Burn Out

Recently we have heard a lot of people in the church production world talking about burnout and asking how to avoid it.  Quite frankly this has us very concerned, asking a lot of questions, and driving us to prayer.  Here are some of our thoughts on the subject:

What is burnout?  Is it simply the feeling of having to much to do and not enough time to do it?  Is it no longer having the desire to do… anything?  Tiredness?  Depression?  Emptiness?  To us this sounds like a person who never has, or takes, the time to unplug, relax, and spend time with Jesus.  Someone who is running constantly and never fully recharging.  We bet that someone claiming ‘burnout’ has lost perspective of how the overall mission and vision tie directly to the work they are doing every day.

Jesus calls us to have a day of sabbath – that is a day of rest.  Are those that are experiencing burnout doing this faithfully?  Are you taking the time to disconnect your mind from work in order to see the recent evidence’s of God’s grace in your life?  We know that when life gets busy for us, especially at work/church, we have a tendency to hunker down and plow through until the work is done.  Leaving no time to align our hearts with our maker’s heart.  When we do this, the work only piles up, and our lives at work gets more stressful – our entire life suffers, including the time with our friends and family.  Let’s call this what it is – sin.  We think we can do the work Jesus has called us to in our own strength, that we need to just pull ourselves up by the boot straps and get-r-done.  Just so you know – this approach to getting work done doesn’t glorify God. We glorify God by aligning our will with His perfect will.  And by working out of the reality of our complete need and dependence on Him, as without His work on the cross there is no purpose to our work in church production.  The only way to combat this popular sin of ours is to make sure we are spending time daily with Jesus, praying for His will to be done in everything, reading our bibles, and worshiping Him through our thoughts, actions, and attitudes.

Whether we spend 5 minutes or 2 hours each day with Jesus in silence and solitude, His expectation of us is clear.  We should be spending quality time each day reading His Word (the Bible), praying and worshiping.  We are also not supposed to be working seven days a week.  We are to take at least one day a week off and spend that time with God and family. [John 20:9, 2 Tim. 3:16, Deut. 5:12-14, 1 Thes. 5:16-19]

Also something else comes to mind.  God has given each of us the skills to be able to do the work that He needs done.  In Exodus 28 and 35, God is speaking to Moses about the construction of the first portable church in the dessert of Egypt:

Exodus 28:2-3 And you shall make holy garments for Aaron your brother, for glory and for beauty.  You shall speak to all the skillful, whom I have filled with a spirit of skill, that they make Aaron’s garments to consecrate him for my priesthood.

Exodus 35:30-36:2 Then Moses said to the people of Israel, “See, the LORD has called by name Bezalel the son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah; and he has filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, with intelligence, with knowledge, and with all craftsmanship, to devise artistic designs, to work in gold and silver and bronze, in cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood, for work in every skilled craft.  And he has inspired him to teach, both him and Oholiab the son of Ahisamach of the tribe of Dan.  He has filled them with skill to do every sort of work done by an engraver or by a designer or by an embroiderer in blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen, or by a weaver—by any sort of workman or skilled designer.  “Bezalel and Oholiab and every craftsman in whom the LORD has put skill and intelligence to know how to do any work in the construction of the sanctuary shall work in accordance with all that the LORD has commanded.”  And Moses called Bezalel and Oholiab and every craftsman in whose mind the LORD had put skill, everyone whose heart stirred him up to come to do the work

God has called each of us specifically to be able to do a specific job, or jobs, for him.  There are a number of areas in our lives in which Christ has called us.  Some of those big picture items include but aren’t limited to the following:

• Jesus – First and foremost, He has called us to Him, to follow and obey Him, spend time with Him. Think of the parable in John 4 of the Women and the Well, Christ referring to the living water instead of the water that can be drawn from the well.
• Family – God calls us to love our families and men are to be the Pastor of their families Eph. 5:22-33 Also see this e-book on the subject.
• Discipleship – Discipleship of those that are around us in everything, from work to the the rest of life Exodus 35:30-36:2 and Matthew 28:16-20. This makes us all a leader and puts every Christian into a leadership position.
• Vocation – Are we doing the job that God has called us to do? Exodus 35:30-36:2

We believe strongly that we should be living life within our calling and inside of God’s plan for our lives.  When we don’t we become much like the Israelites wondering around the desert for all those years – discouraged, hard hearted, unbelieving, burned out.  How many times in those forty years did the Isrealites want to turn back and go back to Egypt?  The average Isrealite probably never asked God about their place in His vision of life, but few had a very clear idea on what they were to do (Moses and Aaron for example).

Challenge yourself:

We want to challenge everyone to honestly ask yourself a few questions:

1. What is the vision/calling God has placed on your heart?
2. Are you following that calling?
3. If you are not following that calling, why not? And how can you change what you are doing, so that you are?
4. Do you take the time to spend quality time with your Lord and Savior?  If not, why not?
5. Do you take at least one day a week off? Totally and completely disconnected from work…

Ephesians 5:15-17 “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.  Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.”