Transcript
Ben Fallon: Welcome back to the “Ask Paul Tripp Podcast.” Today, we're condensing several questions from pastors into a single episode. And if you're a pastor and have a question, we'd love to hear from you. Two ways that you can do that, email, ask@paultripp.com or online at paultripp.com/ask.
The first question is, “I pastor a church where, if I let them, my congregation would continuously extend my job description. How do I decide what I have to do and what God has not given me to do?” Along the same lines, another pastor asked, “How do I handle the weariness of pastoring a church where people seem rarely happy with what I do or where we're going and instead feel very free to share their criticism?”
Paul, you've seen the polling data. The “Barna Group” reports that 33% of pastors surveyed have considered leaving the profession, a number that peaked during the pandemic. And then another study from the “Hartford Institute for Religion Research,” showed even higher numbers with 53% of pastors saying that they considered leaving the profession as of Fall of 2023. So, “Paul, how would you answer these questions and counsel pastors who feel burned out and are considering leaving the ministry?”
Paul Tripp: Well, the first question about pastoral limits, I think, is just so important. If you read the account of Creation, the only being in that account that is without limits is God. God has wired us with limits; I'll never get 40 hours in a day, I'll never get 50 days in a month, I'll never get 450 days in a year–and so, I do have limits. And if I allow myself to be pressed into more and more church work, it's got to eat into something else in my life. And so, it will eat into family, it will eat into marriage, it will eat into my devotional life, it will eat into rest and leisure, and none of that is healthy.
And so, you have to set limits with your core leadership group and with your congregation. That's not a luxury; you have to do it! That's wise and that leads to ministry, spiritual health, and longevity. I'll give you an example. We had four children and our children began their school life. And so, I said to our congregation, “The bulk of my time with my children is between 3:30-4:00 o'clock when they get home from school and 7:30-8:00 o'clock when they go to bed. I will not do meetings or appointments during that period. I'll see you in the morning, early in the morning if you want; I'll see you later at night, I'll meet you for lunch, but I have to be present with my family during that period of time.” On Saturday when we would do something with our family, I always wrote an appointment in my appointment book, because if I said, “Well, we're just spending a nice day at home with the family, we're going to do some things here at the house as a family.” Someone would say, “Okay, you're free, I'll come over.” So, if someone would call me, I would just say, “I have an appointment today,” because I did. It just happened to be with my family. And all that was to guard just adding more and more and more until I was a total absentee husband and an absentee father. I was unwilling to do that.
So that's setting limits. And look, a man in my life, early, said, “In ministry, no one will say ‘No’ for you. You better get used to saying ‘No’ yourself, or you'll end up doing more than you should do.” And that advice was just so helpful to me.
The second question is about criticism. I think one of the negative effects of social media, particularly sites like Twitter, people are more comfortable with being immediately critical than they've ever been. I mean, it's spontaneous! You post something and 30 seconds later, somebody's responding. They couldn't have possibly thought thoroughly through what you posted! But that culture doesn't stay in social media. It bleeds over into the church. I'm now dealing with mentoring a group of pastors who receive more criticism than I ever received as a young pastor. Did I receive criticism? Of course I did. A lot of it I needed. And so, I think that there are a couple things that are important.
You should always be humbly open to criticism. God doesn't promise us that the voices are going to be godly, but sometimes there are messages I need to hear. I should ask myself, “Am I learning something about what I'm doing? Am I learning something about how I'm coming off to people?” I received a horrible letter once from somebody in the days when people were writing letters in my congregation, 12 pages, and it was very hard to read. And I called my brother, Ted; I wanted him to dress my wounds! And he said, “I think you ought to read the letter over and over again and pray that God would show you what you should listen to and what you should toss out.” And I did that. I didn't want to do that, but I did that; I learned some very important things about myself that I was thankful for.
Second thing I would say is, “Don't place your identity and joy and motivation in ministry; don't let it be held in the hands of disgruntled people because you will not cope as a pastor.”
Third thing I would say is, “There's a way in which a call to ministry is a call to suffer.” And, you have to be willing to go through things that you would never choose to go through in order to be the gospel instrument that God called for you to do. The best guardian, I think, against the kind of criticism that you're facing is a strong, active gospel community of leaders around you that are comforting you, that are encouraging you, that are stimulating you, that are watching out for you, that are confronting you, that that band of leaders is your primary spiritual community, and you are not in this battle by yourself. You're not walking through ministry alone, but you're held up, encouraged, and cared for by people who have committed themselves to walk with you long term, and who know you and know your strengths and your weaknesses, are able to truly pastor you as you face the difficulty of the brokenness of the church.
BF: Paul, if you could go back to that first question for a second about limits and a never-ending job description, how would you counsel a local pastor to organize or rank his responsibilities and priorities? Is it possible, perhaps, that they could potentially avoid burnout by knowing what was most important?
PT: So, I think that if I'm a single pastor, we have no other staff, maybe a secretary that just answers the phone or something, I'm going to try to offload to volunteers as much as I can. So, for example, the financial leadership of the church; if I could find somebody in our congregation who's apt at that, who can take a lot of that off my plate, that's a wonderful thing. If I have godly mature couples in my church that have the wherewithal to advise and walk with young couples who are struggling in marriage, I want to mobilize that.
I would say that my three biggest things are, (1) Preaching–No one's going to do that for me. That's my calling to regularly feed this church with a gospel banquet. (2) Pastoral care–good preaching produces the need for counseling. I may not be able to do that myself, but I have to take that seriously, and I have to mobilize the help that's needed there. And (3) setting missional vision for the church–How should this church reach people in this community with the gospel? What are the issues that we should be involved in? What are the manners, the ways that we should do that? That's different for different communities. That vision casting, pastoral care, and preaching are essential things.
I don't need to be the maintenance supervisor; I don't have to be the chief financial officer; I don't have to be the Sunday school superintendent. So, I want to look for ways that I can offload things that I don't need to be doing so that the primary things that I need to do—so we have gospel direction, we have gospel preaching, and we have gospel pastoral care—that's my calling. And I want to prioritize those three things and look for creative ways of offloading things that are going to be on my desk, but I don't necessarily need to do.
BF: Paul, I've heard you say many times that local church pastors are your true ministry heroes because they fight on the front lines every single day for the hearts of God's children, and I know that you personally mentor six younger pastors, and that's near and dear to your heart. So, if you're a pastor, just know that Paul Tripp loves you and he admires you. If you're a congregant in your church, why don't you reach out to your pastor today and encourage him? Get him a gift or send him a note. You could also share this podcast episode with him. The “Ask Paul Tripp Podcast” is just one of many resources that Paul has for pastors and churches as we connect the transforming power of Jesus Christ to everyday life. You can support that mission by praying for Paul and our team by sharing our resources like this podcast with others, or if you feel led and are able, you can make a tax-deductible donation to our not-for-profit ministry. You can learn more about financially supporting us at paultripp.com/give. We'll see you back here on Saturday for the next episode of “Ask Paul Tripp.”
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