June 5, 2024 • 28 mins
While on sabbatical (yes, I'm taking my own advice), we are replaying podcasts where our brave guests tell their journey into and out of burnout. You won't want to miss these as there's always something to learn from others, right?
This is the story that Rev. Tony Miltenberger shared with me and it's one where he draws parallels with his demanding time in the Army Reserves. Our conversation underscores the dangers of righteous indignation in ministry and the importance of balancing personal responsibilities to avoid losing oneself in the mission.
For ministry leaders seeking practical advice to prevent burnout and build emotionally healthy practices, this episode is a goldmine. Tony offers invaluable insights on navigating the recovery process, the role of marriage and personal counseling, and the creation of life-giving rhythms inspired by Pete Scazzero. We also talk about the crucial need for pastors to carve out personal spiritual renewal time, independent of their ministry duties. Learn from Tony's experiences as he highlights how genuine disciple-making can transform your ministry and ensure you thrive both personally and professionally. Tune in for a heartfelt discussion packed with strategies to help you cultivate a sustainable and fulfilling ministry life.
This is a GUILT-FREE zone! So here's your friendly nudge about self-care and its importance for your family, friends, and those you serve in ministry.
Contact info:
Email me at crabbypastor@gmail.com with your input and ideas for burnout and leadership topics of interest or if you know someone who might be interesting to interview.
Visit my website:
YOUR LEADERSHIP COACH FOCUSED ON BURNOUT PREVENTION
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CLICK HERE FOR THE BURNOUT SYMPTOMS TEST.
I love scouring around to find great content to share, and am always interested in feedback, if you are or know of someone willing to share their Back from Burnout story so we can all learn together, then CLICK HERE to email me.
And, if this is a reminder you wish to opt out of, that's fine too.
Blessings on your journey!
Margie
🦀 🦀 🦀
Find regular support on my Facebook group: Building Sustainability in Ministry Leaders: Beating Burnout.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Margie (00:01):
Hey there, Margie Bryce here bringing you the Crabby
Pastor podcast, and I don'tthink you're going to be too
surprised to know that it's tooeasy today to become the Crabby
Pastor.
Our time together will give youfood for thought to help you be
the ministry leader fullysurrendered to God's purposes
(00:24):
and living into whatever ittakes to get you there and keep
you there.
So we're talking aboutsustainability in ministry.
We are here today with ReverendTony Miltenberger and I am
going to let Tony tell usexactly what he's up to these
(00:47):
days.
He is not in a pastoralcapacity, yet very active in
ministry.
So tell us, tony, about what itis you're up to.
Tony (00:58):
Well, thank you so much for having me on the show today.
It's a real treat to be here.
I'll tell you that I was in alocal church for just over 10
years and now I work for a 501c3nonprofit called Spirit and
Truth, where we walk alongsideand equip the local church in
areas of disciple-making,evangelism and leaning into the
power of the Holy Spirit.
(01:18):
So I get to travel all over thecountry and talk to church
leaders and pastors aboutdisciple-making.
I also get to create contentfor disciple making and I blog a
little bit we have a sub stackand then also record two
podcasts one called theReclamation Podcast, the other
one is called the PractitionersPodcast.
Both of them are all aboutJesus style disciple making and
(01:42):
what that looks like.
Margie (01:43):
Okay, and you're kind of crazy about disciple making,
aren't you?
Tony (01:48):
It's my passion, it's what wakes me up at night, gets
me thinking.
I think far too often we sellshort the idea of disciple
making and the fullness of lifewith Christ that comes with
disciple making, and for thelast couple of decades the
church has done not a great jobat teaching people to follow
Jesus, but instead teaching themhow to go to church, and that
(02:09):
little nuance change couldchange everything.
Margie (02:12):
Yeah, we're supposed to be disciple making factories.
I think I read somewhere onceand that has kind of lost its
steam a little bit, I don't yeah, so hopefully recapturing that
will be a huge, huge plus.
So one thing I do want to do upfront, because I always seem to
(02:32):
forget this, and I had somebodygraphically remind me they said
the big disappointment for themthey said this at the end of
the interview was that I, here Iam, I'm on the Krabby Pastor
podcast and you never asked mewhat makes me Krabby.
So before I forget to do that,I want to ask you, tony, what
(02:55):
makes you Krabby and what do youdo about that?
Tony (02:58):
In life or in pastoring?
Let me ask that differently.
Margie (03:02):
Oh, all right, We'll let you off the hook and just say
ministry related.
Tony (03:08):
Ministry related.
What makes me most crabby iswhen people see the church as a
place to be a consumer and notan owner.
So when people come in andcomplain about things like
worship times or music or volumeand all of a sudden they're
(03:33):
just resorted to the idea thatthey're a consumer of the
ministry and not an owner ofGod's mission.
Margie (03:39):
And that will do it right yeah.
Tony (03:43):
And the only thing I know how to do after that is to pray
, because it's really hard toget someone who's seen
themselves as a consumer theirwhole life to become an owner in
one statement.
So pray and then get close tohim for disciple making.
Margie (03:57):
Yes, yes, great, great, well good, thank you.
I didn't want to forget to askyou that, since you are on the
Krabby Pastor podcast.
But the reason I asked you onhere is because you have it
sounds kind of strange to say agreat burnout story.
Just, I don't know, that feelsa little irreverent.
(04:19):
I don't mean to be irreverentthis time, but what I wanted to
ask you about then is your rolewhen you were in pastoral
ministry and your burnoutjourney.
Tony (04:34):
Yeah.
So I think the best place tostart is to know that my
ministry career started in theArmy Reserves.
So I was a chaplain's assistantin the Army Reserve and I got
to travel around the worldhelping soldiers connect with
God.
