Burnout Avoided

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, a ministry.

The Show’s Format and the Difference Between Thinking and Feeling

My name's Mike Abendroth. Our slogan, always biblical, always provocative, always in that order. If you've been listening for any time, you know how the show works. Mondays, we just take the day off. No, sermons.

Tuesdays, I talk to Pastor Steve, although Steve has been very sick. He's actually in Colorado right now visiting his mom, and his mom has bouts of conscious thought, and then she oftentimes doesn't think very well, not safe.

So if you wanna pray for Pastor Steve's mom in Colorado, that would be great. I'd eventually like to see her be able to be transported here to Massachusetts to be closer to Steve and his grandkids, five grandkids working on six.

Anyway, always biblical, always provocative, always in that order. That's what we're after here at the show. I just tried to talk to you bluntly about biblical issues. I'm 55 years old now. I see fewer years in my future as I prognosticate with the, not a crystal ball.

We don't look at those here. If I had a crystal ball, I would just use it for decoration. Now, you know, there's a place in town that sells crystals, and probably the old me would just go in and touch them all to make sure we had my bad aura on them.

But now we just drive by and think, there's nothing wrong with a crystal. If you think there's a power emanating from within the crystal, around the crystal, it's like the force over and under. Maybe some of the Star Wars force language which could be used with Luther's view of consubstantiation.

You know, the Lord's Supper, transubstantiation, it turns into body and blood of Christ, i .e. Roman Catholics. Reformed view, spiritual presence. The Zwinglian Baptistic view, memory. I was gonna say resembles, doesn't resemble.

Makes you remember. And then the Lutheran view. I grew up Lutheran before the ELCA was what it is today. I think it was LCA and ELC, Calvary Lutheran Church. They taught consubstantiation. And maybe the simplistic way to think of consubstantiation is God is omnipresent, therefore he is with, under, by.

I don't know what other prepositions they use. Over, under, through. No, they don't use that. But anyway, maybe it's a consubstantiation type of thing. Well, what's on tap today? I actually have on tap here in my Hano mug.

Thanks again, Jill. It's Starbucks, I think Sumatra. I wish it was something else. I actually had a test the other day. I think my cholesterol's high. They said, you don't drink enough coffee, so we're gonna try to fix that.

I have in front of me, preventing pastoral burnout. And that might be a good question as we start the show. What do you, Mr. or Mrs. or Miss or Ms., Christian, do when you feel burnt out? Now, on No Compromise Radio, you know the format.

When I say think, I mean think. When I say feel, I mean feel. Most of the time people say today, well, how does that make you feel? Well, it makes me feel really gross, but when I think about it, oh, it happens to be true.

Or something to that effect. There are different words, of course, think and feel. Now, if you said ponder, cogitate, think, ruminate, then maybe, you know, those are close. Those are synonymonic. Oh, if Noam Chomsky could hear me now.

I saw Dr. Clark, if you're listening, R. Scott Clark still, at the student union in Nebraska. I saw Noam Chomsky, had no idea about liberalism or any of the things that he stood for. Probably back in the day, I thought it was cool.

Everybody else seemed to think it was cool. The upper class ladies thought it was cool. And probably I'd think Bernie Sanders was cool if I was an unregenerate 18 year old. At University of Nebraska today as well.

Now, I'm not saying all unregenerates like Bernie Sanders. I'm not saying that at all. But it was at the student union. I saw Joan Jett at the student union. I saw Meatloaf. How do you get a name Meatloaf?

That's a good question. Well, I'm sure it's in his biography. But pastoral burnout lends itself to the question, what about burnout for the Christian? I don't know why we're always asking about why pastors become burnt out.

Why don't we ask the question, when you're serving the Lord and you're going through those valleys and you feel burnt out, what do you do? I don't know why. I've got a frog in the throat. Have you ever had frog?

I haven't had frog for quite some time. I think it was in a French restaurant the last time I had frog. We are saved by God's grace. We are equipped by God's grace. We should be in the context of a local church using our spiritual giftedness for the sake of others.

