Why people quit the ministry. And why you don’t have to.
Apparently a bunch of people are quitting the ministry these days.
In his piece on Biblical Leadership, Matthew Fretwell recently gave his top five reasons why.
They are:
- Financial Reasons
Many churches, particularly small churches, don’t pay competitively. - Leadership
They simply don’t have any kind of support structure inside the church that allows them to feel satisfied and to lead with confidence. - Toxicity
The church can be one of the best places in the world to work. It can also be one of the worst. - Family
80% of pastors feel that church life has had a negative affect on their family. - Loneliness
Many leaders just feel lonely.
I GET IT.
And if you’ve been in ministry long enough for the naivete to wear off, you get it too. In fact, you may be considering quitting yourself.
Ministry can do that to you.
But it doesn’t have to. I’m a witness.
Failure Is Not the End
Seven years ago I burned out so badly, it took me three years to get back into vocational ministry. I wrote a book about it called Better After Burnout.
The book discusses how I fell apart in ministry, thought it was over, only to see God put me back in ways I’d never imagined.
I’ve been back in full-time ministry for more than four years now and am holding up better than I ever thought I would.
I will say this though, I’ve certainly changed a few things. Through failure, I learned some keys to ministry longevity. And in this post I will pass one of them on to you.
The 3-R Method for Ministry Longevity
A framework that I employ is something I’ve nicknamed The 3-R Method for Ministry Longevity.
In short, the 3 R Method encourages us to:
Retreat from the crowd.
Renew your mind, body, and soul.
Rengage to minister again.
This principle is based on Luke 5:16, which says, “But he (Jesus) would withdraw to desolate places and pray.”
In my previous post, I covered the principle of RETREAT.
Today, I will address the second “R”, which is…RENEW.
Ministry RENEWAL
Purpose of RETREATING from the crowd is not to be lazy, pout because we’re offended, or quit the ministry.
Instead, we retreat to RENEW our mind, body, and soul.
Ministry is very demanding. It asks us to give out from our inner being, day after day after day.
Consequently, if we don’t replenish our depleted spiritual reserves, we begin to give what we no longer have.
And that, my friend, is a recipe for disaster. Trust me on that one.
Eat, Sleep, Pray, Repeat.
This is why it’s so important to develop a rhythm of spiritual RENEWAL. I have much to teach on this topic, but for today I’ll leave you with a cheesy little acronym to get you started.
It goes like this:
R- Rest Disengage from physical and mental activity.
E- Eat Replenish your body with the intake of healthy nutrition
N- Nap Sleep is not optional.
E- Energize New energy is injected into our depleted reserves.
W – Worship The very heart of renewal is to reconnect with God
You don’t have to quit
In conclusion, If you find yourself a little fatigued today, don’t lose heart.
You don’t have quite the ministry in order to get your joy back. But you might have to change a few things.