And so I did that and it wasgreat and I really struggled to
(04:55):
find my identity and, like somany people, after a deployment
I was in Kuwait from 04 to 05.
I went and started bouncingaround jobs and not sure that I
could do ministry, and then in2011, I jumped into ministry
full-time at a very large UnitedMethodist Church called
(05:19):
Ginghamsburg United MethodistChurch and I was the director of
adult education and theneventually made my way up to
being a pastor in the MethodistChurch as a licensed local
pastor and became pastor ofadult discipleship, and it was
in that role that I really beganto experience burnout.
(05:42):
But I want to be clear it's notburnout because I was so
overworked.
It's burnout because I lostmyself in the process.
Margie (05:53):
Hmm, and what did that look like?
Tony (05:59):
Well, this may sound funny to a lot of people, but
the local church is the closestthing I ever found to the army,
and so the local church is likethe army in the way that it
connects with what we call thewarrior ethos, which is I will
always place the mission first,I will never accept defeat and I
(06:20):
will never leave a fallencomrade.
So if you take someone who'skind of an extremist like myself
or someone who's all in on themission like myself, and you put
them in the local church, whatyou will quickly find is that
there is always work to be done.
There's always work to be done,and this is the most beautiful
part.
I don't know if all yourpastors that you've had on talk
(06:42):
about this, but there'ssomething beautiful about
righteous indignation when itcomes to the work that you're
doing right.
So you can blow off your family, you can blow off your
responsibilities, you can blowoff all the things that go with
a Christian life, because you'reworking for the church and no
(07:03):
one bats an eye.
Another way to say it comparisonto the army.
My wife and I found out we werepregnant after I had been home
on deployment, and so I missedthe first trimester for
pregnancy because I was still ondeployment.
And I always tell guys that ifyou can miss the first trimester
of a because I was still ondeployment, and I always tell
guys that if you can miss thefirst trimester of a pregnancy
and blame it on the global waron terror, that's a really good
(07:23):
thing.
I suppose, yeah, it's kind offunny, right, but the same thing
is actually true with thechurch that you can blow off
your family for the sake of themission of the church, even
though that's not what Goddesires of us.
And actually that's whathappened to me and that really
caused a lot of tension in mymarriage and it caused a lot of
(07:45):
tension just in my life.
Margie (07:47):
Right, Well, I thought initially you were going to go
with be all you can be.
I actually had a pastor and hewas an amazing pastor.
He was saying that years beforethat became what is it the army
slogan or whatever, but hemeant be all you can be in
Christ.
So he was trying to tie ouridentity that way.
(08:09):
However, it sounds like youridentity was tied to the mission
and in the church, the missionis important, what we're about
is important, but you took it toa different level.
Tony (08:25):
Well, so here's the thing right when I began to idolize
the mission and the work of thechurch, I lost sight of who
Jesus really was for me.
And so in my case and this isan extreme case I'm aware of I
had three kids all under the ageof 10, two boys and a princess.
(08:48):
My family life at home wasrough because I was never there,
and eventually that idea oftrying to figure out who I was
as a pastor, serving all thepeople, trying to keep everyone
happy it, led me to a really,just, really, really dark place.
Margie (09:09):
Yeah, I've heard this story before.
You know, I'm not minimizingyours at all, but I have heard
this before.
It's forsaking everything forthe mission and just ignoring
the family life around you, thepeople God has placed close to
you, and not just ignoring itlike in a mean way, but setting
(09:31):
it aside and going all in forthe mission for the sake of
Jesus, you know, because what itall depends just on you.
I'm being tongue in cheek.
Tony (09:44):
Sure, of course, of course.
But that's a pretty accuratedescription of how I felt.
And the funny part is and I cansee this now from the hindsight
is the resentment of my wife'sfrustration was part of this
buildup for me.
So here I am, serving in thechurch, I'm doing all these
amazing things for the Lord, I'mleading.
At that point in time we had120 life groups and so I'm
(10:08):
leading 120 life group leaders.
There's thousands of people.
Everyone is so excited aboutwhat God is doing through
discipleship in the church andthere was one particular
individual, a staff member, andher and I just became really
close and we're working on themission together.
We're working on the missiontogether.
(10:28):
My wife is not supporting me.
From my perspective, you know,in hindsight now I can see that
that's not actually the case,but in the moment you couldn't
convince me that my wife wasbeing supportive of what God had
called me to.
So look at this perfect stormkind of forming A guy who's
taken his identity and he's putit all in his work, a wife who's
(10:50):
really struggling with threeyoung kids One of them still
even has the new car smell andthen a co-worker who I become
inappropriately close to and itled me right into an emotional
affair and it almost cost me mymarriage.
Margie (11:07):
Yeah, that was.
My next question is because Ithink you're still married to
the same person, right?
Yes, yeah.
Tony (11:18):
And honestly, there was another pastor on the team when
I was in the midst of thisemotional affair who saved my
life and it was probably thebravest thing that anyone's ever
done for me.
And one thing that the Methodistchurch has always been really
good about is encouragingcommunity.
(11:38):
So as I was becoming a pastor,I had this kind of group of guys
, guy pastors, who I was closewith.
Well, one of them had becomeespecially close, a dear friend
of mine, james Keith Posey, andJames Keith and I were in his
office and I felt God kind ofcompel me to tell him what was
(11:59):
going on.
And I knew what I was doing waswrong, was sinful, because
there's nothing in God's wordthat would ever indicate that
God wants me to go against mymarital vows, even though in my
head I can justify it Like hey,I hadn't touched her.
Like you know, we were textingall the time, we were calling
all the time, but for the mostpart I blamed it all on the work
(12:21):
of the Lord and even thoughthat was an inaccurate
description of what I was doing,right, you can't live in sin
and do God's work.
