhausted and irritable? If so, this episode (which is Part 1 of a two-part series) will help guide you to sustain yourself in the demanding world of ministry. 

We start with a look at 50 Ways to Support Your Pastor Across Five Dimensions of Well-Being: social, physical, financial, emotional, and spiritual—that will fortify your pastoral journey. This is a document available HERE which was produced by Wespath, an agency concerned with pastoral well-being associated with the United Methodist Church. 

As our conversation unfolds, we put a spotlight on the vital art of setting boundaries. Explore the significance of rest, rejuvenation, and self-renewal in your pastoral care routine. Discover the secrets of planning vacations effectively while ensuring seamless pastoral care coverage in your absence. Uncover the emotional fortitude needed in ministry, and harness valuable resources like coaches, counselors, and spiritual guides.

In conclusion, we emphasize the invaluable concept of renewal leaves. Tune in now to master the art of balancing pastoral responsibilities with self-care, ensuring you never succumb to becoming the 'Crabby Pastor.' Your rejuvenated ministry journey begins here.

For more information on the transformative Ministerial Coaching Initiative, generously supported by the Lilly Foundation and facilitated through Point Loma Nazarene's Center for Pastoral Leadership, CLICK HERE. 

Chapters

• 0:01 Sustainability in Ministry and Pastor Support
• 13:53 Pastoral Ministry
• 22:29 Encouraging Renewal Leave for Pastors

Transcript

Margie: 0:01

Hey there, Margie Bryce here bringing you the Crabby Pastor podcast, and I don't think you're going to be too surprised to know that it's too easy today to become the Crabby Pastor. Our time together will give you food for thought to help you be the ministry leader fully surrender to God's purposes and living into whatever it takes to get you there and keep you there. So we're talking about sustainability in ministry. Hey there, before we get started on today's episode, I want to give you this opportunity. Today's episode, I want to give you this opportunity to enhance your self-care. Part of self-care is having another individual come alongside you, whether you're looking at a coach, a spiritual director or whatever means you have, so that you're not walking this journey alone, alone, that you have another person walking with you, and that is the ministerial coaching initiative. I've been a part of that now for this past year and as a coach, I have enjoyed walking alongside ministry leaders. This is a Lilly Foundation grant that is providing coaching through Point Loma Nazarene, their Center for Pastoral Leadership. So what I'm going to do is put a link in the show notes for where you can go to get more information. You know, tell them the Crabby Pastors sent you. They'll laugh about that, but tell them that I sent you. So this is one of the avenues where I provide coaching for ministry leaders and you know I do it independently as well and through several other places. So I wanted to offer this to you because you know, maybe you'd like to try on coaching and maybe you'd like to make a commitment to do this is eight sessions and there is a cost involved. It's a good deal because I was. I'm always about the good deal always. So you know if you're going to try on coaching, you don't want to try it on just once. You know I'm going to have one session just see how it goes. I think you're at least going to benefit from three to four to get a sense of whether it's a good fit and how it's going to operate for you. Because coaching is its own thing. It's not exactly therapy, it's not exactly a lot of stuff, but it's its own entity that helps you discover and empowers you to discover some new solutions to existing situations or how you want to manage yourself in the midst of your ministry context. So maybe you want to check this out. The link is in the show notes. It will be there through the end of the year, and then the program does start in January, so that's why it's there for that long. So I hope you'll consider this Before I get rolling here.

Margie: 3:12

I just want to thank all the listeners who download this podcast and give a listen, and I want to give you a shout out, because you are at least considering how you might buffet your self-care so that you can go the distance with God, and that's a big thing. That's a huge thing. So I do want to thank you. It encourages me as well to keep on keeping on with this, and it is my calling, and. But you know, we toss this stuff out there, and then sometimes, who knows, you know who's really grabbing on to this.

Margie: 3:49

I do want to mention, though, that I'm always looking for burnout stories. You can go to krabbypastorcom, and there is a form to fill out there If you have a burnout story that you would like to share. I'm always interested, especially in people that saw it coming, because most people don't. You know, maybe your administrative assistant sees it coming, but you don't necessarily see it coming, so I would be interested in any burnout stories. Those seem to be really popular, interestingly enough, on the podcast roster. So, as well as things that I say about Pastor Appreciation Month, but I digress.

