By Many pastors today are mentally exhausted. The demands to stay relevant in our preaching never change, but the ways to do so keep increasing. This post explores why preachers get intellectually weary and what might help.
The infinite study
Solomon, who was a bright bunny, found a library exhausting: The words of the wise are like goads, and like nails firmly fixed are the collected sayings; they are given by one Shepherd. My son, beware of anything beyond these. Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh. (Eccles. 12:11-12).
As a pastor, you have a ministry which involves reading. A lot of it. You may own fewer books than Solomon (although I doubt it), but I can guarantee that you have a wider set of options that you could obtain if you needed to. You might have a study habit that involves both Greek and Hebrew, multiple commentaries covering two millennia, doctrine, history – it’s exhausting.
Weary preachers are a thing.
You look at the productivity of a Calvin or a Spurgeon and wonder how they did it. Yes, like Solomon they worked from the functional centrality of scripture, and made that their prime study. But like him, they read and processed far, far more.
I know Spurgeon is quoted as saying he wanted to be a man of one book. From one angle, he was quite right. From another, he was lying through his teeth – or pulling our legs.
Well, there’s the genius factor, of course. The work ethic. And the lack of Netflix.
But Calvin and Surgeon would probably line up with Solomon, too, and admit that they frequently found it intellectually tiring.
Now Calvin would certainly have had a much smaller library than you or I. Even though printing had taken off, he probably had quite a modest collection. We know that Spurgeon had a well-resourced collection of thousands. But it was still manageable.
You and I have a functionally limitless resource. The industry even in evangelical publishing has multiplied commentary series to the point that even a well-endowed seminary will have difficulty keeping up. If you have a digital subscription to something like Logos Bible Software you have a vast resource just sitting there.
And that’s just owning the things.
Let alone reading them.
It’s exhausting, isn’t it?
The daunting model of Tim Keller
And then there’s my hero, Tim Keller. Other heroes are available, and I have lots. But let’s take him as my example.
Genius, tick. Work ethic, tick.
But what can account for the fact that whenever I read him I feel exhausted?
I think it’s the fact that he reads in other fields, and opens other gateways. I always have a reading list.
Spurgeon does that with the Puritans, I know that. Calvin does it with the Fathers.
But the particular exhaustion of our time is that we have instant access to Calvin AND Surgeon AND Keller (and everyone else) AND to the resources that they read over a lifetime, so that we are left with an impossibly vast reading list which grows by the day.
It’s functionally infinite.
Libraries are a one-way mirror
This is an illusion, of course. I never get to hear how Spurgeon, Keller, Calvin were ignorant about the things where I have an easy familiarity. And you’ll know things I don’t, but I’m not reading you – you’re reading me, and you’ll wonder how I get to know this things I do.
Answer – because you know lots of things I don’t.
But that’s not how libraries, reading, the Internet, research works. You read Keller, and come away thinking you need to be on top of Bavinck and Charles Taylor. Those are both dauntingly vast intellects, of course, and it took Keller decades to work through them. But you don’t see that. You just see the footnote, the bibliography, and feel intimidated by the information overload to the point of surrender.
The needs of the lost
All of this happens in a ministry context where we are aware of the global gospel need, and a message we must get out.
Maybe you’re in a ministry season where there’s no shortage of people to talk to – in which case you’ll work the margins and feel exhausted.
Or maybe you’re in a ministry season where there’s a complete shortage of people to talk to – in which case you’ll work the evangelistic margins and feel equally exhausted.
Even Jesus, remember, had to take time away from the crowds.
The lost worlds (plural)
Our ministry to the lost, and the found, happens in a particular context, and we are to understand it. Paul engaged with the scriptures, but also with the Stoics. I take it we are to do the same: dig deep into the Word, but culturally engage with the world. It’s what (hero alert) John Stott called ‘double listening’.
But here’s another problem that I find tiring – and I really hope it’s not just me.
We can no longer say confidently we engage with the world – there are worlds, in front of our noses.