Margie (12:29):
And blame Jesus for it.
Tony (12:31):
right yeah, right yeah and so james keith, my dear
friend, I said, hey, I want youto know that I'm.
I've got a bad situation goingon with this girl, like I'm not
sure what I'm gonna do.
I need to end it, but I'm justhaving a really hard time and we
work together and man, she'sjust really.
She's really a nice human, youknow and, and I enjoy being
(12:55):
around her and she brings me joyand like all these kind of lies
that I had told myself.
And he looked at me, deadpan,and he said, tony, I'm going to
help you.
And I was like, great, you'regoing to go talk to her and let
her know that we can't befriends anymore.
And he said, no, if you don'ttell your wife today, I'm going
(13:15):
to tell her tomorrow.
Margie (13:19):
Wow, that did take courage, definitely, and he was
definitely a good friend to you.
Maybe it didn't feel like itexactly at that moment, but he
was definitely a good friend toyou.
Tony (13:32):
Yeah, the thing is is it's oftentimes in the moment.
It's hard to see that myjudgment couldn't be trusted at
the time, and I would say thisto any pastor that's listening
when you're in the midst ofburnout, when you're in the
midst of a downward spiral, theperson in the mirror is not
someone whose advice can betaken seriously, because if you
(13:55):
can't see God clearly, yousurely cannot see the situation
clearly.
And that's also why I think,when God designed us, we were
never designed to do ministryalone.
That following Jesus, as I liketo say, is a team sport.
Margie (14:21):
Hey, Margie Bryce here and I have something free for
you.
If you are unsure of what yourmindset is when it comes to
self-care, if you know youshould do self-care but you're
just not sure how to get thatrolling, how to get started, I
have a free ebook for you and itis about radical self care and
it will get you started thinkingabout it and has lots of
(14:43):
helpful information.
Actually, what it is, more thananything else, is a journal
style kind of piece that willhelp you work through the
process of self evaluation soyou get a sense of where you are
with self care.
So, to get this free ebook, I'mgoing to put a link in the show
(15:08):
notes and you can access itfrom there and it can help you
get started on the self carethat you know you should be
doing anyway and get you startedmaybe on taking some definitive
action to ensure that you havethe sustainability necessary to
(15:29):
go the distance with God, withGod.
So your burnout led you into avulnerability and a situation
that you then had to find a wayout of.
Talk to us some about that.
Tony (15:51):
Yeah, the reality is the burnout had just taken me off
the rails, and so that night Iwent home and told my wife what
was going on, and the next daywe made a plan to go in and tell
the senior pastor.
I was an associate pastor atthe time and we had to confess
to the senior pastor what wasgoing on, and by God's grace and
(16:11):
his grace I didn't get fired,because certainly it would have
been within his rights.
I was in a sinful,inappropriate relationship, even
though we hadn't touched eachother physically, emotionally we
were pretty well intertwined.
And then the next year of mylife was spent digging out of
(16:32):
burnout and digging out of thesin and digging into creating
new rhythms and guardrails thatwould give me the ability to do
God's work in a healthy way.
Margie (16:44):
And talk to us some about some of what that entailed
the digging out.
Tony (16:50):
Lots of marriage counseling, lots of marriage
counseling, lots of my owncounseling.
I'm now, gosh, almost 10 yearsremoved from that and I still
see a counselor once a month,even if even if I don't have
anything urgent to talk about, Itreat it like an oil change.
The other thing is is marriagecounseling, personal counseling
(17:13):
and then marriage retreats.
So we really needed to begin toreform the foundation of our
marriage at that point in time,10, 10 and a half, almost 11
years in, so that was animportant part of the healing
process for us is creating newideas, new rhythms, new
(17:34):
boundaries on, and what thatwould look like.
You know, I don't think anyonewakes up one day and says, man,
I want to fall into burnout, orwhen, I want to fall into sin,
or I want to fall into a placethat could potentially ruin my
ministry.
What ends up happening is is weget out of the disciplines that
keep us in a healthy place, andso discipline, you know, as the
(17:56):
Hebrews reminds us, never feelspleasant at the time I think
this is Hebrews 12, but itlevels the path in front of us,
and so oftentimes we feel like Ifelt like that I was in burnout
because the path wasn't level.
I was going up a hill that Icouldn't get my footing on, and
(18:17):
discipline is one of the waysthat I really believe that
creates a level path.
Margie (18:23):
So how would you say that that experience informs how
you do ministry today?
Tony (18:31):
I would say that everything is done differently
now because of that experience,and so I have different
guardrails, I have differentrules about how I'm close with
people of the opposite sex.
I have rules about my personaldevotions.
I have rules about, like, how Iapproach the word and prayer
and, just honestly, theimportance of ministry in
(18:52):
general.
When you risk losing yourentire family, ministry doesn't
seem that important and I think,by God's grace, I've been able
to keep that perspective overthe years.
Now I also have a really strictkind of rule of life, and I
borrowed this from Pete ScazzaroEmotionally Healthy,
spiritually.
I'm sure you're familiar withit.
(19:14):
It's that rule of life hasreally helped formed my
practices.
So I also learned that don'tnegotiate on your schedule when
you're feeling rather emotional,right?
When you're hungry, angry,lonely, tired.
In the recovery world we callthat halt right.
So don't make a decision aboutministry when you're hungry,
(19:35):
angry, lonely or tired.
Margie (19:37):
Right, well, say, can you go back?
Let's circle back for just asecond for our listeners that
may not be aware or in touchwith the Pete Scazzaro rule of
life.
Tony (19:50):
Yeah, it's kind of this idea that we create boundaries
for the things that we value andare important for us.
