{"id":14258,"date":"2016-11-01T13:41:26","date_gmt":"2016-11-01T20:41:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/?p=14258"},"modified":"2016-11-01T13:41:26","modified_gmt":"2016-11-01T20:41:26","slug":"clergy-wellness-corner-avoiding-burnout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/clergy-wellness-corner-avoiding-burnout\/","title":{"rendered":"Clergy Wellness Corner: Avoiding Burnout"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Rev. John J. Shaffer<\/strong><\/h4>\n

As I reflect on my 51 years in ministry, I am aware that ministry, for the most part, remained fun and meaningful to the end. There was a strong emphasis on continuing education both in Alaska<\/a> and here in the Pacific Northwest<\/a>, in a desire to help clergy with the issue of clergy burnout. I attempted to take advantage of what was offered, as well as finding other opportunities for continuing education.<\/p>\n

I had heard that a general rule of thumb was to seek some kind of \u201cboost\u201d\u00a0after the first ten years of ministry. I felt that I was doing fine for twenty years, but without being aware of it, I was beginning to experience burnout. I was in need of a boost, and circumstances provided it.<\/p>\n

One of the experiences that helped me during that time came through a clergy friend who introduced me to the summer school program<\/strong> at Vancouver School of Theology<\/a>.\u00a0 I jumped at this opportunity, and it was during those years that I was exposed to the teaching and preaching of Dr. Harrell Beck of the Boston School of Theology<\/a>. He made learning and preaching exciting. He lectured like he preached, and after one hour, most of us were sorry to have him stop.<\/p>\n

Various forms of small group ministry<\/strong> were also helpful, as they nurtured my own spirit as well as the other participants. In particular, I found Discipleship<\/em> classes and covenant groups to be vital for both me and the church. After retirement, I had the opportunity to be involved in a group that the Stanwood United Methodist Church<\/a> called CONNEXION GROUPS. This proved to be one of the best spiritual experiences of my life.<\/p>\n

Probably the highlight of all these continuing education experiences was a program I saw advertised in The Christian Century<\/em><\/a>\u00a0magazine in the late 1980’s. It was called the Merrill Fellowship<\/strong>. It offered full scholarship to four active pastors for three months at Harvard Divinity School<\/a>. I was nearing the seventh year of ministry at a church in Anchorage, so I thought I could talk the congregation into helping me make that happen. I would use my salary to hire a replacement, as the fellowship provided all expenses. Lo and behold, I was accepted. Everything was working well until I was asked to move to another congregation. Visualize this: moving to a new parish and taking a sabbatical during my first year there.\u00a0 It was rocky, but it worked out. Three months at Harvard and in Boston. Talk about recharging one’s batteries! It was truly a great gift!<\/p>\n

Through these experiences and more, I became so excited about ministry that I eventually decided to continue working until The Discipline of The United Methodist Church<\/em> forced me to retire. The biggest compliment I ever got was from a lay person at my retirement celebration: he thanked me for working hard right up to the end. And indeed I did. And I would wish the same for all of my colleagues.<\/p>\n

Clergy burnout was avoided, thanks to a superintendent who encouraged continuing education experiences and a big dose of luck. Take advantage of whatever is offered, and insist on utilizing what is allowed. And may God bless your ministry.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Rev. John J. Shaffer As I reflect on my 51 years in ministry, I am aware that ministry, for the most part, remained fun and meaningful to the end. There was a strong emphasis on continuing education both in Alaska and here in the Pacific Northwest, in a desire to help clergy with the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":11751,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[482,475,6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-14258","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-clergy","8":"category-clergy-wellness","9":"category-conversation"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/clergy-wellness-1.jpg?fit=1100%2C586&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2l75j-3HY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14258"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14260,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14258\/revisions\/14260"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}