Christian Burnout and Self-Care
Isaiah 49:1-7.
Gettysburg Presbyterian Church
Harry G. Winsheimer
January 25, 2009

Isaiah felt God’s call.  Modernizing the metaphors, he wrote:
The Lord called me before I was born, while I was in my mother’s womb God named me.  God made my mouth like an assault rifle, in the shadow of his hand God hid me; God made me a guided missile, in his silo God hid me away.  And God said to me, “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be praised and adored.”

He knew.  He knew that his people had strayed.  He knew that God had called him.  He knew that he was on a divine mission to change his country.

It did not happen!  He spoke God’s word, and no one listened.  His sharp mind dulled in frustration.  Failure sapped his enthusiasm.  His brightness turned to tears.

He fretted over himself.  Self-absorbed thinking is a sign of poor emotional and spiritual health.  Isaiah was soul-sick.

In despair he laments: “I have labored in vain.  I have spent my strength for nothing….”  Do you hear him take a deep sigh?  Do you see his sagging shoulders and dull eye?

Are you there with him?

Our subject is Christian self-care.  Our emotional and spiritual lives dip.  We stress out.  We burnout.  How do we care for ourselves so that we may either lessen the severity of the downs or rise out of them?  Christian self-care.

Roy Oswald summarizes Christian self-care in one word: balance – keeping all of the opportunities and demands of life in a healthy balance.

I have come to call this “self-care for the sake of the kingdom [of God].  I take care of myself, not only for my sake, or in gratitude for the life given me by God, but also for the sake of others.  If I don’t take care of myself, I not only hurt myself, but I let [God] and others down as well.”

We have only two fundamental choices, according to Roy Oswald:
1.  We can simplify our lives by changing those areas over which we have some control. 

How do we reshuffle the deck?  I was dealt the deck, and had to take what I got.  For the last four years of my pastoral ministry, I was the only continuing pastor.  The other three had been called elsewhere.  For the last year, one other pastor and I pastored a congregation with a worshipping attendance three-and-a-half times larger than we have.  We have two-and-a-half pastors.  I was so exhausted!   My image of myself was hanging over the side of a tall building, holding on with my fingertips.  And people on the roof kept pouring buckets of work on me.  I craved to reshuffle the deck.  The only option was to retire, but my conscience would not let me retire – not until they called more pastors.  When the PNC told me that two new pastors would arrive soon, I announced my retirement and came here. 

On the other hand, when the elders and presbytery approached me about being your Temporary Pastor, I had a choice.  I had options.  I could say yes or no.   I was in a very different place.  I could reshuffle the deck. 

Where are you, hanging on with your fingertips or in control?

That sense of hanging-on augments feeling burned out, de-energized, worn out.  A sense of meaningful control and contribution relaxes and energizes.

Sit down and write a list of all that you have to do.  I am astounded at the schedules that some of you keep!  You earn your exhaustion.  Take time to look at your schedule.  Do the kids have to be in all the activities?  Do you have to belong to that many organizations?  There may be some things that really are choices.  Simplify to get control and balance – that is good stewardship.

2.  Using certain strategies, we can raise our capacity for stress and demands so that we can handle more.  

How may we do this?  How may we increase capacity?

I shall address only three that are what we call ‘spiritual’ (knowing full well that theologically everything is spiritual).

A.  Christian support group or Christian friend.  I wish that we had more Christian support groups.  What is that?  It is Christians who support each other.  Sometimes they are called a Covenant Group.   A  Covenant Group of about a half dozen individuals who commit to meet together on a regular schedule for study, discussion, sharing, frank discussion, prayer and good fellowship.  The Covenant may be between two individuals who keep in touch by phone.   A temporary method is Stephen Ministry.  We have Stephen Ministry here.  A Stephen Minister is a trained lay person who meets with a care receiver once a week, listening and supporting the person.

Susan Miller was knee-deep in trouble after two years [as minister] in her new church, and the waters [became deeper].  She was suffering back and stomach problems clearly related to many stresses that had converged on her all at once; a divorce, a cross-country move away from family, friends, and other support networks, and a new job and a new town to adjust to.