So the rule of life is like hey, I have a rule around work, I
have a rule around physical, Ihave a rule around spiritual and
emotional, and then I have arule around my family.
So one of the things in my ruleof life is that I won't work
(20:12):
more than three nights a week.
So, no matter what, I don'twork more than three nights a
week.
I go to the gym three to fivetimes a week, I go to my
therapist once a month, I dodevotionals every day and I pray
over my wife every night.
Margie (20:28):
Nice, nice.
What would you say then to ourlisteners?
That is maybe a warning signthat burnout is in the process,
in the making.
Can you offer us anyidentifiers of that?
Or times that okay, if this isgoing down, if I'm feeling this
(20:51):
way, if I'm looking at life thisway?
Tony (20:59):
this way, if I'm looking at life this way, I'm probably
heading down, not the best path.
Yeah, I would say that whenyour identity becomes something
that you think that you canstrive after, right.
So for me, burnout is oftengoes hand in glove with striving
.
So if I think that I can chasedown my identity, right, If my
identity is my work, if myidentity is any of those things,
(21:20):
then I know that I'm already ina really bad place, you know.
And that bad place is not goingto, it's going to spiral me out
of control eventually.
So I would tell you to pause,take a look around, ask yourself
have you become your job?
And if the answer is yes,you're on a one-way path to
(21:41):
burnout.
Margie (21:42):
Right, right, and technically speaking, you know,
as ministry leaders it's notreally a job per se, but it's
very easy to get caught up inthat.
But it's a vocation and acalling, and nowhere in
scripture do we see Jesus.
It says Jesus is booked like alunatic to Bethany.
(22:04):
I mean, you just don't see thatkind of thing we have in North
American Christianity.
I'll speak to that point thatwe are the ones that tend to
produce the type A overdrivennickels.
Noses are the things thatmatter and my identity is tied
to my job performance.
(22:24):
Right, and ministry doesn'tfunction like that.
Yet the challenge is majorityof churches are 75 or fewer
people in North America rightnow, unless you have the fortune
of living down the street fromOmega, something which, for the
smaller church pastors, can be achallenge and a pressure for
(22:48):
them to do more and more andmore and more.
Tony (22:54):
Yeah, performance-based rewards in the church world feel
exactly the opposite of whatJesus would want.
Margie (23:02):
Yeah, you caught the most fish, so you win the prize.
Tony (23:07):
Well, I often tell pastors now when I talk to them
about disciple-making if Jesuswas in our churches today, we
would fire him, because he wasreally rather exclusive in the
people that he poured into.
He was inclusive in servingeveryone, but he was exclusive
in who we spent time with andwhat that looks like.
If you said, hey, for the nextthree years I'm only going to
(23:29):
hang out with 12 guys and threeof them are going to be extra
close.
Everybody else, I'm just goingto kind of pop by and do this
thing here, this thing there.
I'm not going to go to anycommittee meetings and I'm not
going to bow down to thecultural idols that already
exist in the church.
I'm pretty sure no one wouldsurvive.
Margie (23:49):
According to the institutional, that's right.
The church institutions,pressures, and and heaven forbid
, you didn't even have to fillout any paperwork, did you?
No reports, no annual reportsand all that.
Tony (24:03):
That's 100% right.
Margie (24:04):
Yeah, the institutional aspect of the church has really
put a whole other level ofpressure on pastors.
And then they start runningaccording to that pressure, not
according to the pace and loadthat Jesus asks us.
And then the next thing youknow, you're in a place that you
never intended to be in.
(24:25):
You're vulnerable in a way thatyou never expected to be.
So that's some of what I'veseen, heard and all that, and
I've experienced burnout notexactly in the same way that you
did, but burnout nonethelesswhere I was just no good to
nobody for a period of time,where it's like don't even
(24:47):
follow me to the corner store.
Tony (24:51):
Yeah, I mean, I think that that's right.
No one wakes up one day andsays, man, I really want to get
burned out.
What we end up doing is we endup shortcutting the lordship of
Jesus.
Margie (25:03):
Oh, say more about that.
That's a pretty big statement.
Tony (25:08):
Well, it's kind of summarizing.
What you were just saying isthat if I think that I'm the
savior of the church, then howcan Jesus be lord of my life?
If I think that everyone's hereto see me and I have something
to do with attendance, then howcan Jesus be Lord of my life?
But if we're brave enough tojust focus on Jesus and keep
(25:32):
Jesus in the heart of what we'retrying to do, I think we'll end
up seeing some prettyincredible results.
Margie (25:41):
Right?
Well, I'm going to close oursession a little bit here, head
towards that and just ask youwhat would be your top couple of
things that you would want tosay to a pastor who may be
experiencing burnout or thinksthey might be.
What would you say to themright now?
Tony (26:00):
I believe that every pastor needs a counselor.
Whether that counselor isprofessional or if it's a coach
or if it's just there, has to besomeone where you can unload
the crazy parts of your braininto.
So that would be the firstthing I would say.
The second thing I would say isno one from your church, no
matter what church you serve, nomatter how long you've been
(26:22):
there, are going to be thepeople that stand beside you on
your deathbed.
That's going to be your family,that's going to be your wife and
kids, or your husband and kids,so don't prioritize strangers
over the people who are going towalk with you for the rest of
your life, and so those wouldprobably be the areas where I
(26:45):
would tell people to start.
And then the last thing issomething that I've noticed a
lot is so many pastors I hearand talk to are so busy doing
ministry they're not lettingJesus minister to them.
Doing ministry, they're notletting Jesus minister to them.
So find time in the stillnessof the morning or the stillness
of the night to be intentionalwith your devotional time to
(27:06):
Jesus and make sure that you'relooking at scripture.
That's not related to somethingyou have to preach on.
Margie (27:13):
Yes, the two for one.