If you go online or into a bookshop to understand some of the best of the self-help, life-management stuff out there, you’ll find a cabinet of curiosities. Lots of things that thoughtful non-Christians find really helpful.
Guess who’s top of their reading list? Yup, those Stoics. So if we’re going to engage with double-listening with that tribe, you’d better add Marcus Aurelius and Seneca to your growing reading list.
What’s the best selling fiction book of the last century? By a significant margin, Lord of the Rings. So, yes, on the reading list too. Just like Keller said. Oh and you’d better add some decent lit crit on those books as well, so you understand why the books are much better than the movies. And more helpful for ministry.
Talking of movies, have you seen Project Hail Mary yet? Everyone I’ve met who loves movies loves it – it’s stuffed full of metaphors about salvation, and self-sacrifice as well. Really helpful evangelistically. Of course the book’s far better. Written by the guy who wrote The Martian, which you also ought to read before you see the movie…
Why does culture feel more complex?
I’m making light of this, but it does sit heavy with me. When Stott (genius, work ethic, tick) wrote about ‘double listening’, I as a young pastor took it very seriously. I still do. But I do think it has become much harder. When I was starting out, you could read the novel that won the Booker Prize, and assume that anyone else who was a reader had engaged with it as well. I watched Ghandi, because – well, everyone watched Ghandi. There were some plays, some TV shows, that were cultural central.
Now, I’ve made the pitch for LOTR having that kind of centrality for the long haul, and maybe Project Hail Mary for the next few months. (The spaceship’s called Hail Mary, and the astronaut’s called Grace. ‘Hail Mary, full of Grace’ – it really does the evangelistic work for you).
But those culturally central artefacts are very sparse these days. Maybe David Attenborough and Dr Who have that status for Brits.
Beyond that, the culture is functionally fragmented, and trying to understand and exegete its artefacts is, well, wearying.
The weary brain
Agur son of Jakeh doesn’t get much attention these days, but what he wrote in Proverbs 30 goes to the heart of the issue
The man declares, I am weary, O God;
I am weary, O God, and worn out.
Surely I am too stupid to be a man.
I have not the understanding of a man.
I have not learned wisdom,
nor have I knowledge of the Holy One. (Prov 30:1-3)
I think he got it.
Choose your area of focus
So what to do about this?
My solution is to choose your focus area with care and really dive deep.
- Understand your church. Try to work out what has the biggest bandwidth of relevance. As you get to know people watch out for what they do with their friends in their downtime.
- Understand your area. Our church is right opposite a cinema, and we have four bookshops within a couple of minutes walk. So it’s a reasonable assumption that people will have more of a shared understanding of what movies are showing, than which plays are on in town.
- Understand yourself. Lots of people in our church and area are into football – three major London clubs have their grounds nearby. But if you know me, you’ll know I can never talk about that without any kind of credibility. If it comes up, I shrug and say its played with the wrong shaped ball. But there are areas which I can talk about with credibility. It won’t surprise you that one is art. And so I allow myself to know more about that than most people because it’s still relevant to where I live and serve.
- Dive deep. When something resonates, get to know it better, even if it’s only in a small way. Project Hail Mary is getting a bit of traction round here, so I’ve now seen it twice. Keller read LOTR every year apparently; that may be inviting too many hobbits into your life, but if it’s that signifiant a cultural phenomenon, it’s certainly worth reading more than once or twice.
- Exercise self discipline. It will be really hard to stay focused, but if you can do it you are 95% ahead in the game. You know the drill about avoiding distraction, and that’s true not only in a moment but over a week, a month, a year.
- Ignore the noise. Once you’ve realised that the resources are functionally infinite, and you really aren’t, then chill. The culture might bully you with its incessant advertising about what you need to pay attention to, but find ways to switch it off. The reason why certain cultural objects keep coming up in your life is because a billion dollar advertising budget is driving them your way. It doesn’t mean they’re important. Just shiny.
So, a way to address our weariness as pastors is to pay attention to our sense of mental overwhelm and keep our focus tight.
But there’s still 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 mentally weary pastor? Pile in!