Margie: 4:34

Anyway, what I want to share with you today is from it's kind of connected to episode 80 in season three to episode 80 in season three, so that was just maybe a month or so-ish ago, and it was forwarded to me a document from the fine folks at Westpath, and Westpath is an agency of the United Methodist Church. However, their task, rather, is to be concerned about clergy well-being, and so this, in my mind, relates to all clergy. It just does. And so they forwarded a document called 50, 50 Ways to Support your Pastor Across Five Dimensions of Well-Being. Yet don't freak out that I'm going to read all 50. I'm just, as they say, I'm doing the highlights. If you're from the Detroit area, I guess I'm being Bernie Smilovitz, I think. So we have highlights, that's what we're doing here. So their five dimensions of well-being are social, physical, financial, emotional and spiritual. So that's how they have worked with their well-being aspect and some of these. As I'm reading, I'm going ah, because I'm thinking that is the first time I have ever seen that in print somewhere.

Margie: 6:02

And you know, I've had questions from even younger clergy about what is work time and what isn't. You know what? How do I count this or that? And those are great questions. They're really great. And I'm like why did? Why? Do we not cover this in seminary? Or did I miss that class somehow? I don't? I don't think so.

Margie: 6:25

But there's a very practical thing and I you know I rail against that. This is a 24-7, 365 days a week thing. I mean, I get it if there's emergencies, for sure, for sure, if somebody calls you at 2 am and their teen or young adult child has been in an automobile accident and I say oh, yeah, you're going to say oh, call me back at 8 am or something. No, you're going to go for sure, but you don't want to say 24-7. And I have people calling you on the phone at 10 pm to talk about why their cat barfed on the carpet. You know what I'm saying. Those kind of calls. Or you know, can you read the aspirin bottle to me? That used to be a doctor. A friend of mine used to get calls like that where basically you know they're asking questions that if they had just read the aspirin bottle they would know. So you know, I guess I rail against some of that, but I was just.

Margie: 7:26

Anyway, I'm going to share some, just some of these, and I will put the whole document in the show notes for you, should you want to download it. And I think it's a useful document beyond the scope of the ranks of the United Methodist Clan there, so maybe you want to share this with somebody. I know many Methodist churches have a committee that is supposed to have oversight of the care and nurture of the pastor. Some of those committees are well-trained and a lot of them are not, you know. So I know in the instances, you know, I've known of instances, let's say, where pastors have had to train their people how to do this, and that's awkward, isn't that? That's really awkward. It's awkward to say, well, are you going to give me a review this year so you can give me a raise, or all of that is just awkward. But anyway, the committee's supposed to care and nurturing of the pastor is supposed to be included in that, and so this would be a document that probably would get used by them in the course of your life together. So I'm here is under the physical. I'll tell you which dimension that these are under and we'll see how far we get with this. How it depends on if I start ranting on one of them or something as to how long this session goes, but we'll see, we'll see. So encourage this is under the physical dimension Encourage the pastor to care for his or her physical health by resting when overworked and not working when ill, I'm thinking.

Margie: 9:20

Trudge in to the office or wherever when they really need to be at one with the couch or in their in their bed and just resting up. How many of you go in, regardless, as long as you can stand upright, that's your criteria. Maybe, whether you go in or not and I'm here to tell you and give you permission maybe you need to take a day on the couch and let your body heal properly so that you can be about the things you want to be about. So here's another one. Allow the pastor sufficient time for recovery from illness, injury or surgery. That's just a good reminder. None of these so far yet are the ones where I went what. But anyway, this one cracked me up.

Margie: 10:21

Ensure healthy food choices are available at potlucks and other church events and I'm thinking church potlucks are like just about the worst, or that it just I don't know what happens. You know, I guess you want everybody to love what you brought. Usually, in most people's minds that includes lots of sugar, fat and lots of other stuff like that. But I used to try to bring a bowl of fresh cut fruit salad so that there was something that was in my Weight Watcher days. You know, I was kind of like I have to have something I can eat here because they don't, and I'm not sure how you would go about. I'm not enforcing is the wrong word, but enacting this or saying let's see how healthy we can make this potluck. I don't know, maybe give a prize for the best tasting healthy thing or something. I don't know, I'll leave that to you.