Don't do the two for one well.
Thank you so much, tony, forsharing with us, for being brave
.
I'm interviewing a few pastorsthat have come back from burnout
during this month and Iappreciate your vulnerability to
share with us, so thank you somuch for joining us well.
Tony (27:36):
Thank you for having me and for the ministry you're
doing to so many of our brothersand sisters in Christ all over
the US.
Margie (27:42):
Well, you're welcome and we'll talk again, I'm sure,
soon and at some point.
Hey, thanks for listening.
It is my deep desire andpassion to champion issues of
sustainability in ministry andfor your life, so I'm here to
help.
I stepped back from pastoralministry and I feel called to
(28:07):
help ministry leaders create andcultivate sustainability in
their lives so that they can gothe distance with God and
whatever plans that God has foryou.
I would love to help, I wouldconsider it an honor and, in all
things, make sure you connectto these sustainability
(28:30):
practices you know, so that youdon't become the Crabby pastor.
Hey there, Margie Bryce here bringing you the Crabby
Pastor podcast, and I don'tthink you're going to be too
surprised to know that it's tooeasy today to become the Crabby
Pastor.
Our time together will give youfood for thought to help you be
the ministry leader fullysurrendered to God's purposes
(00:24):
and living into whatever ittakes to get you there and keep
you there.
So we're talking aboutsustainability in ministry.
We are here today with ReverendTony Miltenberger and I am
going to let Tony tell usexactly what he's up to these
(00:47):
days.
He is not in a pastoralcapacity, yet very active in
ministry.
So tell us, tony, about what itis you're up to.
Tony (00:58):
Well, thank you so much for having me on the show today.
It's a real treat to be here.
I'll tell you that I was in alocal church for just over 10
years and now I work for a 501c3nonprofit called Spirit and
Truth, where we walk alongsideand equip the local church in
areas of disciple-making,evangelism and leaning into the
power of the Holy Spirit.
(01:18):
So I get to travel all over thecountry and talk to church
leaders and pastors aboutdisciple-making.
I also get to create contentfor disciple making and I blog a
little bit we have a sub stackand then also record two
podcasts one called theReclamation Podcast, the other
one is called the PractitionersPodcast.
Both of them are all aboutJesus style disciple making and
(01:42):
what that looks like.
Margie (01:43):
Okay, and you're kind of crazy about disciple making,
aren't you?
Tony (01:48):
It's my passion, it's what wakes me up at night, gets
me thinking.
I think far too often we sellshort the idea of disciple
making and the fullness of lifewith Christ that comes with
disciple making, and for thelast couple of decades the
church has done not a great jobat teaching people to follow
Jesus, but instead teaching themhow to go to church, and that
(02:09):
little nuance change couldchange everything.
Margie (02:12):
Yeah, we're supposed to be disciple making factories.
I think I read somewhere onceand that has kind of lost its
steam a little bit, I don't yeah, so hopefully recapturing that
will be a huge, huge plus.
So one thing I do want to do upfront, because I always seem to
(02:32):
forget this, and I had somebodygraphically remind me they said
the big disappointment for themthey said this at the end of
the interview was that I, here Iam, I'm on the Krabby Pastor
podcast and you never asked mewhat makes me Krabby.
So before I forget to do that,I want to ask you, tony, what
(02:55):
makes you Krabby and what do youdo about that?
Tony (02:58):
In life or in pastoring?
Let me ask that differently.
Margie (03:02):
Oh, all right, We'll let you off the hook and just say
ministry related.
Tony (03:08):
Ministry related.
What makes me most crabby iswhen people see the church as a
place to be a consumer and notan owner.
So when people come in andcomplain about things like
worship times or music or volumeand all of a sudden they're
(03:33):
just resorted to the idea thatthey're a consumer of the
ministry and not an owner ofGod's mission.
Margie (03:39):
And that will do it right yeah.
Tony (03:43):
And the only thing I know how to do after that is to pray
, because it's really hard toget someone who's seen
themselves as a consumer theirwhole life to become an owner in
one statement.
So pray and then get close tohim for disciple making.
Margie (03:57):
Yes, yes, great, great, well good, thank you.
I didn't want to forget to askyou that, since you are on the
Krabby Pastor podcast.
But the reason I asked you onhere is because you have it
sounds kind of strange to say agreat burnout story.
Just, I don't know, that feelsa little irreverent.
(04:19):
I don't mean to be irreverentthis time, but what I wanted to
ask you about then is your rolewhen you were in pastoral
ministry and your burnoutjourney.
Tony (04:34):
Yeah.
So I think the best place tostart is to know that my
ministry career started in theArmy Reserves.
So I was a chaplain's assistantin the Army Reserve and I got
to travel around the worldhelping soldiers connect with
God.
And so I did that and it wasgreat and I really struggled to
(04:55):
find my identity and, like somany people, after a deployment
I was in Kuwait from 04 to 05.
I went and started bouncingaround jobs and not sure that I
could do ministry, and then in2011, I jumped into ministry
full-time at a very large UnitedMethodist Church called
(05:19):
Ginghamsburg United MethodistChurch and I was the director of
adult education and theneventually made my way up to
being a pastor in the MethodistChurch as a licensed local
pastor and became pastor ofadult discipleship, and it was
in that role that I really beganto experience burnout.
(05:42):
But I want to be clear it's notburnout because I was so
overworked.
It's burnout because I lostmyself in the process.
Margie (05:53):
Hmm, and what did that look like?
Tony (05:59):
Well, this may sound funny to a lot of people, but
the local church is the closestthing I ever found to the army,
and so the local church is likethe army in the way that it
connects with what we call thewarrior ethos, which is I will
always place the mission first,I will never accept defeat and I
(06:20):
will never leave a fallencomrade.