The day after Easter, Susan entered the hospital with a bleeding ulcer.  It was then that several clergywomen … came to talk turkey.  They had been watching the results of her inability to handle stress, and they were worried….

In the course of that initial bedside meeting, four of the clergy women agreed to meet for half a day every two weeks to support each other in dealing with the stress in their ministries.  [Let me acknowledge here that this is more likely to be a female thing.  Men have a much harder time talking straight about their feelings.  My observation is that men will talk about feelings, but obliquely.  Get them doing something, and they will talk as they do.  Make any sense to you?]  One of the women even committed to driving two hours one way to make the meetings, and the others gave the support group equally high priority.  …the women found the group to be an oasis of support, a place to laugh about the politics within their congregations…, a safe haven for letting the lid off the pressure cooker for a bit.

Once Susan’s ulcer was under control, her doctor recommended that she begin treatment in relaxation and biofeedback.  [She did them twice a day.]

Later Susan began seeing a spiritual director and learned a process of meditation that combined prayer with relaxation.

Two years later, Susan commented, “I’m having a ball.”

Find Christian friends.  Create a group.  Look for a friend.  Talk on the phone.  Be humble enough to say that you need an ally.  Commit yourself to connecting.  God created us to need and support each other. 

B.  Christian meditation is another self-care and capacity raising strategy.

Our history is strange.  We had a long tradition of silent meditation with Bible study and prayer.  Most abandoned it; many quit private devotions.  Then, meditation became popular under the influence of psychology and the eastern religions.  Obviously, it is a beneficial practice.

Meditation promotes health.  It allows us to quiet our minds and relax our bodies so that the fight-or-flight stress response is not triggered.

The more stressed or burned out, the harder that meditation is to do and more likely we are to quit it.  (We who need it most are the least likely to practice it faithfully.)  The technique is simple.  Keeping ourselves at it is the challenge.  But, it calms the whole body and mind, and brings us into alignment with God. 

The simplest technique is to concentrate upon slow breathing for a few minutes.  Then, offer a prayer of praise.  Then, read a Biblical passage and some material about it.  Then, sit quietly and reflect upon what was read.  Write notes, if you like.  Keep a spiritual diary. Then, pray for others.  Conclude by giving God thanks for something or someone.  

Note: I did not urge you to spend all your time griping to or asking of God.  If you came to me feeling discouraged, I would ask you to tell me about the content of your prayers.  Discouraged people pray by verbalizing over and over and over their unhappiness.  Switch!  It takes discipline, but switch.  Health comes from a little bit of griping, and a smidgen of asking, and a truck-load of thanks, praise and listening to God.   

The whole takes about 15-20 minutes, but can be very relaxing and nourishing.  It is one way to bring balance into one’s life.   It likely will increase your capacity, and God will help you clarify what is worthwhile.

C.  Join the vision.

In despair Isaiah laments: “I have labored in vain.  I have spent my strength for nothing….”  Do you hear him take a deep sigh?  Do you see his sagging shoulders and tired eyes?  Would you pamper Isaiah?  Would you give him a word of encouragement?  Would you give him warm fuzzies?  Any empathetic person would.  I would.

But, what does God do?  Cut the work?  No!  Make life easier?  No!  God says to Isaiah that his job was too light – all he had to do was save his own people.  God gives him more work:
I will give you as a light to the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.

God sends Isaiah to the whole world – to the nations, to the end of the earth! 

God’s response to Isaiah’s despair was to give him more work!  No!  That is not correct.  God’s response to Isaiah’s despair is to give him a really huge vision: save the world!  God knows psychology.  In the words of the King James translation of Proverbs 29:18, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”  Vision energizes!

God’s corrective for Isaiah was: get your mind off yourself and onto something really worthwhile.  Stop talking to yourself about how little you have achieved and think about what still you could do.  Stop fretting over yourself to yourself and get to work!

Accept God’s big vision for you!  Find it!  Get into it!  Don’t consume your energy thinking about yourself.  Think about what God can do through you.

Dale Galloway has a saying:
            Anything the mind can conceive
                        and I will dare to believe,
            with God’s help, I will achieve.

That is the spirit!

You who struggle, practice good stewardship.  Simplify.  Get a Christian ally.  Meditate.  Catch God’s big vision! 

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