Prevent Pastoral Burnout

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Dan Doriani
So Mike, you and I both know that pastors often struggle more than we would like. And there are signs that pastors are going to start struggling. And I noticed things like sleeplessness, yeah. On one side on the other side, hyper work that causes it. And others, they get burned out. And they you find they’re coming to meetings or preaching sermons unprepared. So they can’t manage their time, they can’t decide whether they should work really hard, or whether they’re exhausted. That’s one thing I noticed. Sometimes things like red eyes and gaining weight, and being short with people. Those are some signs that things aren’t going well for Pastor, what do you see? Small and you wrote a book about pastors that go far off the rails?

Mike Kruger
Yeah, one thing I’ll start with is just the realization that you know, most pastors start off with visions of what they want to be as a pastor in, in by God’s grace, making our best effort to be those people. But then some pastors as years ticked by, and the wear and tear happens, they find themselves turning into people that didn’t expect, yes, and part of it is the reasons you pointed out could be the exhaustion, the stress, the anxiety, the pressure. One of the reasons I wrote my book bully pulpit was that sometimes, and no one sets out to be this, pastors can begin to find that they’re holding on so tightly to their ministry, their leadership, that they begin to use tactics, techniques, and tactics that just really go beyond the bounds of what Scripture calls us to. And I think things can can get dangerous, and people can can turn into sometimes pastoral bullies as a result. And there’s a level of compassion we can have on that, because there’s a level in which sometimes that’s happening, because they’re, they’re feeling so much pressure, like most people kind of lash out, you know, and so you can understand that, but at the same time, we want to help obviously, the church be a place where that happens less so that God’s people are protected.

Dan Doriani
Yeah. So Right. I mean, we notice one of my friends said it this way politicians and pastors are frighteningly similar they are they start off trying to change the world. And they end up being part of the problem, that part of the solution. So you know, politicians want to be honest and just and bipartisan, and then they start worrying about get elected. And pastors can hold on to their office, they can also get weary of having every last person in the church being their boss, or at least everybody in the leadership team. Everybody has an opinion. And they do start to get angry and shout, and they just start to bully small, small b, not a big B bully. But little acts may be telling half truths, telling people what they want to hear. So we recognize we both recognize small things, we’ve spent a minute with you tell us just a couple things about what to do if you have a big B bully, and how a church can handle it if they have someone who’s not not having ordinary pastoral problems are ordinary failures, real failures, but ordinary failures of sanctification.

Mike Kruger
Yeah, well, I mean, one of the things I think you pointed out there, which is really key is it. It’s a gradation, right? It’s, you know, when we talk about people with with with with problems in the pastorate, it’s not you know, all or nothing. And people have a range of different things. And like you said, some people struggle with things that are what you call ordinary problems. But then sadly, things advanced to these bigger problems. And in we’ve seen that over the last five or 10 years, maybe more than we had used to, we don’t know, where it seems like there’s more capital B bullies out there than then maybe prior generations had seen. And there’s, there’s there’s ways to spot that it’s important to say that it’s not mathematical boy, if it were wouldn’t that be nice if it was just like, you know, crunch a few numbers, check a few boxes, and now, you know, there’s a level of seven subjectivity to it, I have to be very careful and cautious. But I’ll mention one thing that to keep an eye out for and that is, you know, what, what, what folks have called the relational debris field, behind certain leaders that they leave for a while, and there’s sort of this trail of bodies behind their leadership. And we’re not talking about the normal conflict that happens in ministry, because look, you do ministry with sinful people, and we’re sinners. There’s gonna be people disagree. Absolutely. And people get hurt, and feelings get hurt. And those can be tough things that can be painful things. But the kind of debris field we’re talking about is sort of destroyed lives. A wreckage of of lies, usually people leaving usually broken relationships, usually unrepaired relationships can be one of the telltale signs that you might have a leader on your hands, who’s who’s heading down a unhealthy path. And it’s, it’s causing problems in the church.

