Burnout

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the apostle

Paul said, "'But we did not yield in subjection to them "'for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel "'would remain with you.'"

In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her king.

Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio, ministry. Michael E.

Abendroth here, ML Abendroth. I just got off the phone with Todd Friel, and he's such a nice guy.

Very thankful for... Anyway, if you could have been a fly on the wall with my conversation with Todd.

Crazy stuff. All right, I was talking last time. I'm still doing Tuesday shows without Steve. How does that work?

I have a K -cup here, and you know what? I was never around. Even today, I'm not a very big

Keurig guy, K -cup guy. If I go to somebody's home and they said, would you like a cup of coffee?

Of course, I'm thankful. And it's certainly better than nothing. It's better than tea. And so I think you can make tea out of those, so.

Hot chocolate. Who knows what else? Noodle soup next, some broth.

I was guzzling chicken broth a few weeks ago before a procedure where you could only have clear liquids.

I'm glad coffee was considered clear, even though the coffee that I make in the morning is not so clear. But K -cups now, they have

Pete's K -cups. And I don't know, it's not so bad because you just, you think, you know, you're having

Pete's. I'll be in California soon, and I can't wait to just go to a Pete's coffee, get just a,

I normally am an espresso guy, just a couple shots of espresso, but we might as well get some espresso shots.

A little red eye, a little black eye. Maybe black eyes you need, two shots. I think that's two shots.

So I was talking about pastors and mental health, CP opinion, Christian Post opinion.

Thomas Rainer writes a lot. I think he's still a Southern Baptist. Why pastors have issues.

Yeah. Why pastors have issues.

Well, we are fallen creatures. We have a lot of stress and pressure.

You know, you watch a president and they age before your eyes. You see the before and afters, and especially if they serve two terms, eight years.

I've been a pastor now 18 years. And so maybe that's why I look, I think someone said the other day, you know, we saw a picture of you,

Mike, and your face doesn't match your voice. How does my voice sound? You know,

I guess when you first see Paul Harvey, you're like, oh yeah, Paul Harvey. Anyway, I was continuing with this list.

Pastors and mental health, and some struggle with depression, some with committing suicide. And so the first one was spiritual warfare.

Second one we looked at last time was unrealistic expectations. I think both from the congregation and from himself.

Thirdly, greater platforms for critics. Number four, and this is where we pick up.

Failure to take time away from the church or place of ministry. Workaholism leads to burnout, burnout leads to depression.

Well, failure to take time away from church or place of ministry. I'm more in favor of that than the burnout comment, but just time to get away.

I can tell in my own life in ministry that after about three or four months at the church,

I just feel like I just need a break. I mean, whether that's to drive up for the beach for an overnight with my wife,

I go on speaking trips and stuff like that, big bus tours across America promoting my book.

I'm just kidding. I just know if I'm just out a Sunday, it's just very helpful.

Even if I would be around and it was out, just to kind of refresh, relax. I love preaching.

I love Bethlehem Bible Church. I love No Compromise Radio, but it's good just to get away. And so when

I travel someplace else, I usually preach a message I've already preached before. So that's helpful, just a little relaxation.

And the church takes care of me here. I get plenty of vacation. I've been here 18 years and they've got a thing.

So you start off with four weeks. And then if you're there for five years, you get an additional week. If you're there for 10 years, you get an additional week, et cetera.

And so I have plenty of vacation and my flesh wants to say, and I've earned it.

But my point more today is if you're listening and you have a pastor whose name isn't

Mike Abendroth, I'd like you to figure out a way that you can let that guy go. Let him go on vacation more often.

Give him more vacation than he does. I've never met a pastor. I don't think I've ever met a pastor.

Honestly, with all the churches that call me and say, I need help, or church search committees that say, we need help trying to hire a guy.

Could you talk to us? Could you meet with us? Lots of those situations have come up over the years. And I have never met some church that gives their pastor enough vacation.

I really don't think I've met one. And you say, well, the church has got a problem because if the pastor's gone, then who else will preach?

Now, smaller churches, I understand, not many people that are able to preach.

But if the pastor's been around for a while, one of the things that he should be doing, he should be training along with the other leaders, other people to stand up and preach the word so that he can go out of town.

I mean, sometimes the church is so precarious that the pastor doesn't wanna leave because there's gonna be some kind of hostile takeover and some coup.

But the pastor should be training other people for his own good. Yes, it takes more time initially, but then you reap the rewards later when there are other folks qualified for ministry.

In 2 Timothy 2, verse two, it's clear. It's not just for your own good, it's for the sake of glorifying

God. It says in chapter two, verse one, you then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

And what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses and trust of faithful men who will be able to teach others also.

