by David Washburn, BGAV Treasurer

‍

Since we recently celebrated Easter, I invite you to reflect with me a little differently this month. I remember well the exhaustion and exhilaration that came with the Lenten and Easter season when I was a pastor. In churches of every size, ministers who are bearing real fruit—packed sanctuaries, changed lives, growing ministries—are quietly falling apart. Not because they stopped caring, but because they never stopped.

The blind spot isn’t laziness or faithlessness. It’s something more dangerous: the belief that because the ministry is growing, the minister must be fine. Fruitfulness mistaken for health. Productivity mistaken for wholeness. And by the time anyone notices—a worried spouse, a concerned colleague, a doctor reading bloodwork—the damage is already deep.

The Elijah Syndrome

First Kings 19 gives us one of scripture’s most honest portraits of pastoral burnout. Elijah has just called down fire from heaven, outrun a chariot, and witnessed the greatest single-day revival in Israel’s history. And then he collapses under a juniper tree and asks God to let him die.

Notice what God does not do. He doesn’t rebuke Elijah or remind him of the victory he just won. He lets him sleep. He feeds him. Twice. And then God asks a gentle, piercing question: “What are you doing here, Elijah?” Not “Why did you quit?” but “How did you get here?” The answer is almost always the same: slowly, invisibly, and without anyone—including yourself—noticing until the collapse came.

What Burnout Actually Looks Like in Pastors

Pastoral burnout rarely announces itself. It disguises itself as dedication: staying late because the sermon isn’t quite right, saying yes to every counseling request, skipping sabbath because Sunday is coming. Researchers who study clergy health consistently identify a cluster of warning signs: chronic irritability, emotional numbness, growing cynicism about the congregation, loss of prayer life, and the quiet erosion of joy in what once felt like a calling. Most pastors recognize these symptoms…in other ministers.

The hardest part isn’t the exhaustion; it’s the shame. Admitting they are drowning can feel like a confession of spiritual failure.

Structural Problems Require Structural Solutions

Burnout in ministry is often less a spiritual failure than a structural one. When a single pastor is expected to preach every Sunday, lead every committee, visit every hospital room, and counsel every struggling marriage, that isn’t a calling; it’s an impossible job description. No amount of quiet time will fix a broken organizational structure. Deacons, elders, and lay leaders who genuinely care for their pastor must ask the hard questions: When did you last take a full day off? Do you have someone outside this church you can talk to honestly?

Jesus said the branch that bears much fruit is the one that abides, not the one that strains. A pastor who is spiritually and emotionally healthy is not a luxury. He or she is the single most important variable in the long-term health of a church.

Your health is not a distraction from your calling. It is the foundation of it.

Rev. David Washburn is BGAV’s treasurer.

‍