Dan Doriani
You know, one of the things about pastors is they’re put on a pedestal they’re very, you’re the most awesome ever. And then not down to I mean, the man’s just incompetent. I don’t know what the screams I’ve ever heard him. At the top there is the sort of we are special mythology and we’re, we’re special because I’m special. And you’re with me. Yes. And when that starts to happen, I know you wrote about this. Yeah, a lot of people see it. You start surrounding yourself with people who will protect you. And the people already think you’re special. You’re special. exactly know the truth matter is me Maybe there are special Yeah. I mean, no professional athletes think they’re special. Because they are. Yeah. They’re distinctively gifted. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And so sometimes we have a pastor is distinctively talented, but then they surround themselves with people who want to protect them because they are attacked. Yep. And they do suffer. And we want to make sure he can be at his best. But the difficulty is, then when they start to go off in an unhelpful direction, the board or the elders, whoever it is, that would correct them is unwilling to hear anything negative because there’s so they’re so intent on defending the leader. I’m not I’m not back to I’m not talking about big the bully. I’m talking about a person who slowly goes into destructive direction. Yes,

Mike Kruger
yeah, no, this, this is what I call the franchise model of pastoral ministry. And the fact that use a sports analogy is totally fitting, because I think the world has an idea of, of how you, you lead an organization, the way you lead an organization is you find your superstar. And then you build the organization around your superstar. And that’s true for sports. That’s true for CEOs of companies, lawyers, lawyers, politicians will Why not for the church, and you build your entire ministry around the identity of this individual. But we all know that the track record of that is not healthy. And we know that that model is not necessarily when we find its own it’s unbiblical. It’s totally a biblical gifts. And what we don’t realize is that not only are we hurting the church, when we do that, we’re actually actually hurting the pastor too, because you set him up for failure, because nobody can live to live up to that no one can maintain that level of expectation on them. And so what happens is, when things start to go bad, you end up having church splits and destructions and different things. And in I wrote my book, certainly about bully pastors, but also wrote it within that trying to positively recover what does humble leadership look like? Right, what is what is gracious, kind leadership, like Christ look like? What does general leadership look like? And truthfully, I think maybe the church has listened to secular models of leadership a little too much not that we can’t learn anything from those. But they have a certain vision for leaders that I don’t know it works very well in the body of Christ.

Dan Doriani
Yeah. And you know, what’s funny is we’re talking about this topic, neither of us is really an expert in this. We’re both kind of exegesis and church historian or biblical

Mike Kruger
scholars and pastors and doing our best to think about how to how to

Dan Doriani
do this. Yeah, the things that I’ve noticed, you know, when you study the reformation is that every last leader, you can post reformation, post reformation, all deeply flawed men, of course, and you know, Wesley could be almost almost relationally, clueless, violent and proud, not violent physically, but relationally, violent. Whitfield, of course, great as he is, not only was against slavery and changes, maybe actually advocated for the laws to be changed, to allow slavery to be reintroduced for the sake of his projects. Luther became pretty violent, his language are actually very violent.

Mike Kruger
And a number of his views of certain groups. Yes, very concerning. Yes, deeply concerning.

Dan Doriani
But there are also positive stories of people who turned it around like Calvin, who, you know, was fired and given basically 48 hours to get out of town in his late 20s. And he said, Hey, I don’t need 48 hours, I’ll be I’ll be gone before he played twice. Right. And then he came back. And when he came back, he was a changed man for having been under Mark Blitzer. Yeah. Who taught him humility, and grace. And he was different man. Yeah, not completely different. He’s still sin. But he was different. He knew how to compromise you know, listen to people. How do we so that’s, that’s a fact. How can we encourage people today to, to have those flaws cut away as much as possible, and also to grow as much as possible? Because it does, it is path of decline. Often people start well, and they slowly slip away. But people do also turn around and become better men than they weren’t 10 or 20 years ago,

Mike Kruger
those historical lessons have so many things we can learn from them. I mean, one of the things that reminds us of is that we’re all flawed, yes, men and women and who are sinners, that that God’s still by a sovereign grace, who uses and so even the stories of real serious failings throughout the church, we can always sort of acknowledge this is why we believe in the sovereignty of God. God can take broken fallen leaders and still do his purposes with them at the same time. Another lesson we learned, though, is that when we do come across those fallen traits that we don’t ignore them, we don’t pretend they’re not there. We don’t we don’t slide them under the carpet. And we don’t we don’t call them good when they’re not. And I think there’s a combination of acknowledging we’re all in this boat together, and God can still use sinful people at the same time, honesty, and forthrightness about these flaws in our past leaders and in ourselves. And then I would add to that there’s also a point where everybody has flaws in ministry, you and I and anyone else who would have this conversation. But there’s also a point where the flaws lead to what would be called disqualification. And there is a point where you where you cross a line, do you always know where that line is? Now you don’t and you know, adjudicating bicep To figure that out. And so there’s sort of what you use the terminal your normal families, can we say it that way? And then the families that do cross over into the not that you’re not a Christian, not that Jesus doesn’t love you, but that being a minister, is something that you may have disqualified yourself. Let’s