Margie: 11:21

Allow the pastor to take time off for doctor's appointments, preventive screenings, etc. You know, and here we go. Here's where we start, where ministry leaders, especially those who are newer to ministry, say am I allowed if I take time? Is that all right? You know, yes, yes, it is all right. I'm telling you today it's's all right and it says so on this piece of paper here. So we're good.

Margie: 11:50

Um, and then the last one I want to mention, the physical domain is respect the pastor's privacy regarding personal health issues. Now, I guess that's a boundary thing, but you do not have to disclose everything to everybody and sometimes, even when you disclose some things to some people, some people don't understand fully the concept of confidential. Some people intend to be confidential, but they can still be a little leaky. You know you can tell when a can still be a little leaky. You know you can tell when a committee has been a little leaky. You might not be able to tell which person was leaky, but somebody was leaky. So that's always a good thing to have in mind. If you don't want people to know, it's okay. It's okay to not, to not say Unless at some point. If it's going to impact the life of the church, then certainly that's worth a discussion. But you, you want to keep a boundary in mind and you can set that okay.

Margie: 12:56

Now, moving to the emotional dimension. This is what it says under emotional dimension and this one I like said I've never seen this in print anywhere until now, and I'm X number of years into ministry Encourage the pastor to schedule two days off each week, a personal day in addition to a Sabbath day. Now I want to ask right now how many of your little minds are blown by that? How many are blown? Encourage the pastor to schedule two days off each week, a personal day in addition to a Sabbath day. Respect your pastor's day off, contacting him or her only for and these are in quotes true emergencies, and discuss in advance what constitutes a true emergency.

Margie: 13:53

I you know, I had someone tell me when I stepped back from pastoral ministry that I was going to discover a new thing, and it was called the Weekend, and I had to laugh about that. But I took Fridays off and you know what? Saturday mornings were the only mornings that I could have breakfast with my husband, and so we would go out for breakfast. You know, I might do tweak a thing or two for Sunday. I usually was done by Thursday at the end of the day and ready for Sunday. And then Saturday was a little on off, you know if I really had something I needed to attend to, but a lot of times it was a personal day for me and for my husband to just enjoy one another, as he was, you know, driving very far for me to do ministry while maintaining his job and all of that. So I lived that, but I never saw it in print anywhere at all.

Margie: 14:56

So here's another one Expect and encourage the pastor to take his or her full allotment of vacation time each year and to not return from vacation to perform funerals etc. Whenever possible. Help the pastor arrange for pastoral care coverage while they are on vacation. I can't tell you how many pastors return to do a funeral. And in this day and age I have an even bigger question mark on that, because today many families will gee, some families are opting to do nothing, which is a mind blower. And this is where the Christian faith has a lot to offer and say to the culture at large that you need to do something, that it's good closure and healthy grieving process for the people that remain. But I know of families that have had a loved one pass in the middle of winter and then they say we'll do a funeral in the spring or summer when we can have a family reunion and gather everybody together for that. So to me this is very navigable. You can navigate it easily.

Margie: 16:15

I'm saying where you don't have to return from a case, because some pastors just feel very guilty if they're not there. And I get it If you formed a bond with a person, you want to be there, but maybe the family could be a little more flexible so that you're not so that the boundary of your vacation is respected as well, because, you know, vacation is re-creation time, time for you to be recreated and time for you to get out of town, time for you to be in a different environment with a different time schedule, with a different, and it rejuvenates you. Okay, I like this next one. There's a lot under this emotional dimension that I like that I felt like wow, this is just Wow.

Margie: 17:08

Recognize that the role of pastor requires a great deal of emotional energy and I'm going to add creative energy as well when you consider sermons. But emotional energy and they say, for example, dealing with death, conflicts in the church, multiple demands from members and the DS, your superintendent, supervisor, whoever that could be, all their demands and stuff. So be sensitive to more demanding times of the church year and arrange for additional support from lay members, that's, people in your congregation. And I thought, wow, that's the first time that I have seen mean. I know, I know that ministry requires that you deal with death and conflict and lots of demands and all that kind of thing. This is the first place I've seen this in writing and I just was pretty blown away by it. I like this one, of course, encourage the pastor to have a coach or counselor or spiritual director outside of the church with whom to discuss and process church and personal issues. I love this. It's not just about discussing it, but sometimes we need to process what's going on in our ministries, what's going on in our personal lives and how that's impacting how we lead, and so that is part and parcel with what a coach can help you to do is help you to understand and process all that.

