Full timers burning out

[RAIDER]

I believe we have all witnessed full time Christian workers burning out.  Perhaps it was the hours or the pressures of the job.  Maybe it was the financial compensation or misconceptions about the duties.  Do you have stories about HAC grads as well as non-HAC grads burning out?  Tell us about it!

 

[Walt]

I believe we have all witnessed full time Christian workers burning out.  Perhaps it was the hours or the pressures of the job.  Maybe it was the financial compensation or misconceptions about the duties.  Do you have stories about HAC grads as well as non-HAC grads burning out?  Tell us about it!

The standard leadership response was that one only burns out if one is doing the work of God in the flesh.

Most of the burn-outs I saw were idealistic young people (and young people are idealistic) getting involved, and being brought into the "inner circle" and then finding out (a) that their heroes have feet of clay - this can be a minor thing  OR (b) discovering all of the secrets that need to be kept "for the good of the ministry" - this is usually a big thing.  It is these people that I have seen "burn out" in various ways.

 

[fishinnut]

In the case of & at HAC, many of the staff members ended up at Mayo. When the perceived & publicly bragged about work schedule ("I never take a day off") of JH became the standard, it brought about maybe physical, maybe emotional & sometimes family relational burnout.

This has occurred many times with guys in church or missions ministry. God never intended us to be like anyone else but Jesus............and He took time to rest.

II Cor. 10:12

 

[Baptist City Holdout]

Bumped off page 2 to remind me to post on this when I have more time.

 

[Walt]

In the case of & at HAC, many of the staff members ended up at Mayo. When the perceived & publicly bragged about work schedule ("I never take a day off") of JH became the standard, it brought about maybe physical, maybe emotional & sometimes family relational burnout.

This has occurred many times with guys in church or missions ministry. God never intended us to be like anyone else but Jesus............and He took time to rest.

II Cor. 10:12

Another pet peeve -- so many pastors and colleges seem to install the belief that sleep deprivation is somehow spiritual.

Some years back, Longview Baptist Temple was pushing their college guys to do more and more and more, and a couple of them fell asleep coming back from a Louisiana bus route and were killed. Bob Gray, Sr, and the ones who pushed this are directly to blame.

 

[16KJV11]

In the case of & at HAC, many of the staff members ended up at Mayo. When the perceived & publicly bragged about work schedule ("I never take a day off") of JH became the standard, it brought about maybe physical, maybe emotional & sometimes family relational burnout.

This has occurred many times with guys in church or missions ministry. God never intended us to be like anyone else but Jesus............and He took time to rest.

II Cor. 10:12

Another pet peeve -- so many pastors and colleges seem to install the belief that sleep deprivation is somehow spiritual.

Some years back, Longview Baptist Temple was pushing their college guys to do more and more and more, and a couple of them fell asleep coming back from a Louisiana bus route and were killed. Bob Gray, Sr, and the ones who pushed this are directly to blame.

Of course, I got up at 3AM and drove 60 miles one way to commute to work, while working for Boeing Aircraft Company in Long Beach, CA.
Not condoning pushing til you drop mentality, but I worked at Boeing for 5.5 years.
Went to bed at 1030, got up at 0300, worked 10 hour days which turned into 12.5 hour days to hustle a buck.
Most would do it to make the kind of money I was making.
But I know, that's different.
Our guys in the military in combat are probably lucky to get 5 hours sleep a night.
Don't blame Bob Gray and put those guy's deaths on him like that.

 

[Walt]

In the case of & at HAC, many of the staff members ended up at Mayo. When the perceived & publicly bragged about work schedule ("I never take a day off") of JH became the standard, it brought about maybe physical, maybe emotional & sometimes family relational burnout.

This has occurred many times with guys in church or missions ministry. God never intended us to be like anyone else but Jesus............and He took time to rest.

II Cor. 10:12

Another pet peeve -- so many pastors and colleges seem to install the belief that sleep deprivation is somehow spiritual.

Some years back, Longview Baptist Temple was pushing their college guys to do more and more and more, and a couple of them fell asleep coming back from a Louisiana bus route and were killed. Bob Gray, Sr, and the ones who pushed this are directly to blame.