Dan Doriani
pick up on that. So I’ll stick with Calvin for a second. Yeah. You know, he and Ferrell actually, were a team that led to lead the church and the whole city of Geneva and a great conflict, right. And they had a long investigation of it. And I mean, it was it was pretty disastrous, but they decided they were both good and educated man and godly men. But they brought out the worst in each other, at least at that period of time. And they said, We Calvin wrote a letter Ferrell saying, we are forbidden to colleague together. They’re, you’re bad for each other. That’s the judgment. And so you, you can be friends, you can write, you can visit each other, but you can’t work together. Yeah. And so that was a really helpful corrective and they both received it. Which reminds me that the number one mark, in my experience of someone who is disqualified is that they won’t receive criticism. That’s right. And, you know, you get somebody who’s caught in a lie, let’s say a pastor, I mean, and, and they deny that they’re like, they’ll look you right in the eye and say, they’re not lying, and they are lies, and you know, their lie. And you have to say to them, you can’t possibly think I believe what you’re saying, oh, yeah, it’s sincere. It’s like you we both know, it’s a lie. These are the people that end up in shipwreck, yes, when they won’t receive godliness loving but firm correction.

Mike Kruger
Now, one of the things I wrote about in my book on this is, there’s a level of defensiveness, yes, that we all have. But there’s a level of defensiveness for for people that you’re describing that the second trigger point, when you criticize them are bringing up something that needs to change it, there’s a switch that flips and they can go on the attack. And so one of the things that marks some of these problematic leaders is, not only are they unable to receive criticism, but they also often dole it out. There’s a funny combination there. It’s like the very people who can’t receive it, are highly critical of their staff highly critical those under them in a way that we all know there’s times to correct there’s times to shepherd and show where things need to change, but almost leading by fault finding. And you know, that that combination, you know, almost clinically isn’t the definition of narcissism, where you can’t receive criticism and then dole it out all the time. And you know, this can be really dangerous. Administrators. I don’t, I don’t know that that was true. And these historical figures we’re talking about, certainly, but I think, you know, there’s certainly been cases where it seems to be be true. The

Dan Doriani
other way to say it is, the better the person, the quicker they are to repent. And sadly, the farther from God a person is. And I’ll even say a believer who’s just straight somehow, the slower they are to admit their sin. And if anything goes wrong, of course, it’s your fault, not mine. And you shouldn’t even be bringing this up anyway. Yeah, there’s

Mike Kruger
an amazing ability to turn the tables is like you come into the room thinking I’m trying to confront you with and you leave. And I’m like, Yeah, you’re like, how that happened? How did I leave? Now that I’m the, you know, I’m the problem. And you’re like, how does that person have the ability to do that? It’s like, is there a class they take where they learn how to turn the tables? But it’s it is a skill? Yeah. So there’s always this give and take, and this is the complexity of these, these ministry scenarios. And this really leads to one of the things that you and I were discussing, before we got started the day is what kinds of things can churches do? What kind of structures can we put in place? And watch out for to help minimize this from happening? Because I think we were just acknowledging that even people who start off good have the potential to end up in unhealthy places. And some that that start off good can can even get more Godlike. And, and part of what makes the difference is whether there’s things around them that can make that decision. You have any

Dan Doriani
a couple of really cool things. And I know you agree with them, because I’ve read it in your book. Yeah. Number one is genuine annual reviews. In the Presbyterian system, yes, elders would seriously review the pastor every year and ask not just How’s your wife doing her kids doing? What’s your schedule, but probe into some of the errors they’ve detected? For example, somebody’s working too hard, right? Or if maybe they noticed that there’s some issue in their family, you know, what’s, how’s it going with you and your wife or kids? Whatever the case may be, they see some unhealthy habits. Yeah, even physical habits. And they press. That’s one but I also believe in in talking to staff. Yeah, absolutely. You know, whether you call it a 360, or whatever terminology you use, you should definitely if especially if there’s a staff of size. Obviously, there’s lots of solo churches, and there’s one part time administrative assistant, but if it’s your church of size, which is where things you know, where pastors go wrong more, I think you should interview multiple staff. Like that’s informally. How’s it going? But also, if there’s any hint that things are going poorly, a formal interview, you know, once a year and follow up on it

Mike Kruger
now. And one of the things that I’ve seen about those interviews is the staff have to also, when they’re asked how it’s going, be assured that they can safely and honestly answer because I’ve seen time and time again, doing 360 reviews where the lower staff are very hesitant to say anything, because the person interviewing them, they have the impression as the best friend of the senior pastor, and they’re like, wait a second, how safe is this? How neutral is this?

Dan Doriani
That’s why you have elders? Who aren’t the buddies of the lead pastor, which we’re not asking for hostility between? Of course not, we’re asking for good faith oversight.

