Why Pastors Feel Exhausted (And What Helps) – part one, our souls and bodies

Many pastors today are quietly exhausted. Ministry demands keep increasing while rhythms of rest disappear in the pace of change. This post explores why pastors get physically weary and what might help.

A couple of years ago I had a sabbatical.  Call it a sabbatical, call it study leave – I was allowed to take some time away from the weekly, monthly round.

And I really needed it.  We’d been through COVID and lockdown, and come out the other side, and the process of re-setting, re-booting church had not been a simple one.  You probably remember it too, as a series of stages as we emerged.

Some people experienced lockdown as one of frustrating inactivity.  Pastors were in the other group. From the moment the scale of the problem were were facing emerged, we were expected to take decisions and respond, to innovate and lead, on an almost weekly basis.  We were expected to innovate and find ways round and through, to think through new and challenging questions, and to encourage, encourage, encourage.  

A previous generation talked of those who had had ‘a good war.’  I say this carefully, but in a sense our church had ‘a good lockdown’ – we held together, came together, loved each other, and were gently understanding.

But by the end of the re-set, once we had got back to a pattern of routinely meeting whenever we wanted, however we wanted, I was bone tired.  

I was exhausted from the constant decision-making and innovation.  

So one day when I found myself at a pastors conference, I talked to a friend over coffee and opened up that for the first time in ministry I felt weary of it.

Or, better, weary in it.  I wasn’t bored or sick of it.  I wasn’t planning a career change, or an early retirement.  But this really intense season which had called so much out of me had left me drained in a way I had never felt before.

I’m guessing I wasn’t alone.

So it’s worth thinking though being a weary pastor, because I suspect it’s a season that all of us will go through at some stage.

And there are aspects of our current culture where we don’t make it easy for each other.

There are aspects of ministry which are genuinely hard. But there also times we make it hard for ourselves.

So, if you’re a weary pastor, what are the many potential causes, and what might help? We’re going to take several bites at this pie, but let’s start in the centre.

The obvious spiritual cause

Let’s get the obvious, Sunday school answer out of the way.  Running away from God is exhausting, and coming home to him brings rest. A pastor who is living a double life (public disciple, private rebel) is going to be rightly at the end of their tether, and their good Lord will lovingly chase them home.

So unconfessed sin, relished sin, will sap our spiritual life and crush us under their weight. The need to pretend to be good (works of the flesh) will be never ending, and force us into deep hypocrisy.  Preaching, praying, counselling, discipling, all in our own strength, is impossible. But to keep that salary or stipend coming in, it will have to be done without God, somehow.

So let’s apply the gospel to ourselves first. Jesus said Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Matt 11:28

Discipleship for pastors

Go on to the next sentences: Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light (Matt 11:29-30). Jesus is gentle, and he does bring rest, but he is still our Lord, with a yoke to guide us and work for us to do.

Which means we don’t escape the duties of discipleship. And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up, said Paul (Gal. 6:9). And perhaps writing to pastors specifically, As for you, brothers, do not grow weary in doing good (2 Thess 3:13).

The problem of the ‘guilties‘

For the first time, but not the last, let’s meet our nemesis: if you’re a well-taught, well-discipled, well-disciplined pastor, you will have an almost infinite ability to give yourself the guilties.  You put in a full Sunday morning, preaching, pastoring, leading, and as you find yourself dozing off in the afternoon you say to yourself, let us not grow weary of doing good. But you are. You have some leave and you’re reading Richard Osman’s latest by the pool, and you think, do not grow weary in doing good.  So you close the book, reach for your laptop and open up the email.

Why do we do this to ourselves?

We need to remember some fundamental, humbling realities.

We are physical creatures

• God has designed us so that we need food.

Yes I know Jesus fasted, and we’ve just done Lent, but the normal human reality is that we need to take in energy. Remember how King Saul made that stupid order about his soldiers not being allowed to eat?  And how his son hadn’t heard the instruction and said  See how my eyes have become bright because I tasted a little of this honey. How much better if the people had eaten freely today of the spoil of their enemies that they found (1 Sam 14: 29-30).

Let’s not overspiritualise a physical lesson here. Eat sensibly. And it’s allowed to be tasty too.

• And God has designed us so that we need sleep. 

Yes, sleep is a metaphor for sinful sluggishness and death – we’ve all done that talk.  But before it’s a metaphor it’s a lived reality.

Endless work is not good for us. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep.(Ps. 127:2).  You’ve preached that to the workaholic executives, so now preach it to yourselves.

Because there’s always another person to see, another need to pray for.  Somehow you have to cry halt.

And the particular driver for the pastor is the evening meetings.

If you like chasing down productivity tools (guilty as charged), you’ll know there’s some standard advice: have an end of day ritual and close your laptop.  Have some family time.  Don’t allow work at home. Try to relax before bedtime.  Certainly no screens.

And you’re staring at the ceiling at 2 am because of the way the elders’ meeting at a quarter to midnight.  And the previous evening you had Alpha, and that ran late.  And tomorrow night you’re hosting your small group (pastors are Biblically required to be hospitable, aren’t we?). Can you take time off in the day?  Not if the sermon needs writing, the hospital needs visiting, and the email needs answering.

Friends, go to bed.  Don’t exhaust every evening in the week.  Have you read Why we sleep by Matthew Walker?  You really should.

Remember Elijah, on the run for his life?  The angel let him sleep, and then cooked him a meal.  Then let him sleep again, and then cooked him another meal (1 Kings 19:4-8). That’s real ministry, and real care fr the minister.

• And then God has designed us so that we need exercise.

Why do biblical metaphors of walking, running, strength, of athletes and soldiers work? Once again, they were lived realities first. 

Paul even tells us to do it for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come (1 Tim. 4:8). Yes, I agree, that is to put physical training in its place, and to insist that discipleship comes first, but it’s still there, isn’t it?  Even if it’s only for this life, it’s still of value for this life. 

I reckon Paul’s telling Timothy it might be wise to lift a weight or two from time to time.

Jesus didn’t join a gym

No, he didn’t.

But to be serious, let’s remember the time in which he lived, and which we do.

His world was active, ours is sedentary.  As a young man he sawed, chopped, and hefted wood. He walked and rode for hundreds of miles. We sit on sofas and type.

He fasted, but when he ate it was straightforward, and simply prepared food.  Good and healthy.  We can graze 24/7, on ultra-processed nonsense.

He had the time to talk as he walked, to think, to be alone, to study.   We take hours to travel what he took days to cover, and cram that time with podcasts or screentime. We think we’re being more efficient, but actually we’re being less rested.

And in all likelihood he was up with the sun, and in bed with the sun. With a click of a switch our rhythm is broken.

Would I have preferred to have lived then? I mean, apart from the face-to-face with him? 

Not really. I like antibiotics, clean water and painkillers.

But our modern life comes at a cost, and we’d be wise to identify that cost and see if we want to pay it.

So, one way to address our weariness as pastors is the pay attention to our spiritual walk and our physical reality. Souls and bodies.

But there’s more to this, and we need to take a pause and then dive in again.

Have you thought about this issue? How did you get out of being a weary pastor? Pile in!