So if you take someone who'skind of an extremist like myself
or someone who's all in on themission like myself, and you put
them in the local church, whatyou will quickly find is that
there is always work to be done.
There's always work to be done,and this is the most beautiful
part.
I don't know if all yourpastors that you've had on talk
(06:42):
about this, but there'ssomething beautiful about
righteous indignation when itcomes to the work that you're
doing right.
So you can blow off your family, you can blow off your
responsibilities, you can blowoff all the things that go with
a Christian life, because you'reworking for the church and no
(07:03):
one bats an eye.
Another way to say it comparisonto the army.
My wife and I found out we werepregnant after I had been home
on deployment, and so I missedthe first trimester for
pregnancy because I was still ondeployment.
And I always tell guys that ifyou can miss the first trimester
of a because I was still ondeployment, and I always tell
guys that if you can miss thefirst trimester of a pregnancy
and blame it on the global waron terror, that's a really good
(07:23):
thing.
I suppose, yeah, it's kind offunny, right, but the same thing
is actually true with thechurch that you can blow off
your family for the sake of themission of the church, even
though that's not what Goddesires of us.
And actually that's whathappened to me and that really
caused a lot of tension in mymarriage and it caused a lot of
(07:45):
tension just in my life.
Margie (07:47):
Right, Well, I thought initially you were going to go
with be all you can be.
I actually had a pastor and hewas an amazing pastor.
He was saying that years beforethat became what is it the army
slogan or whatever, but hemeant be all you can be in
Christ.
So he was trying to tie ouridentity that way.
(08:09):
However, it sounds like youridentity was tied to the mission
and in the church, the missionis important, what we're about
is important, but you took it toa different level.
Tony (08:25):
Well, so here's the thing right when I began to idolize
the mission and the work of thechurch, I lost sight of who
Jesus really was for me.
And so in my case and this isan extreme case I'm aware of I
had three kids all under the ageof 10, two boys and a princess.
(08:48):
My family life at home wasrough because I was never there,
and eventually that idea oftrying to figure out who I was
as a pastor, serving all thepeople, trying to keep everyone
happy it, led me to a really,just, really, really dark place.
Margie (09:09):
Yeah, I've heard this story before.
You know, I'm not minimizingyours at all, but I have heard
this before.
It's forsaking everything forthe mission and just ignoring
the family life around you, thepeople God has placed close to
you, and not just ignoring itlike in a mean way, but setting
(09:31):
it aside and going all in forthe mission for the sake of
Jesus, you know, because what itall depends just on you.
I'm being tongue in cheek.
Tony (09:44):
Sure, of course, of course.
But that's a pretty accuratedescription of how I felt.
And the funny part is and I cansee this now from the hindsight
is the resentment of my wife'sfrustration was part of this
buildup for me.
So here I am, serving in thechurch, I'm doing all these
amazing things for the Lord, I'mleading.
At that point in time we had120 life groups and so I'm
(10:08):
leading 120 life group leaders.
There's thousands of people.
Everyone is so excited aboutwhat God is doing through
discipleship in the church andthere was one particular
individual, a staff member, andher and I just became really
close and we're working on themission together.
We're working on the missiontogether.
(10:28):
My wife is not supporting me.
From my perspective, you know,in hindsight now I can see that
that's not actually the case,but in the moment you couldn't
convince me that my wife wasbeing supportive of what God had
called me to.
So look at this perfect stormkind of forming A guy who's
taken his identity and he's putit all in his work, a wife who's
(10:50):
really struggling with threeyoung kids One of them still
even has the new car smell andthen a co-worker who I become
inappropriately close to and itled me right into an emotional
affair and it almost cost me mymarriage.
Margie (11:07):
Yeah, that was.
My next question is because Ithink you're still married to
the same person, right?
Yes, yeah.
Tony (11:18):
And honestly, there was another pastor on the team when
I was in the midst of thisemotional affair who saved my
life and it was probably thebravest thing that anyone's ever
done for me.
And one thing that the Methodistchurch has always been really
good about is encouragingcommunity.
(11:38):
So as I was becoming a pastor,I had this kind of group of guys
, guy pastors, who I was closewith.
Well, one of them had becomeespecially close, a dear friend
of mine, james Keith Posey, andJames Keith and I were in his
office and I felt God kind ofcompel me to tell him what was
(11:59):
going on.
And I knew what I was doing waswrong, was sinful, because
there's nothing in God's wordthat would ever indicate that
God wants me to go against mymarital vows, even though in my
head I can justify it Like hey,I hadn't touched her.
Like you know, we were textingall the time, we were calling
all the time, but for the mostpart I blamed it all on the work
(12:21):
of the Lord and even thoughthat was an inaccurate
description of what I was doing,right, you can't live in sin
and do God's work.
Margie (12:29):
And blame Jesus for it.
Tony (12:31):
right yeah, right yeah and so james keith, my dear
friend, I said, hey, I want youto know that I'm.
I've got a bad situation goingon with this girl, like I'm not
sure what I'm gonna do.
I need to end it, but I'm justhaving a really hard time and we
work together and man, she'sjust really.
She's really a nice human, youknow and, and I enjoy being
(12:55):
around her and she brings me joyand like all these kind of lies
that I had told myself.
And he looked at me, deadpan,and he said, tony, I'm going to
help you.
And I was like, great, you'regoing to go talk to her and let
her know that we can't befriends anymore.
And he said, no, if you don'ttell your wife today, I'm going
(13:15):
to tell her tomorrow.
Margie (13:19):
Wow, that did take courage, definitely, and he was
definitely a good friend to you.
Maybe it didn't feel like itexactly at that moment, but he
was definitely a good friend toyou.