Margie: 18:50

Observe pastor appreciation month in October each year, expressing appreciation to the pastor and staff. Nuff said on that and I think earlier this month I loaded at my pastor appreciation spiel so you can go back and listen to that one there and I'll leave that there. Here's a good one Work with the pastor to identify which church programs and activities truly require the pastor's presence and which might be equally guided by lay leadership, which is just the people in the church who are in leadership and manage congregational expectations accordingly. And I thought, boy, this is a really good one. As soon as I could, as soon as it made sense to do this, I told those trustees. I said you just, you guys, just meet, and what meaning and this is in Michigan is you guys, means the same thing as all y'all does in the South. Just so you know, just go ahead and meet and let me know the things you've, the tasks you've chosen to tackle.

Margie: 20:02

And we operated on a one, a single board model anyway, and so so it wouldn't take 10 months to decide what color to paint the nursery or what kind of paint to buy or anything like that. They were empowered, they had a budget and they knew what the realm of their responsibilities were. So then they would just talk with me briefly, the leader, and just say this is what we're going to be about, and or I would mention to them some things maybe they should be about. Anyway, I think what I'm going to do here, I'm going to go into the spiritual dimension and I want to offer these that are on here. You know and maybe some people might critique my podcast as not being spiritual enough, because I'm talking about self-care and I do think it's your spiritual act of worship to be a good steward with the finite little body that God has given to you, so that you can go the distance with, with whatever God has planned in advance for you to do. So that that would be my pushback against that and there's just tons of support and materials out there for leaders in the spiritual dimension and I feel that this is where I'm hanging my hat, because this is where I believe God wants me to hang my hat but the spiritual dimension that is mentioned here are some practical stuff that says things like this Recognize that Sunday is a work day for the pastor.

Margie: 21:38

Encourage them to observe a Sabbath day other than Sunday. So yay for that. Allow time for the pastor to take regular spiritual retreats and that counts in your work time. People, just to be clear, that is a personal spiritual development moment for you to take advantage of, for you to be able to recharge. Take advantage of for you to be able to recharge. Recognize that the pastor is also a Christian on a spiritual journey and will not have all the answers. Yay, because, why? Because we are not God right.

Margie: 22:29

And the last one I want to mention is to encourage the pastor to take a renewal leave, and they define that as several weeks for renewal and or study every so many years, particularly before or after very demanding times. Hmm, what could those be? Such as a building campaign, a relocation or other major church endeavor? Gee, hmm, hmm. And I'm just gonna leave that right there. The two aspects that I need to go into next might take a little bit more time than what I want to devote today to this particular issue, that's, financial and social dimensions that are covered by this little oh, what do you call this? I don't know. 50 things, 50,. I wanted to say 50 ways to leave your lover, but that's not 50 ways to leave your liver, but that's not 50 ways to support your pastor across five dimensions of well-being, and so I'm going to cover that in the next episode. So I think that I have given you an ample amount of stuff to chew on, and for sure, remember that the document is in the show notes, and it might be something that you could bring to your church board or whatever structure that you happen to be functioning within, because it was, it was good stuff, good stuff.

Margie: 24:04

Hey friends, the Crabby pastor podcast is sponsored by Bryce Art Glass and you can find that on Facebook.

Margie: 24:13

I make stained glass. That's part of my self-care and also by Bryce Coaching, where I coach ministry leaders and business leaders, and so the funds that I generate from coaching and from making stained glass is what is supporting this podcast and I will have opportunities for you to be a part of sponsoring me and, as always, you can do the buy me a cup of coffee thing in the show notes. But I will have some other ways that you can be a part of getting the word out about the importance of healthy self-care for ministry leaders. Hey, thanks for listening. It is my deep desire and passion to champion issues of sustainability in ministry and for your life, so I'm here to help. I stepped back from pastoral ministry and I feel called to help ministry leaders create and cultivate sustainability in their lives so that they can go the distance with God and whatever plans that God has for you. I would love to help, I would consider it an honor and, in all things, make sure you connect to these sustainability practices you know, so that you don't become the Crabby Pastor.