A Credentialed
Minister for over 28 years with a strong sense of call, I have served as sole
charge Pastor in three local churches, and as Director of Studies in a Bible
School in large city church. When I
started ministry all those years ago, I thought and totally believed I would
serve and preach and minister until the day I die! In fact I even said I’d die in the
pulpit! We (I say we as my wife is an
integral part of my ministry – I could not do what I do without her) have seen
the Lord do amazing things among His people.
We have learned so much about ourselves, God, His Word, Kingdom things,
and we have a love for and a passion for the local church, people, leadership
development, Christian maturity and for Pastors and Ministers.
Yes. I’d just – as they say – had burnout! Humiliating.
Depressing. I thought I was a
failure. But my burnout didn’t come from
times of success and growth. I’ve read
the stories. This seems to be the case
in many burnout testimonies. Usually
stories of pastors ministers and others I have read about and studied have
burnt out at times of incredible success; they’ve had lots of new people coming
to the church, invitations to speak all over the place are flooding in so
they’re in demand, they’re busy working 80 hour weeks, new initiatives are
launched and proving productive all the time it seems, the place is pumping and
buzzing, everything is going very well!
To me, looking at a list like that as I have over the years, it was
obvious they couldn’t last at that pace.
It’s true; some have an amazing energy, and can survive on little
sleep. (Donald Trump sleeps on average
four to five hours a night, and has done so most of his life).
But I wasn’t working every night of
the week, “burning the candle at both ends”.
We were diligently taking our days off and holidays. It happened when life was just pretty much
the same old daily weekly monthly grind. But I wasn’t seeing any real advancement in
what I was trying to achieve, my vision wasn’t happening. We weren’t seeing any real growth in
attendances, financially it was getting harder, and I wasn’t seeing any real
advancement in what I was trying to achieve, my vision wasn’t happening. I was feeling a little trapped in trying to
be something I felt was needed to grow the church.
It’s been amazing
for me to have some wonderful mentors over the years, through their books and
seminars. But my problem was also trying
to be like them, trying to do the same things!
Upon reflection these years after the event, maybe another reason was
unrealistic expectations. Faith and
vision are wonderful things but unrealistic expectations can be a killer!
Believing it was
right we soon moved from that place to where we are now, still within an hour’s
drive to our kids and grandkids. We both
felt like all our life and hopes and dreams were over. They’d been cut off, just like how Job
described. He said there is hope for a
tree if it is cut down and that at the scent of water it will grow again. (Job 14:7-9).
But, in the very next verse he says; ‘But man dies and is laid away; indeed he
breathes his last and where is he?’ (Job 14:10). Job is despairing
of life so much that he believes a tree can be revived, but not man. For us that experience was
painful. When you’ve worked for
something, dreamed about it, put your whole life into it for 25 years, and then
it is cut off, it is very painful. It seemed
as if there would be no way for those dreams to be fulfilled again. We felt just like Job. A failure.
Abandoned. Cut off. Without hope.
Yet over a
process of time almost unbeknown to us at the time we were discovering God to
be amazing. Something was happening but
not overnight. Meaning and purpose was
returning back into our souls. Slowly,
little by little, things changed. He has
an ability to resurrect things. Over
time with God orchestrating things, closing doors and opening others, a
recovery and healing was taking place.
He has and is resurrecting our dreams and vision and refreshing the
calling.
I still have many unanswered
questions about the whole episode, why it happened, what lead up to it, what I
could have done to avoid it, why didn’t I see it coming, why me, etc, etc! But we’ve learnt one very significant lesson
in recent times. This is part of the
serendipitous moment we’ve had, which is not a moment – although in God’s
timing it probably is. (I guess five to
six years can be a moment to God!). This
is what we’ve come to know; ‘Who we are not what we do determines our value
before God’. Our reason for living comes
from our connection to God, the Creator and Initiator of all things.
So when I had no ministry, no
preaching, no people looking to me for guidance, no regular sermon study, nothing
that had in the past given me a sense of being needed, it seemed I had no
value. But the revelation that God my
Father totally loves me and values me for who I am as His son, apart from
anything I do or don’t do, has changed everything. I think this an important lesson we all need
to learn.
This truth was clarified to me in
recent times from a Scripture in Matthew.
Jesus before He starts His ministry, is being baptised by John the
Baptist. We read that God the Father
booms down from Heaven; ‘This is My beloved son, in whom I am well pleased’. (Matthew 3:17). Here we have the Father speaking from Heaven
some very important things – things we all need to hear. It was a public, heavenly, authorised,
declaration of the total love and care the Father had for the Son. But the thing is, Jesus hadn’t done anything
at all yet! He hadn’t healed any sick,
cast out any demons, raised any dead, turned any water into wine, multiplied
any loaves and fishes to feed thousands!
He was just the Son of God! All
He’d done was probably make some tables, household furniture and other things
as part of His earthly father’s carpentry business.
I needed to know this also. My being was wrapped up in my ministry doing. Though the fruit of my ministry I thought was
not as public, startling and newsworthy as others, my value was still tied to
what was or was not happening around me as a result of my efforts. So being out of ministry for a while was
actually a good thing. I learned that
God still loves me just as I am.
My identity was too tied to what
wasn’t happening, my vision! But where
do we get our identity messages from? We
can get them from achievements, behaviour, or approval, appearance, possessions,
or relationships. But most of all we
need to get our identity, who we really are, our meaning to live, from our
Father! I learnt something of the
security of Father! My identity is in
Him. That’s the case if I am “in the
Ministry” or out of it.
Being out of ministry has also
shown us afresh what it is like to be ‘in the pews’” so to speak. It’s given us a fresh understanding into the
busy-ness of ordinary Christians’ lives, how they have pressures at home to
juggle, more and more demands at work, then the expectation but desire to be at
and serve in various way at church. Life
is very different to what it was 25 years ago.
But it has also given me a fresh passion and love for the local church. It is human but Divine. It is flawed but miraculous. It is amazing. It is God and people. And God and people have been a huge help and
healing to us.
We have
discovered one amazing key that has kept us and brought us through, is this; ‘
… yet at the scent of water … ‘ (Job
14:9). Water
brings life. Water is a symbol of the
Holy Spirit. So it doesn’t matter how
old, how dead, how barren, how growth-less, how lost, how boring and hopeless a
situation might seem to us, when God by His Holy Spirit touches that situation,
it can – in His time – spring back to life again. We were very low. But only by God’s grace we have maintained a
lifestyle of reading God’s Word, worshipping in His house, and connection with
other saints. Even when those
disciplines seemed fruitless, we just kept doing them.
We may think
burnout is failure. I did, but it is
not! But even failure is not fatal or
final! God still loves us just as He
always has. God still cares for us and
our earthly destiny just as He always has.
God’s promises are still dependable just as they have always been. God still has our future at heart, and has
great plans for us! Just as He always
has. If there is hope for a tree, which
in the natural can spring to life again, then in God’s economy with His miracle
touch, there is also hope for you and me!
There is hope and meaning to live – it is found in Him!
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