Mike Kruger
And this is one of the reasons I mentioned in my book that, you know, is there a way we can rethink the way we pick our elders? And, you know, consciously trying to not just create a band of my favorite people around the senior pastor. And obviously, like you said, you’re not looking for people to be antagonistic. That’s a whole nother problem. And I know that a lot of pastors by listening to this thing, are you kidding? My elders are my biggest thorn in the side, right? And they’re not protecting me. They’re, they’re, they’re sort of after me, and I totally get that. But there, but there is a sense in which independent voices Yeah, if I could say it that way, on the on the session or on the elder board, are so critical here so that they can listen to the staff genuinely, not beholden to one man or one person. And then the staff knows that they’re not, they can see it played out that, oh, this is a place where I can really be honest, about what what concerns me, I know that I’m not going to get fired a week later, after bringing it up, you know, and I think that’s a really important thing. Yeah. And

Dan Doriani
of course, the best way to have a session formed is by watching the leaders, God’s already raising up in youth ministry, children’s ministry, adult discipleship, and the elders are not selected by the pastor. They’re recognized, correct by the whole church.

Mike Kruger
They’re nominated elders, in one sense, they’re already functioning like, we’re recognizing that sort of happening. One more thing on the on the annual reviews I want to throw in there. And that is, and this is a I know, this sounds like a micro step. But I just want to encourage the listeners to, to think about this. So many churches do the annual review process and a subgroup of the elders, usually called the Personnel Committee, and usually three or four people, the ones that review, the pastor in the in the whole elder board never sees the reviews on an annual basis, and it’s kind of hidden in a committee to some extent, why that’s a concern is is that is typical that when things finally blow up in churches, sometimes the large group of the session goes, I’m shocked, I’m shocked. Where did this come from? And you realize it’s been going on for 10 years, but it’s been sort of hidden away over in a Personnel Committee. So one piece of advice I would give, I think, is wise is that when when the annual reviews come in, that should be shared with the entire session, so that the session can can see them and can say, Okay, I understand. Our pastor is not a perfect guy. He’s got, he’s got challenges like all of us, but we know what they are, we can pray for him, we can help him. And it wouldn’t be a shock later down the road,

Dan Doriani
but might also be implicitly an argument for sessions that aren’t too large. I think you could say that to you know, there are sessions of I mean, I had a session of 36 at one point. And it’s, it’s, it’s almost impossible to really dig into things. So it may be at least an executive committee that hears everything. Yeah, good point. Thanks for that. Yeah, I would say positive things include just basic decency. And following ordinary rules, you know, if you visit somebody in the hospital, you say the family Okay, are you sleeping and eating and not is not wearing yourself out? Right. So I think I think it really starts with the most basic things like are you reading the Bible and praying and meditating apart from your sermon preparation? What are you reading? Are you are you only reading to prepare? Are you reading for your soul? Swimming, the pastor’s married, most are not all. Tell me about your relationship with your wife, what’s the quality of your time together is you know, encourage, I encourage all pastors, make sure you’re with your wife. One way to say this, if you don’t have sweet time with your wife and dates, you’ll have she’ll pointed out and you you’ll get the same amount of time and it’ll be sad about your problem so, so get ahead of the curve and have a good time with your wife. You know, if you have children in the home still, you know, have little dates do special things for the kids. Just the most basic practices, reading the Bible, praying, meditating, confessing, yeah, celebrating. Yeah. Can I just push that for a second? Yeah, I think I’ll just say one word. Yeah. I find not only pastors are beaten down by their elders, but elders are weary elders, praised and thanked for the work they do. And if you if you have a staff and not everybody has a staff, but if you have a staff, children’s work, youth work, administrative work. If some if you have a finance director, it’s a lot of it’s very thankless and the pastor gets the credit or pastors if there’s multiple pastors get the credit and pastors have a unique capacity to take the time to label the excellencies of the people who work with them, and to some degree under them. And, and to assure them their gifts are absolutely essential in the church. And that I think has a pervasive influence. It helps us. So we’re not becoming critics now. And you know, we bless our wives or children, and we bless the people who work for us and with us.