Of course, I got up at 3AM and drove 60 miles one way to commute to work, while working for Boeing Aircraft Company in Long Beach, CA.
Not condoning pushing til you drop mentality, but I worked at Boeing for 5.5 years.
Went to bed at 1030, got up at 0300, worked 10 hour days which turned into 12.5 hour days to hustle a buck.
Most would do it to make the kind of money I was making.
But I know, that's different.
Our guys in the military in combat are probably lucky to get 5 hours sleep a night.
Don't blame Bob Gray and put those guy's deaths on him like that.

I do blame Bob Gray, and yes, these are completely different cases: in your case, YOU make the decision to be short on sleep and work extra hours to make money.  Some people call this hard work, and if you can do handle it, more power to you, and enjoy the $$$.

It was Bob Gray's decision to have a bus route 8-10 hours away from his church.
It is Bob Gray's fault for calling people who want/need a decent night's sleep "wimps" and/or otherwise mocking them for lack of spirituality, driving them to behave in this fashion.

The military combat is similar, and, I maintain that if you are a commander that won't let people get enough sleep merely to "toughen" them, and they die because of sleep-deprived mistakes, that commander IS responsible for their deaths.  Granted, in actual combat, one may get NO sleep, but that's not the case when a leader is pushing everyone to get little sleep.

 

[Twisted]

It was Bob Gray's decision to have a bus route 8-10 hours away from his church.

What??

How does that work?

 

[bgwilkinson]

It was Bob Gray's decision to have a bus route 8-10 hours away from his church.

What??

How does that work?

Called greed for bigger numbers to brag about in his preaching. Was so common one guy trying to outdo another guy for top dog. Just sick!

 

[Twisted]

It was Bob Gray's decision to have a bus route 8-10 hours away from his church.

What??

How does that work?

Called greed for bigger numbers to brag about in his preaching. Was so common one guy trying to outdo another guy for top dog. Just sick!

So how did that work?

Drive 10 hours on Friday night.  Get there Saturday morning.  Pick up kids.  Drive back Saturday night.  Take to SS school Sunday morning.  Then drive 10 hours back?

This can't be true.

 

[fishinnut]

In the case of & at HAC, many of the staff members ended up at Mayo. When the perceived & publicly bragged about work schedule ("I never take a day off") of JH became the standard, it brought about maybe physical, maybe emotional & sometimes family relational burnout.

This has occurred many times with guys in church or missions ministry. God never intended us to be like anyone else but Jesus............and He took time to rest.

II Cor. 10:12

Another pet peeve -- so many pastors and colleges seem to install the belief that sleep deprivation is somehow spiritual.

Some years back, Longview Baptist Temple was pushing their college guys to do more and more and more, and a couple of them fell asleep coming back from a Louisiana bus route and were killed. Bob Gray, Sr, and the ones who pushed this are directly to blame.

Of course, I got up at 3AM and drove 60 miles one way to commute to work, while working for Boeing Aircraft Company in Long Beach, CA.
Not condoning pushing til you drop mentality, but I worked at Boeing for 5.5 years.
Went to bed at 1030, got up at 0300, worked 10 hour days which turned into 12.5 hour days to hustle a buck.
Most would do it to make the kind of money I was making.
But I know, that's different.
Our guys in the military in combat are probably lucky to get 5 hours sleep a night.
Don't blame Bob Gray and put those guy's deaths on him like that.

I do blame Bob Gray, and yes, these are completely different cases: in your case, YOU make the decision to be short on sleep and work extra hours to make money.  Some people call this hard work, and if you can do handle it, more power to you, and enjoy the $$$.

It was Bob Gray's decision to have a bus route 8-10 hours away from his church.
It is Bob Gray's fault for calling people who want/need a decent night's sleep "wimps" and/or otherwise mocking them for lack of spirituality, driving them to behave in this fashion.

The military combat is similar, and, I maintain that if you are a commander that won't let people get enough sleep merely to "toughen" them, and they die because of sleep-deprived mistakes, that commander IS responsible for their deaths.  Granted, in actual combat, one may get NO sleep, but that's not the case when a leader is pushing everyone to get little sleep.

So Walt...........what branch of the military experience was your's.

 

[bgwilkinson]

It was Bob Gray's decision to have a bus route 8-10 hours away from his church.

What??

How does that work?

Called greed for bigger numbers to brag about in his preaching. Was so common one guy trying to outdo another guy for top dog. Just sick!

So how did that work?

Drive 10 hours on Friday night.  Get there Saturday morning.  Pick up kids.  Drive back Saturday night.  Take to SS school Sunday morning.  Then drive 10 hours back?