Tony (13:32):
Yeah, the thing is is it's oftentimes in the moment.
It's hard to see that myjudgment couldn't be trusted at
the time, and I would say thisto any pastor that's listening
when you're in the midst ofburnout, when you're in the
midst of a downward spiral, theperson in the mirror is not
someone whose advice can betaken seriously, because if you
(13:55):
can't see God clearly, yousurely cannot see the situation
clearly.
And that's also why I think,when God designed us, we were
never designed to do ministryalone.
That following Jesus, as I liketo say, is a team sport.
Margie (14:21):
Hey, Margie Bryce here and I have something free for
you.
If you are unsure of what yourmindset is when it comes to
self-care, if you know youshould do self-care but you're
just not sure how to get thatrolling, how to get started, I
have a free ebook for you and itis about radical self care and
it will get you started thinkingabout it and has lots of
(14:43):
helpful information.
Actually, what it is, more thananything else, is a journal
style kind of piece that willhelp you work through the
process of self evaluation soyou get a sense of where you are
with self care.
So, to get this free ebook, I'mgoing to put a link in the show
(15:08):
notes and you can access itfrom there and it can help you
get started on the self carethat you know you should be
doing anyway and get you startedmaybe on taking some definitive
action to ensure that you havethe sustainability necessary to
(15:29):
go the distance with God, withGod.
So your burnout led you into avulnerability and a situation
that you then had to find a wayout of.
Talk to us some about that.
Tony (15:51):
Yeah, the reality is the burnout had just taken me off
the rails, and so that night Iwent home and told my wife what
was going on, and the next daywe made a plan to go in and tell
the senior pastor.
I was an associate pastor atthe time and we had to confess
to the senior pastor what wasgoing on, and by God's grace and
(16:11):
his grace I didn't get fired,because certainly it would have
been within his rights.
I was in a sinful,inappropriate relationship, even
though we hadn't touched eachother physically, emotionally we
were pretty well intertwined.
And then the next year of mylife was spent digging out of
(16:32):
burnout and digging out of thesin and digging into creating
new rhythms and guardrails thatwould give me the ability to do
God's work in a healthy way.
Margie (16:44):
And talk to us some about some of what that entailed
the digging out.
Tony (16:50):
Lots of marriage counseling, lots of marriage
counseling, lots of my owncounseling.
I'm now, gosh, almost 10 yearsremoved from that and I still
see a counselor once a month,even if even if I don't have
anything urgent to talk about, Itreat it like an oil change.
The other thing is is marriagecounseling, personal counseling
(17:13):
and then marriage retreats.
So we really needed to begin toreform the foundation of our
marriage at that point in time,10, 10 and a half, almost 11
years in, so that was animportant part of the healing
process for us is creating newideas, new rhythms, new
(17:34):
boundaries on, and what thatwould look like.
You know, I don't think anyonewakes up one day and says, man,
I want to fall into burnout, orwhen, I want to fall into sin,
or I want to fall into a placethat could potentially ruin my
ministry.
What ends up happening is is weget out of the disciplines that
keep us in a healthy place, andso discipline, you know, as the
(17:56):
Hebrews reminds us, never feelspleasant at the time I think
this is Hebrews 12, but itlevels the path in front of us,
and so oftentimes we feel like Ifelt like that I was in burnout
because the path wasn't level.
I was going up a hill that Icouldn't get my footing on, and
(18:17):
discipline is one of the waysthat I really believe that
creates a level path.
Margie (18:23):
So how would you say that that experience informs how
you do ministry today?
Tony (18:31):
I would say that everything is done differently
now because of that experience,and so I have different
guardrails, I have differentrules about how I'm close with
people of the opposite sex.
I have rules about my personaldevotions.
I have rules about, like, how Iapproach the word and prayer
and, just honestly, theimportance of ministry in
(18:52):
general.
When you risk losing yourentire family, ministry doesn't
seem that important and I think,by God's grace, I've been able
to keep that perspective overthe years.
Now I also have a really strictkind of rule of life, and I
borrowed this from Pete ScazzaroEmotionally Healthy,
spiritually.
I'm sure you're familiar withit.
(19:14):
It's that rule of life hasreally helped formed my
practices.
So I also learned that don'tnegotiate on your schedule when
you're feeling rather emotional,right?
When you're hungry, angry,lonely, tired.
In the recovery world we callthat halt right.
So don't make a decision aboutministry when you're hungry,
(19:35):
angry, lonely or tired.
Margie (19:37):
Right, well, say, can you go back?
Let's circle back for just asecond for our listeners that
may not be aware or in touchwith the Pete Scazzaro rule of
life.
Tony (19:50):
Yeah, it's kind of this idea that we create boundaries
for the things that we value andare important for us.
So the rule of life is like hey, I have a rule around work, I
have a rule around physical, Ihave a rule around spiritual and
emotional, and then I have arule around my family.
So one of the things in my ruleof life is that I won't work
(20:12):
more than three nights a week.
So, no matter what, I don'twork more than three nights a
week.
I go to the gym three to fivetimes a week, I go to my
therapist once a month, I dodevotionals every day and I pray
over my wife every night.
Margie (20:28):
Nice, nice.
What would you say then to ourlisteners?
That is maybe a warning signthat burnout is in the process,
in the making.
Can you offer us anyidentifiers of that?
Or times that okay, if this isgoing down, if I'm feeling this
(20:51):
way, if I'm looking at life thisway?
Tony (20:59):
this way, if I'm looking at life this way, I'm probably
heading down, not the best path.
Yeah, I would say that whenyour identity becomes something
that you think that you canstrive after, right.
So for me, burnout is oftengoes hand in glove with striving
.
