1,500 pastors leave their churches every month in the United States because of conflict, burnout, or moral failure. Help keep your pastor from becoming part of that statistic. Use every available resource to encourage, support, and partner with your pastor. This ezine and www.My-Pastor.com give you a good start toward effectively ministering to your minister.

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Date: May 11, 2011

Issue Number 024

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Pastor burnout is reaching crisis levels. Your pastor may be burned out and you not even know it... in fact, your pastor may not even know it! Those affected by burnout are often the ones blinded by its pain.

Burnout is more than being exhausted. It certainly includes exhaustion, but it also includes two other elements. The three go like this:

• Exhaustion - the feeling of being emotionally overextended and completely worn out by his or her ministry.
• Cynicism - a withdrawal from people to whom the pastor ministers. He or she may become cynical about people ("They will never get it!"). He holds back emotional attachment from congregation members and just goes through the motions.
• Ineffectiveness - An overwhelming sense of personal failure. Depending on the circumstances, he may actually be quite effective and successful in ministry. However, he feels like a failure.

As you can see, there are several layers of burnout that pastors experience. Often, however, pastors see their level of exhaustion but do not see the other two elements of pastor burnout. That puts them in a dangerous position. They may simply think they just need a vacation. A vacation may in fact help. But recovery from exhaustion may only delay the full impact of burnout. What is truly needed is a better understanding of the full measures of burnout. Then we need to know how to confront this enemy of ministry. Pastors need to learn how to identify and combat burnout. And congregations need to know what to do to help their pastors.

Over the next three months of newsletters, we will discuss the six potential areas that can cause burnout. And we will give some ideas on what you can do to help your pastor avoid or recover from pastor burnout.

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What's New?

I just finished a brand new eBook: Secrets to Understanding Your Pastor. You will be better equipped to encourage your pastor when you understand him better. That's what this book is all about. Get yours now!

Thanks for ministering to your minister!