As many of you know, the next month or two promises to be exciting!
I’m releasing a thirty-day devotional called Beating Burnout: A 30 Day Guide to Hope and Health (which will be an eBook, a paperback, and a free audio book) in addition to releasing an expanded edition of my first book, Mad Church Disease: Healing from Church Burnout (as an eBook and a paperback).
It’s been so great (and yet, so heartbreaking) to write the new material.
I continue seeing how burnout is affecting sons and daughters of God.
In no way are either of these books focused on church bashing, negativity, or cynicism.
It’s my hope that they’re full of light, practical steps, and overflowing with how much God loves you and you don’t need to earn His love.
The expanded material includes:
- new chapters
- an expanded study guide
- a more in-depth burnout assessment
- plans you can print to help you get healthy
- …lots of fun things!
If you’d like to find out when Beating Burnout and Mad Church Disease are available to buy, just sign up here! (use the link if you don’t see the form below).
*(I won’t use your email address for anything else!)
As part of the resources I’m providing, we’re shooting video interviews with pastors and leaders (and not just the ones who speak at conferences!) but local pastors here in Nashville and the surrounding area. If you are a pastor or have served in a church and have a story about burnout and health, we’d love to chat and potentially interview you, if you’d like to share your story. I married a professional videographer (lucky!) so we can come to you or you can come here, whatever works best! Just contact us.
We have a couple of interviews this week, including one with Dr. Thom Rainer, who’s the president of LifeWay Resources and has often shared about staying healthy in ministry in his own communication.
If you have a question about church burnout you’d like to have answered, or have questions about getting or staying healthy (spiritually, relationally, emotionally, or physically), it would be great if you’d leave your thoughts in the comments here.
I realize it is not easy to talk about burnout, but here’s the thing. If you’re close to it or in it, you need to talk to someone. If you know someone who’s close, you need to talk to them, support them, offer help. It’s amazing to me how, when I go somewhere to talk about burnout, people come up to me before or after my session and say, “I can’t come to your session. I’m here with my team and I don’t want them to know how close I am to losing it.”
As Christians, we feel like we have to have everything together in order to be effective for the Kingdom. This is not the case.
If we had everything together, we wouldn’t need the Cross. We wouldn’t need Jesus. When we say, “I need help,” we’re inviting in more of His love, and we’re reaching out in faith for others to help carry us.
I need you to help set this example.
May you have an amazing day and just know how much our Lord loves you!
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Comments
8 responses to “What Questions do You Have about Church Burnout or Staying Healthy?”
Anne, how do you see cynicism and burnout dovetailing into one another? In my experience as a pastor in my 20s, I’ve faced both head-on. Does your new book touch on this? I read Mad Church Disease in 2009, but I’ve forgotten if that connection was covered.
That is a GREAT question. And I do think they are connected. That’s a great idea for a new chapter, actually, that I didn’t think of yet. THANK YOU SO MUCH for commenting and asking! I’m grateful!
Glad we’re tracking together. I want to write on that subject myself. I’ve made a journey from idealism to cynicism to hope in my 20s as a pastor, with many lessons to mine from my experience and the wisdom others have shared. I’m excited to read your new work.
Thanks, Scott!
I guess prevention is always the key for things like this. So my first question is what are some warning signs and what can you do about them early on? How “bad” does it get before you go to a counselor, stop mentoring others or even pull out of ministry altogether? What if your leaders aren’t supportive or just don’t know what to do with you? Where’s the line between “pressing on” through hard times and “dying to yourself” in a desert season verses an unhealthy burnout situation? And, lastly, we all obviously want to know what to do to recover and get back to loving ministry again. I’m sure a lot of this is already going to be covered, but since you asked. :)
This is so good. Thank you!
How do you know you’re experiencing a burnout or coming out of a burnout experience? I hesitated to write this because it seems like such a silly question, yet I struggle when I think of my past church experiences to know how to think of it.. if that makes sense.
That’s a great question! It is something I talk about in the book! There are no silly questions!