This can't be true.

Don't need buses just start a church.

 

[Walt]

It was Bob Gray's decision to have a bus route 8-10 hours away from his church.

What??

How does that work?

Called greed for bigger numbers to brag about in his preaching. Was so common one guy trying to outdo another guy for top dog. Just sick!

So how did that work?

Drive 10 hours on Friday night.  Get there Saturday morning.  Pick up kids.  Drive back Saturday night.  Take to SS school Sunday morning.  Then drive 10 hours back?

This can't be true.

I may be off on the times; they had what they called "chapel routes" - they would drive from Longview into Louisiana, pick up kids, hold a service on the bus complete with baptisms, and then drive back.  Maybe it was just 4-5 hour trip. The young men killed were driving back from a bus route after midnight, fell asleep, and were killed.  The time makes me think it was a LONG bus route.

I'll look up some data and try to check out numbers.

 

[ItinerantPreacher]

In the case of & at HAC, many of the staff members ended up at Mayo. When the perceived & publicly bragged about work schedule ("I never take a day off") of JH became the standard, it brought about maybe physical, maybe emotional & sometimes family relational burnout.

This has occurred many times with guys in church or missions ministry. God never intended us to be like anyone else but Jesus............and He took time to rest.

II Cor. 10:12

Another pet peeve -- so many pastors and colleges seem to install the belief that sleep deprivation is somehow spiritual.

Some years back, Longview Baptist Temple was pushing their college guys to do more and more and more, and a couple of them fell asleep coming back from a Louisiana bus route and were killed. Bob Gray, Sr, and the ones who pushed this are directly to blame.

Of course, I got up at 3AM and drove 60 miles one way to commute to work, while working for Boeing Aircraft Company in Long Beach, CA.
Not condoning pushing til you drop mentality, but I worked at Boeing for 5.5 years.
Went to bed at 1030, got up at 0300, worked 10 hour days which turned into 12.5 hour days to hustle a buck.
Most would do it to make the kind of money I was making.
But I know, that's different.
Our guys in the military in combat are probably lucky to get 5 hours sleep a night.
Don't blame Bob Gray and put those guy's deaths on him like that.

I do blame Bob Gray, and yes, these are completely different cases: in your case, YOU make the decision to be short on sleep and work extra hours to make money.  Some people call this hard work, and if you can do handle it, more power to you, and enjoy the $$$.

It was Bob Gray's decision to have a bus route 8-10 hours away from his church.
It is Bob Gray's fault for calling people who want/need a decent night's sleep "wimps" and/or otherwise mocking them for lack of spirituality, driving them to behave in this fashion.

The military combat is similar, and, I maintain that if you are a commander that won't let people get enough sleep merely to "toughen" them, and they die because of sleep-deprived mistakes, that commander IS responsible for their deaths.  Granted, in actual combat, one may get NO sleep, but that's not the case when a leader is pushing everyone to get little sleep.

I'm curious, how many days a week were you doing this?

Certainly, if you were working 7 days a week, the statement becomes a non issue.

The burn out issue can be simply attributed to no down time. If you were sleeping 5 hours a night, but, that was for 5 days a week, with a weekend of recovery, that's vastly different than even working an 8 hour day with an hour commute each way BUT working for instance a bus route every Saturday and every Sunday. You likely also had the comfort of financial security working at Boeing, while many Christian workers are significantly underpaid. What retirement program is in place for an Associate Pastor or a Christian School teacher? Especially those who are expected to work for less, then lead by example in sacrificial service by committing most of Saturday and most of Sunday to ministry related issues, be it a bus route, classes, old age home ministries, etc.

There is an inherent pressure behind that.

You mentioned soldiers, but in looking it up, (I've not been in a military capacity) an active duty soldier receives 30 days of leave annually. Passes do not count against leave unless you are gone for more than 5 days (I'm generalizing). I'm trying to draw the point as well btw, that they generally do receive days off, and active duty has a duration, a time limit. 2-6 years by my research.

Associate Pastor's "active duty"? 20 years, 30 years?

My facts may not be perfect, admittedly because of my lack of military background but I feel pretty confident saying there is a distinct difference between the two. I'm not trying to draw a comparison and say ministry is harder, I do however think it is fair to say that years and years and years of unbroken service takes it's toll on many well meaning servants.

