Emerging Wednesday- burnout

I have never been a big fan of the "Superman Pastor." While attending college preparing for ministry, I vowed I would never let myself experience burnout and would never try to run my own show and do everything. While I think a little age and maturity have shown me that avoiding that may be harder than you think (passionate people have a hard time holding themselves back), I still think that if you as a pastor can remember a few key points, you're well on your way:

1. The pastor isn't supposed to do it all. I'm not a C. Peter Wagner follower, but one book he wrote, Pastors & Prophets, makes a really good point: pastors shouldn't and can't wear all the spiritual hats in a body. He/she is not supposed to be the pastor/teacher/apostle/prophet/elder/evangelist/caregiver. It will kill them to try to do it all.

2. Some pastors are bad at doing anything other than pastoring. Let's be clear: a pastor is someone that fosters relationships and communes with others in fellowship through life. They comfort, guide, and share with others and serve them. That doesn't make them a good preacher or speaker, though, and that's part of the problem. Some pastors need to get out of the pulpit, and some preachers need to just teach and let someone else run the church. We have titled people as "pastor" when they aren't, and we have asked pastors to be things they are not.

The paradigm problem is that the "pastor" is in charge, and only he can be the mouthpiece of what God wants to say on Sunday, and that's not healthy. Why? Because I don't think the pastor can hear EVERYTHING God is saying and I don't think one man can convey that message to the right people at the right time.

I was fortunate in 2005-2006 to work in a church where the head man was willing to share his pulpit, and all the leaders rotated and shared the pulpit. Some were better than others, and sometimes I wished someone would skip their turn, and sometimes I thought someone had something going and should go a few weeks in a row. But the overall beauty was that the congregation got to see the hearts of their entire leadership, and the church experienced the Word of God and the heart of God from different perspectives, different voices, and different styles. It was refreshing!

The problem is that if the "pastor" is relieved of the majority of preaching, then what are you paying him for? The idea would be that he is more free to pursue community development, counseling, relationship building and visitation. But how can you measure that? Will logs have to be kept? Would he have to report his minutes? The reason I bring this up is because tithers will want to know where there money is going. I don't like that, but it's going to be an issue.

I'm going to ramble more on this later....

In other news, the Cubs are 0-1. Surprised?