So we have to pass that baton. And I've talked to pastors before and they've said, I'm leaving the church.

Why? Well, there's no other leaders around. Well, how big is your church? You know, 150 people.

How long have you been there? Five years. Well, it's your responsibility to train people. You can't save them. You can't regenerate them.

You can't give them spiritual gifts, but you can do what 2 Timothy 2, verse two, requires you to do.

And so when you do that, then you're able to go away for a week. Let's say you only leave for one

Sunday. Somebody preached for you one time, a Sunday. That means you could leave Sunday night, the week before, after you preach.

And you're gone for the next 13 days. And then you show up the next Saturday night to preach

Sunday morning. There's ways to get time off. Remember, the Lord is building the church.

And I would assume if you're the pastor, the lead pastor, the senior pastor, the pastor, if you're the preaching pastor, you're probably the most gifted preacher there at the church.

So if you stay every week, you're gonna give them, you know, the best art and science of biblical homiletics.

But if the other guys are trained to teach the Bible, isn't it still the Bible? Of course it is.

And so pastors need, especially if you're a domineering pastor and you've got kind of, you know,

I don't know if I believe in personality types, but you know, driven A kind of guy, let the other guys preach.

Let them minister. That'll help them in their training. And I love to let the other guys preach because then

I get time off and they become better preachers. And so when I read this failure to take time away, if you have a pastor,

I hope you say to your pastor, hey, you know what? We'll babysit your little kids so you and your wife can go off on a little romantic getaway.

It's not a matter of money. You can get away for pretty inexpensively just to spend time with your wife, just to get away.

I am quite confident that unless you're in leadership or you're married to someone who is, and this is again,

I'm taken care of well, I love my ministry, the job, all the things that the Lord has entrusted to me because I do get time off and I have people surrounding me who understand what it's like with the pressures of ministry.

But you, if you're a lay person listening on WVNE or on worldview weekend or something like that, I don't think you have any idea.

It is 24 seven. And if you are at home relaxing and the phone rings,

I regularly, when that phone rings, think, okay, time to get dressed and go down to the hospital. Time to get dressed, something's happened.

So -and -so's done such and such to so -and -so. It's very grueling, just, you know,

I'm sure I've gotten grayer because of ministry. I'm glad to do it for the Lord. There's no problem with that at all.

But I want you just to know, you should probably take care of your pastors. Your pastor needs to have some vacation.

Your pastor needs probably double the vacation he's getting now. What's it gonna cost you?

It's gonna give him more rest and he's gonna come back fired up. One guy told me, he said, Mike, I love it when you come back from vacation because you're all fired up.

Okay, so even if you're a pragmatist, give the guy some time off.

Babysit his kids so he gets a little one night, two night little getaway with his wife. If you've got a little bit of extra money, why don't you do something nice like that?

We'll watch your kids for two nights or one night when you slip away into Boston.

I'm not asking for it. Don't send me it. Send it to your pastor. Maybe we should have a donate button on No Compromise Radio Ministries website and it will be donate money to give to other pastors, not

Abe and draw. But Pete's coffee sure is good, K -Cups. I almost gave you my address.

Number one, two, three, four. Number five, marriage and family problems. Too often, pastors neglect their families as they care for the larger church family.

That's true. That's true. I mean, I never thought it would happen to me, but I can feel the tug.

I can feel the pull. I can feel daddy's at the computer and daddy's working.

Daddy's taking care of these other things. I can feel it. That's why

I try to make it a policy that when I travel, I don't say I've got to travel with a family member because of possible scandal, although there's possible scandal, right?

I travel with a family member because I'm trying to spend time with one of the kids. If you've got a wife and you've got four kids, it's hard to get away by myself with my wife.

And that's why, hey, I'm gonna go down to Orlando. The church there is gonna pay for it. Awesome.

I'm gonna go to Spain. The ministry there is giving me some extra money. I'll burn my honorarium on the flight for my wife.

Awesome. I mean, that's just what I try to do. I also try to travel with my family because then it's one -on -one time.

When do I get one -on -one time with any of the kids because we're all together? And so I like the all together stuff, but the one -on -one stuff is very, very important.

And marriage and family problems often happen because you don't spend the time together. I mean, these are related.

Number four and five are related, aren't they? In many ways, yes. Failure to take time away will make family and marital problems.

Now, sometimes it's just because you're a dopey sinner and you're just not denying yourself and you're not loving your wife like Christ loved the church.

So, welcome to my world. But other times it's just time and it's this issue of, well, it's quality time versus quantity time.

