Burnout and Recovery: An Introduction for Pastors

May 9, 2025 -- Ben O'Toole

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My aunt greeted me at the cookout. It was late spring. She gave me a hug and asked about my plans for the summer. As I spoke her eyes grew wider till she interrupted me with force, putting her hands on my shoulders: “You have PTSD.”

I tried to process her words. PTSD? But I haven’t been on a combat mission; I’m in ministry!

My aunt could see that I was emotionally numb, and she was right about that. She was working at that time as a full-bird colonel at the Pentagon and she knew her stuff. I didn’t.

That conversation got me to face my particular dilemma: ministry burnout!

What is ministry burnout and how can a pastor deal with it? I have been wrestling with these questions for myself and numerous others for decades. I pray my answers here help you.

What is Ministry Burnout?

“Ministry burnout” is a phrase I find helpful when helping pastor or ministry leaders. You might call it emotional exhaustion, anxiety, depression (or even something more specific to your experience, like PTSD). Ministry burnout is getting to the point where you cannot function personally or in ministry because you have had too much stress for too long without proper recovery. Burnout can effect you emotionally, spiritually, physically. When a pastor gets to the point of burnout, or is getting close, here are some typical symptoms:

• You feel dull when you read the Bible or pray

• You are easily irritated or offended

• You work long hours but are less and less productive

• You generally lack joy or feel sad most of the time

• You find it difficult to concentrate or be intellectually productive

• You do your job as a pastor but feel it is just going through the motions

• Your mind fixes on problems or stresses and will not let them go

• You feel generally angry, negative, or hopeless

• You increase your work efforts to quell the perceived or expressed opinions of your church members

• You do not like who you have become as a husband or father

• You want to do your ministry well, but feel like you are running on fumes, with little or no zeal

• Lack of exercise or healthy food has taken a toll on your body

• You are too glued to your phone

• You have patterns of poor or drugged sleep

• You normally miss your day off because of church emergencies, sermon prep, or just being on call and available to your church all the time

  
  

If the vast majority these are true of you, you probably have ministry burnout.

How Can a Pastor Deal with Ministry Burnout?

If you are in or headed towards burnout, you need to understand what got you here, how you can get out, and where you can find help.

Pastors fall into burnout because we have too much stress for too long and we do not have the proper recovery we need along the way. Pastors are commonly weighed down by the burdens carried in regular ministry: weekly sermons, meetings, needs of members, fights in the church, traumas you help carry as a counselor, pressures to grow the church, etc.. Most pastors I know work sixty plus hours per week as a minimum. Such stresses wear you down.

Being under too much stress for too long diminishes you. Imagine a large water tank, the kind that sits on the high ground of many small towns. Compare the capacity of that tank with your capacity to handle all the work you must do as a pastor. When you are fresh and new, your capacity is high—there is plenty to give. But the more stress you carry the less capacity you have—there is less and less of you to give. The water tank is squeezed smaller and smaller; it holds less and is more easily drained. If you are there, recognize that stress has diminished your capacity, but with God’s help you can do something about it.

Remember that only God is omnipotent and sovereign. We are not. God rules over every pastor in ministry burnout (and each man’s experience is unique), but it seems to me that God tends to discipline us by letting us feel our weakness in ways that humble us and cause us to rely on him (Deut. 8). We must learn that we pastors are creatures who depend wholly on our Creator, especially for power in ministry, and live in that dependence.

Here is a brief list of ways you can start to recover and find help:

• Take a weekly day of rest. It won’t be Sunday. Seek the Lord and the rest that is in Christ, apart from your ministry labors.

• Get some exercise, a daily and weekly routine.

• Look up “good sleep habits” and apply what you learn.

• Hug each family member daily with an “I love you.”

• Talk with your elders or church leaders about why this matters for you and your long-term usefulness in ministry.

• Find strength in private worship: Bible reading, prayer, singing worship songs.

• Take your vacation, all of it, and do not bring work along.

• Ruthlessly limit tv and phone.

• Find a fellow pastor or counselor who can walk through this with you.

• Keep working on this! Read David Murray’s book, Reset: Living a Grace-Paced Life in a Burnout Culture. Watch the YouTube video of Christopher Ash titled How to Maintain Pastoral Zeal While Avoiding Pastoral Burnout.

• Know that sometimes you must keep going even when you are diminished; you must do what you can by Gods grace.You can learn to serve in weakness too; like Jacob, you can learn to walk with a limp (Genesis 32).

• Make it your goal to serve Christ by being a steward of your strength over the long term of your pastoral ministry.

  
  

Brothers, ministry burnout is real. Rest is necessary. Find your strength in Christ and for his glory.

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Ben O’Toole (M.A., M.Div., Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary) serves as a pastor at Windsor Baptist Church in Eagle, PA. Previously, he served as a missionary with Navigators. He is thankful to do ministry alongside his wife, and together they have five children.