Come away and rest

Lutheran, The, Nov 2000 by Jerde, Lyn

Pastors: `You aren't called to work harder than your Creator'

even Jesus needed a break. Mark R. Vance Jr. reflected on this reality as he prepared a sermon partly based on Mark 6:31, when Jesus said to his disciples,"Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while:'

Vance, pastor of Holy Shepherd Lutheran Church, St. John, Ind., said clergy are often reluctant to follow Christ's example to step aside, to seek renewal. "But if we are continually burdened by people's needs and administrative stuff, then we don't have much chance to build up our own relationship with God;' he said.

Vance was one of 23 Indiana clergy who received grants last year from the Lilly Endowment Clergy Renewal Program. For Vance, the $30,000 grant funded a three-month leave that included:

Talking to a dozen pastors and lay leaders about church growth.

Attending seven educational conferences.

Traveling to Greece and Turkey to visit places associated with Paul, such as Athens, Corinth and Ephesus.

"I was tired and things seemed to be stuck," he said. "The congregation and I needed time."

In recognizing the potential for burnout and taking action to prevent it, Vance followed the advice of Rowland Croucher, director of the Australia-based John Mark Ministries: "You aren't called to work harder than your Creator."

Recognizing burnout

When parish ministry is no longer joyful or fulfilling, it's time to take action, said Craig Settlage, associate director of the ELCA Division for Ministry. "If pastors are at a point where they no longer see this joy but are focusing instead on the frustrations, they may be experiencing burnout," he added.

Vance wasn't suffering from burn. out when he applied for the Lilly grant, but he recognized that he and the congregation needed renewal. Holy Shepherd began a decade ago with 50 people meeting in a high school cafeteria in St. John. The congregation-located near Chicago in a fast-growing area of northwest Indiana-had a growth spurt. About 200 now worship each Sunday.

For Vance, that growth was a mixed blessing.

"Being a pastor is a 24-hour-aday, seven-day-a-week job, with most evenings spent away from home," he said. "It's hard to have a personal life apart from the church. A pastor just gets to the point where he or she identifies so strongly with the congregation's ups and downs-and the pastor's life goes up and down too."

Vance said his grant proposal included conferences and meetings on church growth so he could help Holy Shepherd grow not only in numbers but in spirit. Part of that spiritual growth began before Vance's sabbatical, as the congregation prepared to live and worship for three months without his leadership. An interim pastor and associate in ministry shared leadership with lay members. "I can't say they didn't miss me," Vance joked, "but things went on. Attendance and offerings went up while I was gone."

'Hired' for what?

Bishop Jon Enslin, South-Central Synod of Wisconsin, said clergy burnout often stems from a belief that the pastor is "hired" to do parishioners' bidding-as opposed to equipping the congregation to do ministry in the church and daily life.

"One of the primary tasks of a parish pastor is to be the congregation's spiritual visionary-the one who steps back and looks at where the congregation is and where it needs to go," Enslin said. "If the pastor can't be the spiritual visionary, it's unlikely that anyone else in the congregation will fulfill that need."

But if pastors spend most of their time putting out fires, reacting to crises, attending meetings, crunching numbers, handling the mundane dayto-day tasks of ministry, their ability to provide long-term spiritual vision might be compromised, Enslin said.

Another common cause of clergy burnout, Enslin said, is cultural attitudes toward leaders. "We've come to the point where we have such skepticism about anybody in a leadership role, including pastors, teachers, coaches, governors, legislators or presidents," he said. "We seem to feel it's our personal duty to reject leadership or to personally attack leaders."

Lutherans, including pastors, chuckle at Garrison Keillor's stories about Pastor Ingqvist, spiritual leader of fictional Lake Wobegon Lutheran Church. Council member Val Tollefson undermines Ingqvist at every opportunity, including tricking him into giving up a winter trip to a rural ministry conference in Orlando, Fla.

But few pastors laugh when parishioners or council members grumble about the costs of a fourweek vacation (standard for clergy), continuing education and other benefits. Enslin said pastors who get large blocks of time away are more likely to remain longer in the congregation and the ministry.

Enslin often sees pastors who retire as soon as they can-often in their late SOs or early 60s-and want nothing more to do with the ministry. "They say to me, `While I was in ministry, I never had time to sit back and reflect.' Now they don't want the responsibility of interim assignments or other duties, at least not for six months to a year," he said.