So if I think that I can chasedown my identity, right, If my
identity is my work, if myidentity is any of those things,
(21:20):
then I know that I'm already ina really bad place, you know.
And that bad place is not goingto, it's going to spiral me out
of control eventually.
So I would tell you to pause,take a look around, ask yourself
have you become your job?
And if the answer is yes,you're on a one-way path to
(21:41):
burnout.
Margie (21:42):
Right, right, and technically speaking, you know,
as ministry leaders it's notreally a job per se, but it's
very easy to get caught up inthat.
But it's a vocation and acalling, and nowhere in
scripture do we see Jesus.
It says Jesus is booked like alunatic to Bethany.
(22:04):
I mean, you just don't see thatkind of thing we have in North
American Christianity.
I'll speak to that point thatwe are the ones that tend to
produce the type A overdrivennickels.
Noses are the things thatmatter and my identity is tied
to my job performance.
(22:24):
Right, and ministry doesn'tfunction like that.
Yet the challenge is majorityof churches are 75 or fewer
people in North America rightnow, unless you have the fortune
of living down the street fromOmega, something which, for the
smaller church pastors, can be achallenge and a pressure for
(22:48):
them to do more and more andmore and more.
Tony (22:54):
Yeah, performance-based rewards in the church world feel
exactly the opposite of whatJesus would want.
Margie (23:02):
Yeah, you caught the most fish, so you win the prize.
Tony (23:07):
Well, I often tell pastors now when I talk to them
about disciple-making if Jesuswas in our churches today, we
would fire him, because he wasreally rather exclusive in the
people that he poured into.
He was inclusive in servingeveryone, but he was exclusive
in who we spent time with andwhat that looks like.
If you said, hey, for the nextthree years I'm only going to
(23:29):
hang out with 12 guys and threeof them are going to be extra
close.
Everybody else, I'm just goingto kind of pop by and do this
thing here, this thing there.
I'm not going to go to anycommittee meetings and I'm not
going to bow down to thecultural idols that already
exist in the church.
I'm pretty sure no one wouldsurvive.
Margie (23:49):
According to the institutional, that's right.
The church institutions,pressures, and and heaven forbid
, you didn't even have to fillout any paperwork, did you?
No reports, no annual reportsand all that.
Tony (24:03):
That's 100% right.
Margie (24:04):
Yeah, the institutional aspect of the church has really
put a whole other level ofpressure on pastors.
And then they start runningaccording to that pressure, not
according to the pace and loadthat Jesus asks us.
And then the next thing youknow, you're in a place that you
never intended to be in.
(24:25):
You're vulnerable in a way thatyou never expected to be.
So that's some of what I'veseen, heard and all that, and
I've experienced burnout notexactly in the same way that you
did, but burnout nonethelesswhere I was just no good to
nobody for a period of time,where it's like don't even
(24:47):
follow me to the corner store.
Tony (24:51):
Yeah, I mean, I think that that's right.
No one wakes up one day andsays, man, I really want to get
burned out.
What we end up doing is we endup shortcutting the lordship of
Jesus.
Margie (25:03):
Oh, say more about that.
That's a pretty big statement.
Tony (25:08):
Well, it's kind of summarizing.
What you were just saying isthat if I think that I'm the
savior of the church, then howcan Jesus be lord of my life?
If I think that everyone's hereto see me and I have something
to do with attendance, then howcan Jesus be Lord of my life?
But if we're brave enough tojust focus on Jesus and keep
(25:32):
Jesus in the heart of what we'retrying to do, I think we'll end
up seeing some prettyincredible results.
Margie (25:41):
Right?
Well, I'm going to close oursession a little bit here, head
towards that and just ask youwhat would be your top couple of
things that you would want tosay to a pastor who may be
experiencing burnout or thinksthey might be.
What would you say to themright now?
Tony (26:00):
I believe that every pastor needs a counselor.
Whether that counselor isprofessional or if it's a coach
or if it's just there, has to besomeone where you can unload
the crazy parts of your braininto.
So that would be the firstthing I would say.
The second thing I would say isno one from your church, no
matter what church you serve, nomatter how long you've been
(26:22):
there, are going to be thepeople that stand beside you on
your deathbed.
That's going to be your family,that's going to be your wife and
kids, or your husband and kids,so don't prioritize strangers
over the people who are going towalk with you for the rest of
your life, and so those wouldprobably be the areas where I
(26:45):
would tell people to start.
And then the last thing issomething that I've noticed a
lot is so many pastors I hearand talk to are so busy doing
ministry they're not lettingJesus minister to them.
Doing ministry, they're notletting Jesus minister to them.
So find time in the stillnessof the morning or the stillness
of the night to be intentionalwith your devotional time to
(27:06):
Jesus and make sure that you'relooking at scripture.
That's not related to somethingyou have to preach on.
Margie (27:13):
Yes, the two for one.
Don't do the two for one well.
Thank you so much, tony, forsharing with us, for being brave
.
I'm interviewing a few pastorsthat have come back from burnout
during this month and Iappreciate your vulnerability to
share with us, so thank you somuch for joining us well.
Tony (27:36):
Thank you for having me and for the ministry you're
doing to so many of our brothersand sisters in Christ all over
the US.
Margie (27:42):
Well, you're welcome and we'll talk again, I'm sure,
soon and at some point.
Hey, thanks for listening.
It is my deep desire andpassion to champion issues of
sustainability in ministry andfor your life, so I'm here to
help.
I stepped back from pastoralministry and I feel called to
(28:07):
help ministry leaders create andcultivate sustainability in
their lives so that they can gothe distance with God and
whatever plans that God has foryou.
I would love to help, I wouldconsider it an honor and, in all
things, make sure you connectto these sustainability
(28:30):
practices you know, so that youdon't become the Crabby pastor.
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