Balance. The missing ingredient in so many peoples lives including those involved in formal ministry endeavours.

Edit: Sorry, if it wasn't clear, I was trying to respond to 16KJV11's post, I may have grabbed the wrong post to do so

 

[16KJV11]

In the case of & at HAC, many of the staff members ended up at Mayo. When the perceived & publicly bragged about work schedule ("I never take a day off") of JH became the standard, it brought about maybe physical, maybe emotional & sometimes family relational burnout.

This has occurred many times with guys in church or missions ministry. God never intended us to be like anyone else but Jesus............and He took time to rest.

II Cor. 10:12

Another pet peeve -- so many pastors and colleges seem to install the belief that sleep deprivation is somehow spiritual.

Some years back, Longview Baptist Temple was pushing their college guys to do more and more and more, and a couple of them fell asleep coming back from a Louisiana bus route and were killed. Bob Gray, Sr, and the ones who pushed this are directly to blame.

Of course, I got up at 3AM and drove 60 miles one way to commute to work, while working for Boeing Aircraft Company in Long Beach, CA.
Not condoning pushing til you drop mentality, but I worked at Boeing for 5.5 years.
Went to bed at 1030, got up at 0300, worked 10 hour days which turned into 12.5 hour days to hustle a buck.
Most would do it to make the kind of money I was making.
But I know, that's different.
Our guys in the military in combat are probably lucky to get 5 hours sleep a night.
Don't blame Bob Gray and put those guy's deaths on him like that.

I do blame Bob Gray, and yes, these are completely different cases: in your case, YOU make the decision to be short on sleep and work extra hours to make money.  Some people call this hard work, and if you can do handle it, more power to you, and enjoy the $$$.

It was Bob Gray's decision to have a bus route 8-10 hours away from his church.
It is Bob Gray's fault for calling people who want/need a decent night's sleep "wimps" and/or otherwise mocking them for lack of spirituality, driving them to behave in this fashion.

The military combat is similar, and, I maintain that if you are a commander that won't let people get enough sleep merely to "toughen" them, and they die because of sleep-deprived mistakes, that commander IS responsible for their deaths.  Granted, in actual combat, one may get NO sleep, but that's not the case when a leader is pushing everyone to get little sleep.

I'm curious, how many days a week were you doing this?

Certainly, if you were working 7 days a week, the statement becomes a non issue.

The burn out issue can be simply attributed to no down time. If you were sleeping 5 hours a night, but, that was for 5 days a week, with a weekend of recovery, that's vastly different than even working an 8 hour day with an hour commute each way BUT working for instance a bus route every Saturday and every Sunday. You likely also had the comfort of financial security working at Boeing, while many Christian workers are significantly underpaid. What retirement program is in place for an Associate Pastor or a Christian School teacher? Especially those who are expected to work for less, then lead by example in sacrificial service by committing most of Saturday and most of Sunday to ministry related issues, be it a bus route, classes, old age home ministries, etc.

There is an inherent pressure behind that.

You mentioned soldiers, but in looking it up, (I've not been in a military capacity) an active duty soldier receives 30 days of leave annually. Passes do not count against leave unless you are gone for more than 5 days (I'm generalizing). I'm trying to draw the point as well btw, that they generally do receive days off, and active duty has a duration, a time limit. 2-6 years by my research.

Associate Pastor's "active duty"? 20 years, 30 years?

My facts may not be perfect, admittedly because of my lack of military background but I feel pretty confident saying there is a distinct difference between the two. I'm not trying to draw a comparison and say ministry is harder, I do however think it is fair to say that years and years and years of unbroken service takes it's toll on many well meaning servants.

Balance. The missing ingredient in so many peoples lives including those involved in formal ministry endeavours.

Edit: Sorry, if it wasn't clear, I was trying to respond to 16KJV11's post, I may have grabbed the wrong post to do so

I understand that balance is necessary, but it is not always feasable.

 

[ItinerantPreacher]

I understand that balance is necessary, but it is not always feasable.

I think we can agree on that, and with tongue in cheek, it's even ok to be out of balance in one direction or another for a while. A lifetime of it is what is so detrimental. Using the soldier as an analogy, wars come and wars go, but it would be rare in my opinion to find someone on a lifetime of active duty, and even rarer to find someone deployed for a lifetime. Even the military has limits that preclude that because of the obvious toll it would take on personnel. We could learn from that.