That's bogus. That's just, it's not congruent. Quality time is quantity time.

Spending time with kids. Then you don't have to do this. Well, I've got five minutes. Let's do Bible time.

Sit down and I'm gonna teach you the Bible. It's life on life. And of course you can do family Bible time. I've promoted that here on No Compromise Radio, but you can also do other things like just live life.

And then when something scriptural comes up and you talk about it. Financial strains.

Many pastors simply do not have sufficient income from the churches they serve. Financial stress can lead to depression.

Some pastors don't know how to manage the money they do have, leading to further financial strain. You know, what causes stress in life in a ministry?

Certainly financial things. I'll say again, there's a reason we don't have a donate button in No Compromise Radio.

You can figure out if you'd like to give to the ministry, there's a way to figure it out. And I'll let you figure it out.

But I'm not asking for money for myself through this show either kind of secretly.

I really need more money. I'm not asking for that. I am well taken care of.

Praise the Lord. Thankful. So I'm talking about other people, not talking about Bethlehem Bible Church.

I'm talking about other people. If you have a pastor, you ought to pay the pastor. And you ought to pay him well.

You ought to pay him better than what you think you should pay him. Lots of comments

I can make here when I get asked to help other churches put together financial packages for prospective pastors.

The board, after I talk to them, usually has to pick up their jaw off the ground.

And of course, there are only certain amounts of money that a church has, and so there are financial limitations.

But there can be goals. There can be, well, let's shoot for such and such. Let's take care of the pastor.

Not because he's royalty, but because if he is faithful in the word, he deserves double honor.

Why? Well, because that's what God says. Not, oh, you give him a lot of honor, honor. Oh, I esteem him highly.

And then you pay him. No, double honor. The context in Timothy is double pay. Why? Well, let's just think about how we wanna keep our pastors poor and humble.

Let's think about how we're just gonna give the pastor only a parsonage. And then what are you gonna do in 30 years?

I know if you have a parsonage now and that's all you can do, fine, but work toward how are we gonna get rid of the parsonage so we can get the pastor a home so he gets equity too.

If you're not in a mainline denomination, there's gonna be no equity for the pastor. There's no pension.

So you're gonna have to try to take care of them. And so church, I think if you're listening, not Bethlehem Bible Church, but any other church, you should go to your leadership and say, how are we taking care of our pastor?

Does our pastor get more than a salary? For instance, does he have his healthcare taken care of?

It would be bad if you have a, well, we're gonna have $19 ,000 is what we give every year to the pastor for his healthcare.

No, you just take care of it. That means if it goes up to 22 ,000, he doesn't have to come up with three of his own.

My question to you is if you're listening, do you really want your pastor to be worried about his healthcare? Can I afford healthcare for my family?

Really? That's really what you want him to be worried about? Just take care of his healthcare.

If you work for a company and they said, you know what? Nobody's getting any healthcare benefit versus you work for a company and you get healthcare benefits.

Well, how do you work through that whole thing? Wouldn't you want healthcare benefits? So why wouldn't you want your pastor to have it?

Dental care, your pastor, I'm not talking about me, I'm talking about other pastors. Your pastor should have a dental care.

You should care enough for your pastor and for the Lord's servant that you should provide dental insurance.

Delta Dental would be a good place to start. You should have long -term disability for your pastor.

What if he gets really hurt badly? Then what happens? You should have a life insurance for your pastor.

I will tell this little story because I think it'll be helpful for you all. I come from Grace Community Church.

John MacArthur has been the pastor there since 1969. They hired him when he was 29 years old.

So when they hired him, John jokes that they hired him as a young guy because the previous two pastors died of a heart attack and then the church was paying for those widows of Householder and whatever the other guy's name was, can't remember.

And so I remember saying to the elders 12 years ago or something, 10 years ago, if I die, you guys better take care of my wife and kids.

In other words, basically she's on payroll because you have to take care of the pastor's wife. And so they said, well, let's just get an insurance policy instead.

That'll take care of it. And that's exactly what they did. And they pay the life insurance premium for my life insurance.

So that's a great thing to do for a pastor. And it's smart for a church. So you're not having to pay for that wife until she remarries or till she gets help elsewhere.

What else? Well, I think you should be contributing to the pastor's 401k, 403b,

I think it would be for the pastor and you ought to contribute probably five to seven and a half percent a year of a salary and you contribute to that and you pay.

And then that way the pastor has not a pension, but he has a nest egg for when he retires from full -time ministry.

