Category: Armchair Theology

Last week I wrote a blog post – on pastor burnout, on Pastoring Yourself – in Part I, I named the hard truth: pastors are burning out, bleeding out, and bowing out at staggering rates. I think you all know what I  named – the grind of ministry, the pressure of performance, the competition where there should be collegiality, and the crushing weight of systems like the United Methodist one-year appointment cycle. I made the case for why self-pastoring isn’t just important—it’s essential. But now, let’s move from the “why” to the “how” with a little more imagination. Because let’s be honest: we’ve all heard the usual advice I named in the previous post. Take a Sabbath. Go to therapy. Drink water. These are good The rest of the story

I read this stat the other day “The best and most conservative estimate is that 30% of those who go into ministry are not in ministry 5 years after they begin, and an even greater percentage will not end their vocational career in pastoral ministry.” Let that sink in…. I’ll wait. I can’t quite stop thinking about it. I also feel it. This is a hard job! And while I would like to think this is just some sensationalist stat tossed around to scare seminary students. It’s a sobering truth. A truth many of us in ministry know not just from data, but from watching our friends and colleagues quietly slip away from pulpits and parish life. Some leave with a bang; many more leave The rest of the story

Today is Easter Saturday it’s a day nestled between the sorrow of Good Friday and the joy of Easter Sunday. It’s a day traditionally marked by silence, waiting, and uncertainty, and a day that is often forgotten. For the disciples, it was a time of despair. The one they followed, who healed the sick and challenged the status quo, was gone -killed by the empire. Their hopes seemed buried with Him. Many of them were hiding and scared…were they next? Today, many of us find ourselves in a similar state of uncertainty. We see brown bodies being deported without due process. We hear the rumbling of the president and his crowd about deporting US citizens, or political dissenters the same and we wonder, are we The rest of the story