Remember the spirit, he gives us sovereignly a gift or gifts at conversion, 1 Corinthians chapter 12, and we are to use it for the body, Ephesians chapter four. We serve other people like we should serve the Lord or would serve the Lord.

Now the disconnect becomes difficult because other people aren't as godly as Jesus. We're to serve his body, but it would probably be much easier to serve the Lord Jesus if he were here. After all, he's perfect, he's God.

I know he's the God man, but it becomes difficult because people are, they're justified, but they still deal with sin, i .e. Romans 7. Or if that's not your particular view, you can pick a different passage about sin and the harmardiological hangover, the sin hangover, flesh, sin principle.

I don't really wanna call it sin nature, but you know what I mean. How do we then in those valley times, remember the show Big Valley? In those valley times, continue to serve, preventing pastoral burnout.

So today I'm gonna ask the question, what about burnout in the life of a Christian when it comes to serving other people? And what about preventing it? So we're gonna prevent it, and we're going to ask the question, what do we do if we're in it, if we're burnt out?

Early Warning Signs of Burnout

Here it says, these, according to Dick Lizzo, these are things that might show you that you have burnout. Difficult focusing, your mind wanders. Now this is the part of the psychological tests, whether they're looking for anxiety disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, do you know what that's called?

GAD, eek, GAD. The second one is anger or apathy. You get angry or you're just apathetic, or you bounce between the two. I mean, they have you coming and going. These are so subjective, it's not even funny.

Danger-focusing, anger or apathy. Do you notice what we're doing here? D-A, what's the next letter in our acronym for, do you have early warning signs for burnout? N, no energy, D-A-N, where are we going with this?

You're exhausted all the time, you're running on fumes, fatigued, lethargic. Okay, see, I might need a cruise to Alaska. Maybe I should post that, maybe I should say these are all the things that No Compromise Radio needs, and the host and his family need a cruise to Alaska.

Actually, my wife isn't a big cruise lady. Gracie and I went to a cruise in the Aegean, Paul's Missionary Journeys, and we went to Patmos and we went to Ephesus and Crete. And I think they forced us to go some, I don't know, some Santorini, some little dinky island.

Ah, it was cute, it was pretty. Just glad to be there with my daughter. G, D, difficult focusing, A, anger, apathy, N, no energy, G, and now we have the perfect Nebraska symptom, dang. Mike Jendron and I were in Branson and we went to a little shopping supermarket there.

I don't know what they call them in Branson, Piggly Wigglies, Sunshine Markets. Now here, the supermarkets are called Stop and Shop, DeMoula's, Price Chopper. We do have Wegmans, so that doesn't count.

In California, Ralph's, I always thought that was a funny name. Albertsons, they had, of course, their Safeway. We like Safeway. In Nebraska, I don't know what they have, Hy-Vee? They still have Hy-Vees in Nebraska?

We used to drink Hy-C, but we don't anymore. We're going down memory lane too much. But dang, they have shredded coconut snacks called dang. And we all, Mike Jendron and I think it's funny because you're kind of not supposed to say dang because it's a slogan for something else.

G is gloomy, you feel down, everything looks bleak. E, excuses, you make excuses all the time. R, retreating, frequently retreating into daydreams, escapist entertainment, and addictive behaviors. Or withdrawing from people in order to ease the pain.

D-A-N-G-E-R, dang-er, doppelganger. Now you know why we're not syndicated. Now you know why we're not on major radio stations. We used to be on the station here locally, not on there anymore. Now, when I talk to people, oh, your radio show?

It's not really a radio show anymore. It's just a podcast. And you know, with a humble heart, I have to accept we are just a podcast, but a very influential one. If we're only a podcast, then maybe we should start having, if you wanna advertise on our podcast, put a little Lagos, a little Bible works, a little master's college.

What else we wanna put on there? Some oil change things. You can send me a proposal and I will entertain it. Danger or burnout. How do we prevent it? What really is it? I think if I look at these six danger signs, one, two, three, four, five, I think you could have any of these.