Mike Kruger
Yeah, I mean, one of the things I mentioned a minute ago about about unhealthy pastoral trends is is over criticism. And you mentioned a swing towards a more healthy trend, which is look for ways to praise and affirm those you that you work with, and that are under you. And I think this is just such a forgotten thing. And I understand why it is because we’re so busy, we’re so so swamped and so exhausted the idea of, you know, we fill on thanked, and so we’re not, we, when you fill on, thanks, you’re not gonna go thank other people. And this is one of the challenges of the weight of pastoral ministry, I get it, we’re in it together. But it’s amazing how much a word of thanks and affirmation to the staff really encourages and they feel seen by the pastor. It’s a gentle, warm way to lead positively. I would also encourage pastors to, to look to thank their their female staff. Yes. You know, one of the things that we’re seeing more and more churches, which is great is female paid staff doing variety of jobs. And sometimes they feel perhaps not always seen by the senior pastor, because he’s, he’s, he’s dealing with the elders and the other pastors, that just a word of affirmation to your female staff can make a huge difference, it really

Dan Doriani
doesn’t take long to observe, just watch what they do well, that you couldn’t do. Or maybe you could, maybe you could, but you probably can’t. And, and they do it well, in the body of Christ needs what they do, I mean, just something like, take care of newborns to five year olds, you don’t get a ton of praise for that. But it’s so important, I’m going to help the church has to have good care of the little ones. Thank those take care of the little ones. You

Mike Kruger
know, one thing in all of this, and this may be a good, a good way to land the plane on this conversation is, you know, wrapped up in, in discussions of healthy ministry, unhealthy ministry, that, you know, we could talk about structures and 360 reviews, and how to form a session and all those things matter. And I wrote about a lot of those, as you know, one of the nebulous things here that I’d love to get your thoughts on, Dan is is, is the effect that church culture has on this whole thing. So it’s not so much a church structure, although that’s part of it. It’s not even really so much a church theology, although that certainly is really important. But isn’t it true churches have vibes and ethos is and cultures and some feel freeing and warm and inviting, and some feel heavy and in maybe even at times oppressive? I wonder your thoughts on? Do pastors think enough about that, you know, and how to form and shape that because I wonder if if we’re missing a piece of the puzzle here, because I’ve heard people say that church culture trumps just about everything when you try to get stuff done, if it’s a bad unhealthy culture versus if it’s a good one. That’s right.

Dan Doriani
So let me just say this is maybe a little bit too particular, I just finished a fantastic to your interim part time, while still being a professor at a church that had an has a terrific vibe. And it lost it for a while COVID and some things, you know, there’s some strife that occurred, and so they lost their true nature. But there were, there were several people on the staff who were just, I’ll say, by God’s grace and gifting, extremely positive PDM. And what you have to do is let them flourish, and tell them that they’re positive spirit. I don’t interrupt myself. Most pastors are introverts, especially in large churches they are you have to be willing to sit for 18 hours and work in a sermon, that means you’re an introvert. So you’re probably not going to convey it’s not a criticism just to relax. A really realistic fact of life, you’re probably not going to convey warmth and enthusiasm. But churches need warmth and joy. And so you find your joyful people which this church has an abundance, and you label it, and you tell them you bring a positive spirit, you bring the joy of the Lord, you bring the gift of encouragement and affirmation. And we’re, I’m thankful for that. You keep it up. You make us who we are. Yeah. And then you probably have some elders who are maybe minded to the watchmen are critical, but you also have others who are enthusiastic and positive and they see the good and support, protect and encourage them. Yeah. So you may not have personally most pastors actually, I don’t think have a great personal vibe. Be a people I’m not saying they’re bad, but they’re not great. The people around you who do have a great vibe

Mike Kruger
now. That’s right. So when you think about creating a church culture, as a leader, you’re not even really thinking about who you are. Although that matters a lot. No one’s no one’s diminishing that but what is the team I’m trying to build and What type of people do I want to hire and bring into this team that can create that environment for me? And I think one of the things I would encourage your listeners to ponder, is it it’s not as simple as saying, Do you affirm these 11 doctoral things? Because there’s these intangibles that go with with healthy, godly leadership, you know, the spirit of things, the ethos, ethos of things, the way that is manifested is so important. I know there’s a level of subjectivity this right, you’re like, Well, what do you mean, exactly? And I think that’s exactly why it matters so much. Because sometimes if it’s subjective, we dismiss it as a factor we’re not going to consider. And I think when we when you walk into the doors of a healthy church, there is something there that sometimes you can’t quite put your finger on. And it’s not just do you have from the Westminster Confession, confession of faith or not, there’s something else going on there. And those are the things I think we need to consider as leaders.

Dan Doriani
Yeah, it even includes things like picking your greeters very carefully.

Mike Kruger
That’s right. I tell people the first face you see on Sunday morning, you better pick that person very carefully, because that’s the impression of the church. They’re gonna have.

Dan Doriani
And welcome your visitors every week and say how glad we are to have you and so forth. Yeah. Good. I always enjoyed talking to you, Mike.

Mike Kruger
Great time, Dan, thanks for the conversation.

Dan Doriani
All right. Thanks.