So just take care of your pastors, overpay your pastors, just like this whole thing like with MacArthur years ago, they pay him too much and they do that so they wanna see how he spends his money.

What does your pastor wear? What does he drive? Where does he live? What kind of, you know, if he's living large at your expense, that's one thing.

If he should have to drive 50 miles to where the church is because he's making hardly any money and can't afford to live by the people.

I think that kind of church has got enough money to take care of the pastor. So what are we doing?

Let's honor the Lord by taking care of the pastors. Number one, two, three, four, five, six, seven,

I think. The problem of comparison. Every pastor will always know of a church that is larger and more effective.

Every pastor will always know of another pastor who seems more successful. The comparison game can be debilitating to some pastors.

You know, you go to a pastor's conference, shepherd's conference, other conferences, and the first question people ask you beside your name, how big is your church?

Just happens all the time. I would say that it's easy for a pastor to compare one to another and get caught up in envy and jealousy versus, you know, the

Lord has blessed you. Amen, praise the Lord. I'm happy for you. So what can pastors do?

Some thoughts for struggling pastors through the CP opinion. He does say a few thoughts to help.

You like this kind of advice from Tom Rainer? You are not alone. The problem is persuasive.

Everybody else struggles too. Schadenfreude. No, I'm just kidding. It does help to know that you're not the only one who suffers these things.

Number two, you need not be ashamed. Mental illness is just that, it's an illness. Now, see,

I'm ready to just kind of launch into something else here with brain, mind, mental illness, syndromes.

Don't be ashamed to say you've got a mental illness. Rainer couldn't be farther from the truth in his remedy here.

You'll have to listen to a different show for my thoughts on mental illness, but that's bad advice by Rainer.

Rainer, three, get help. Get help. Basically, go to a medical doctor.

That would be good. Physiological reasons, that's excellent there. You struggle with certain things.

Was my thyroid working? My pituitary gland working? Do I have diabetes?

Do I have, there's all kinds of things and you need to get checkups. I'll never forget the day I talked to Don Whitney.

Don Whitney at Southern Seminary, written all kinds of excellent books. And Don had colon cancer and almost died.

And I remember calling him and talking to him in the hospital. And then when

I interviewed him after he recovered, I said, what did the Lord teach you through this?

I don't know if this was a No Compromise radio interview or back with Tom Krause, Engaging Your World, Engaging Your Mind back at BNE.

And he said, well, the main thing I learned out of this was, I thought he was gonna say pray more, be thankful more for life.

I don't know what he was gonna say. Something like that though. And he said, what I learned is get your checkups every five years for colon cancer.

It's preventable. I thought, wow. So you do need to go get checked up when some of these things happen.

But then to go to a secular psychologist or a Christian psychologist, some integrationist for bringing in Maslow, Adler, Freud, Skinner.

I could not disagree more. But this is just my show, in my opinion.

I've been told if you wanna make sure you don't get sued, all you have to do is say, in my opinion. Make the recommended changes.

Okay, see, I like that better. Repent, think differently, adjust your mind to what the scripture says.

You know, you're trying to build a church for your own namesake. And you're like, you know, I'm just gonna be relying on the sufficiency of scriptures and the

Holy Spirit and I'll just do what God wants and whatever happens, happens. And so there are things like that where you go, okay.

Rainer says, once struggling pastors get help from professionals, they will be advised about next steps.

Listen to them, heed their advice, make the necessary changes. I don't like that at all, but I do like the way he ends.

Thank you for serving Christ and his church as pastors. Very few people outside the pastoral ministry world understand all you do and all you experience.

I hope we can minister to you as well. You deserve nothing less. Tom Rainer, President and CEO of Lifeway Christian Resources.

So today we've been talking. Today, my name is Mike Abendroth, like it was yesterday. We've been talking about pastors and why pastors get burnt out.

And so I love to say this to my wife. I often and regularly, purposefully say to my wife, how can

I serve you today, honey? And when I say it, I mean it. Sometimes I'm not really ready for the answer.

I don't wanna know the answer, but that's the way a husband should be.

Taking me a long time to figure that out. Still working on it, but I think by the grace of God, improving.

Progressive sanctification. Why don't you say to your pastor, how could I serve you? I mean, he's trying to serve you.

He's trying to equip you for the work of the ministry. What if you said to him, how could I serve you? Why don't you just do something and be kind to your pastor?

It's like, be kind to your pastor week at No Compromise Radio. See, I'm not a fire breathing, you know, ogre all the time.

Trying to minister to pastors as well. I know what it's like. And for congregations to love their pastor, could there be anything sweeter this side of heaven?

Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston.

You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE its staff or management.