It's emotionally draining and I have an unbalanced schedule and I have an unhealthy lifestyle. It says here, do you eat too much? Do you sit too much? Do you not eat enough or anything in between? Made up the last two.

Do you neglect regular exercise? Now here's you can tell that the shrink psych stuff is really coming through now. Undernourished intimacy. I think that's my love language. My wife always says her love language is receiving gifts.

Are you failing to guard your time with the Lord in prayer, worship and devotion? Are you letting your marital intimacy grow tired or cold? Are you failing to maintain close, loving, and replenishing relationships with family and friends?

Causes and Practical Triggers of Burnout

Now that you've spotted the danger signs and identified the causes, what are you going to do about it? Where will you start? I had many good ministry excuses. Why'd I eat right, exercise and take time off later, says the author.

There's a spiritual term for that kind of behavior. Stupid. Stupid is as stupid. No, don't say that. As a dog goes back to its vomit, so a fool repeats his stupidity. Proverbs 26, 11, God's word translation.

You know, that's what Rick Warren does. You have to find a translation that so suits and you need the word stupid so you find one that says stupid. Actually, in the middle of all this, I think if you're feeling burnt out, you get your Bible open and you read the first three gospels.

We call them the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. The gospel of Jesus Christ, according to Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And then you read John and you watch, of course, as you're reading, you're observing the Lord Jesus Christ.

And especially when you get to chapters 14, 15, 16, and 17 in John, Jesus in chapter 13, he washes feet and then he begins to discuss ministry. I think you'll quickly see that Jesus can be an example in this area.

There's an argument, of course, is Jesus an example when it comes to the work on the cross? Do we follow Jesus in every area? What would Jesus do? What did Jesus do on the cross? He's much more than an example of love, right?

We have to talk about penalty substitution. He had victory over the cosmic forces, I think secondarily to penalty substitution. He was an example. And when Jesus is reviled, we have him as an example, the text explicitly says in 1 Peter chapter two.

I mean, just make sure I get that correct. As we're here on the radio, we wouldn't wanna say something that we don't want to. It says, for this you have been called, 1 Peter 2, 21, because Christ also suffered for you.

That's the Messiah. The Messiah suffered for you, leaving you an example so that you might follow in his steps. What were his steps? Verse 22, he committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth.

When he was reviled, he did not revile and return. When he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself, emphatically, bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.

By his wounds, you have been healed, for you were strain like sheep, but have now returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls. Of course, Jesus is an example to us. In this particular case, he's an example of suffering righteously, suffering in the sight of God.

When it comes to watching Jesus serve, Mark chapter 10, Jesus comes to what? Not to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. I think the best thing we can do, and doesn't this solve a lot of problems in our lives?

When we say to ourselves, let's focus again on who the Messiah is. Now, it goes further than that. I can think of Paul when he talks about in him, in whom, in Christ, and how we are in Christ. When I begin to think about who Jesus is and then how I'm in Christ, and even as the father would see me, he doesn't see me except for in his son.

That's how I'm acceptable, right? And we can talk about justification, union with Christ, and all these, how when we think of salvation, there's just this zip drive of descriptions of different ways of looking at who Jesus is and what he's done.

But when you watch Jesus serve, if Jesus, the one who's perfect, served the unlovely, the sinful Peter, then it makes me serving other people who don't measure up to Jesus. So let's get it back to point here.

If Jesus was on this earth, it'd be pretty easy for me to serve him. It'd be much easier for me to serve him than serve some of his wayward people, his less than perfect people. But now when I think of Jesus and how he serves and how he humbled himself, and Philippians 2, and the condescension that Jesus had, and he used to have the fellowship with the Father and eternal glory and seated at the right hand, and he leaves glory in John 17 and stoops, then I say, okay, if Jesus can serve those people, let's make it more personal.

Jesus served me, then I should be able to serve others. I think what happens, and I do like what the author says about prayer. When I pray, overall, here's the sense that I get. I am a dependent person.

