C. Christopher Smith: The Koinonia Way

Sharing ministry with the congregation protects pastors from burnout.

Churches today face a deep health crisis. No, I'm not referring to the rising cost of healthcare, or the obesity epidemic (though both are troubling). I have in mind the problem of pastoral burnout, and the congregational cultures that foster this disease.

The symptoms of pastoral burnout have been well-documented over the last 25 years: ministerial dropout rates approaching 50 percent, rising use of antidepressants, obesity, hypertension, and more. While programs like Duke Divinity School's Clergy Health Initiative and the Lily Endowment's National Clergy Renewal Program have emerged over the last 15 years to raise awareness and work to foster healthier clergy, there seems to be less effort focused on addressing the other side of the equation—promoting healthier congregational cultures that do not burn out their clergy, leaders, and members. Fred Lehr's book Clergy Burnout is a helpful resource for thinking about how the culture of a congregation con

tributes to the health of a church. Lehr uses the pointed language of codependency to describe the conditions that contribute to pastoral burnout. Congregations that expect their pastors to over-perform are often enabled to do less work than we have been called to do as members of Christ's body. Lehr suggests that the journey from unhealthy congregations to healthy ones is marked by a shift in the clergy/laity relationship from codependency to interdependence.

In our recent book Slow Church, John Pattison and I offered a vision of what it means for churches to mature as healthy, interdependent communities. Recognizing the ways that our brokenness as individuals, churches, and societies manifest in congregations, we believe in God's transforming power—and in the possibility of cultivating congregations that are healthier for pastors and laity.

I believe that changing how we understand and function together as local church communities might set us on a journey toward healthier, interdependent congregations. Read more

One of the things that I have learned from my involvement in the pioneering of new churches is that the pastor's sharing of ministry with the congregation is critical to the numerical and spiritual growth of a new church.