MINISTRY FOR THE LONG HAUL – SOME RESOURCES (Updated October 2010)

Dear Pastor and co-leaders

Here’s a quick guide to some wisdom/research on pastoral stress and burnout. The issues are sometimes not easily understood, and are widespread. In Australia alone there are somewhere between 12 and 14,000 ex-pastors, most of whom left pastoral/parish ministry in a context of stress/burnout.

First, a basic introductory article: Stress and Burnout in Ministry http://jmm.org.au/articles/8200.htm

More comprehensive (a compendium of wisdom learned in nearly twenty years of walking through all this with pastors and expastors): A Pastoral Survival Guide http://jmm.org.au/articles/8658.htm

Best small book on the subject: Cliff Powell and Graham Barker, Unloading the Overload: Stress Management for Christians, Sydney: Strand Publishing, 1998.

If a congregation knows how to encourage their pastor, they’ll get better and more empathetic leadership from him/her: Do Yourself a Favour – Encourage your Pastor – http://jmm.org.au/articles/8384.htm

Rowland Croucher (ed.) Still Waters, Deep Waters: Meditations and Prayers for Enrichment, A Garden of Solitude: Meditations and Prayers for Encouragement (Albatross / Lion).

50 ARTICLES ON STRESS and 20+ ARTICLES ON BURNOUT and over 1000 articles on Leadership, 100+ more on ex-pastors – Use the Google ‘Search this site’ facility top right hand corner of each page of our website.

Does Ministry Fuel Addictive Behaviour? http://jmm.org.au/articles/18859.htm

360 Degree Leadership (Bill Hybels) http://jmm.org.au/articles/8448.htm

Good-To-Great Companies http://jmm.org.au/articles/8727.htm> (but note some of these ‘great’ companies have gone backwards!!!

Pastor Burnout – http://www.pastorburnout.com/

Finally, a questionnaire devised to highlight the factors involved: http://jmm.org.au/articles/20381.htm . Anyone can fill this out: why not do it on a leaders’ retreat and compare notes?

Shalom! / Salaam! / Pax

Rowland Croucher