We're to use our mind to pray and there should be confession and adoration. There should be times of forgiving petition. There's all that. Of course, we've taught that on No Compromise Radio. But when I'm praying, here's what I'm saying.

God, I can't do this. God, I'm inadequate. God, if I could have gotten all these things on my own, I wouldn't have have to ask you. I'm at my wit's end. I'm at the end of my rope. There have been times in my life, something's gone on with one of my children or something.

There's a health issue. I have no recourse. I can't charge enough on the credit card to fix it. I can't borrow enough money to fix it. I can't buy enough lawyers to fix it. There are certain issues that are unfixable, not able to be fixed.

No amount of brawn, brains or bucks can fix it. And then you really pray then. I've prayed earnestly certain times of my life in ministry. And those times were really, God help me. I just remember sometimes saying, God, help, help.

Crying and just calling out to the Lord, help, help me. When I was in the operating room and working selling operating room lasers, I wasn't a Christian and nurses to me, the way you would get them to eventually just buy your product to get you to see the right doctors, get the right equipment and the right OR suite.

I would say to them, and I would say this because I think it was in a manipulative way. Do you think you could help me please? And I was playing to their desire to help their job description, to help assist.

What do nurses do? I guess there's a different word that you could use to summarize what they do, but they help. And of course now thinking theologically, there's nothing wrong with a helper. They're not less than the Holy Spirit.

He's called helper and he's not less than God, the father or God, the son, but I would play to them, play to their purpose, their job. Do you think you could help me? I mean, even today, do you think you could help?

Well, people, if they have the power to help and the ability to help and the resources to help, then they often help. When I say that to the Lord though, now as a Christian man, and if you're getting burnt out in your ministry and think about it, if you're a mom, you get up every day, you wake up at work and you've got the new dishes to do and the new diapers to do, and it's hard.

It's hard to just be consistent. It's hard not to have those ebbs and flows. It's hard if you work on the construction crew. It's hard if you work at the pharmacy and you're counting more pills today and looking at contraindications tomorrow.

It's hard. Whatever you do, there are just seasons of difficulty. And the people that you respect and look up to, they were faithful, responding to what God had just done in their life. They would respond with faithfulness, not high ups, not low lows, a fidelity that was consistent.

That's what we strive for. And of course, the good news is when we don't match that, when we don't meet that, when we have bad days, complaining days, sinful days, lazy days, we have one who never complained, who is our advocate.

We have one who's never been lazy. Can you imagine Jesus never lazy, never complained, always had the right attitude. I think Jesus physically was exhausted, but I don't think he had any kind of psychological, unbalanced, unregulated emotional burnout.

Oh, in Gethsemane, you could see the humanity of the God man, of course, but there's no psych issues. There's no weird stuff going on. When you pray though, and you say help, God loves to help. It's not a manipulative way.

It's not me as an unbeliever in the OR, it's God help me. And sometimes I'm so frazzled. I don't know what else to say. I can't think to myself, oh, what's that Greek word for prayer supplication in Philippians four or first Timothy two.

You just cry out, help, I need help. I wanna serve these people rightly. At the beginning of the show, we talked about burnout. What if you're getting burnt out? My suggestion is number one, you should study the life of Christ so you can see him as an example, so you can see him as your legal agent, your representative, the last Adam.

So you think about union with Christ. And secondly, I think you should pray and your prayers will say, I am too dependent on self. I'm too self-sufficient. And Lord, this is causing this stress. This is causing this irritability.

This is causing me to have anger apathy. This is causing me my dang feelings, difficulty, anger, no energy, gloomy. I can't believe, I don't think I've ever said dang on No Compromise Radio, dang. Now, we go back to the simplicity of the Bible.

As we remember Jesus simply with bread and wine or bread and juice, bread in the cup. How often do we go back to, it's the word of God and prayer. You're experiencing burnout. You're a pastor, you're an elder, you're a deacon.

It's the Bible and prayer. Isn't that so true? Let's just go back to seeing who Jesus is, the ultimate servant, and then relying upon him as we beseech him in prayer.

Mike Abendroth, No Compromise. 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.