How I Used the Flexibility of Pastoral Ministry to Alleviate My Pandemic Burnout – Transcript
Jim Latimer
Welcome to Coaching for Interims. We are about empowerment for interim ministry, best practices and quick help – wisdom from the field. This is our collaborative Wisdom from the Field project featuring short interviews with transitional interim ministers and others with practical help and wisdom to offer those engaged in transitional ministry. Thank you for tuning into this episode of Wisdom from the Field.
Jim Latimer
I’m your host, Reverend Jim Latimer. Today we have the good fortune of having with us, Reverend Anna Tew. Anna is a millennial, an ELCA minister. And she’s a settled minister, yet the issues are similar with interim ministry, though the pace is a little bit different. But a lot of the issues that are similar, especially this one. And this first topic was around burnout. And I’ve known Anna for a while. And when I first met her, things were kind of slow, and she had said to me directly, I might leave pastoral ministry, and I’m thinking, oh, man, what a loss. And then she went off and did a something. She did something but she is engaged now and happy. And I’m thinking Anna, would you talk to us about that? Because there’s a lot of folks, interim, settled, other folks that are struggling with that space, so, it you could say speak to us, Anna…
Anna Tew
Absolutely. So, I’ll start by describing the question and also say, first off that a lot of the time when we talk about burnout, we blame the people who are burned out that, You’re not doing this, and, You’re not doing that. So, basically, what I want to do is tell my story and hope that it resonates with someone else, because for some people, the answer is find a new career. This is really not working. I am burned out. And that’s of no fault of your own.
Anna Tew
But here’s what happened for me. Leading up to the pandemic, and then especially during the pandemic, I was feeling really burned out. I was taking on other people’s expectations. I felt like everybody in the congregation was my boss. And I had to please them all. It’s easy to do.
Jim Latimer
Oh, man. Yeah.
Anna Tew
And I did a lot of what Glennon Doyle Melton calls, shoulding yourself as SHOULD, shoulding yourself, saying I should be doing this, I should be doing that. I felt like I was constantly failing. And finally, I was not setting and consistently enforcing boundaries with the church folks. But also, with myself, when I said I wasn’t going to be working, I was working. And so, I pretty much resolved to just leave, and to find another career and to be happier there. But as I was doing so, I started to talk to my friends in other fields, and I noticed something pretty significant, which is that solo pastors really don’t have it all that bad. That I have a tremendous amount of flexibility. I don’t know if you know this, Jim, you definitely do, but some people just show up to an office at eight o’clock in the morning. And they don’t get to leave until four or five o’clock in the afternoon, and are expected to stay longer, whether or not they’re being productive. And for most pastors, certainly not all, but most, we get the flexibility to set our own schedules. If I say for example, someone says to me, Can you meet at 11 on Tuesday? and I look at my calendar, and my Tuesday is just slammed. And maybe I do have 30 minutes there. But it’s not ideal. I can say, You know, I’m really not available at 11. Can you actually meet on Wednesday? And so, we get that kind of flexibility. And so, telling myself that it’s okay to take advantage of that, that I don’t have to be sitting in my little spinny chair for eight hours a day as I was making myself do, was kind of good. And that is ultimately the root of what saved me – was using that flexibility and retooling and rethinking my job and setting my own priorities for what I think is important not only in work, but in my life and with my health.
Anna Tew
For me, as you know, fitness and health are really important to me. They make me feel better, and they make me a better pastor, a better partner and a better friend. So that is something that is scheduled in to all of my days. Not always in the same place. Because being a pastor is unpredictable sometimes and you know, sometimes I have to do this on Tuesday, so I have to work out in the afternoon. That sort of thing.
Anna Tew
So, I set my priorities and I work with the flexibility within my job. I schedule open time now and I stick to it. I have two ways of scheduling open time. And I do it when I have just sort of thing on top of thing on top of thing on Monday. There are times when I’m working on Monday from early on Monday morning, and then I have a council meeting on Monday night. And then I have stuff in between. Just huge packed day. I’ll schedule Tuesday morning as open. And I either schedule it as open flexible, or open firm. And if it’s open flexible, that means that if I really think a meeting needs to happen, or another commitment needs to happen, for pastoral reasons, professional reasons, whatever, then it’s okay to schedule something there. But if nobody calls on me, that’s gonna be open time. An open firm morning means I will say, I am not available on Tuesday morning. Period. Then that’s a boundary that I set with myself. That’s been revolutionary, Jim!
Jim Latimer
Let me pause you, Anna. This is pretty brilliant. I’ve been in ministry a little bit longer than you, I’ve been in it 20 some years, but I guess the idea of, well, as you know, there’s an article going around these days about a pastor that resigned, I’m leaving the ministry! that’s making the rounds. You probably saw it too. And a lot of reactions to that. But there tends to be a self-image or self-talk of a lot of my pastoral colleagues of how hard our job is. And it is hard. It is demanding. And if you’re not called to it, you won’t last. But you’ve described some of the gifts within it, right? So, if you’re called to it, then you’re using your natural gifts which give you joy. Right? And there’s a flexibility to it that as a solo pastor myself, I love that. And your brilliance around discovering that – of when you stepped back, when you were burned out, and you looked at other jobs. And you noticed the disadvantages of those jobs, such as being stuck in a chair all day! And you wouldn’t have seen that if you hadn’t looked at other jobs. So, I love that you just observed the bigger world outside of the pastor world. Absolutely. Brilliant.
Anna Tew
That’s huge. There’s a term that I came across recently that librarians came up with, you’ve probably heard it before, it’s been making the rounds, vocational awe. The idea that certain vocations especially helping profession so librarians, therapists, pastors, public school teachers, are particularly special, and are encouraged to sacrifice themselves for the greater good. One of the biggest realizations I had is when another Lutheran pastor told a friend of mine, You don’t need to die for Jesus. Jesus already died for you. That sometimes we feel like it is our job to save people, to save the church, to save ourselves. And the truth is that we already have a Savior and we’re not that guy. And so, it’s okay. It’s okay to say, No. It’s okay to fail.
Anna Tew
And I talked so you know, clearly about setting these times aside and not burning myself out. And you would think that I would never be tired, but I still screw this up. I miss in my schedule, when I have a ton of things back to back to back to back. I over schedule myself. And I just think about it as well, I have learned that I didn’t look ahead and next time I need to. So, you get through it. You go to your commitments. You do what you need to do. Or like our last interview when I realized that I am way over scheduled, I find people with whom I have meetings who might be more understanding and willing to reschedule like Jim Latimer, for example. And that has also really helped my peace of mind. But yeah, there are some things if I say I’m going to do a funeral on Saturday, I’m not rescheduling that. You don’t you don’t reschedule that kind of thing. But there are other things, I would even dare to say most things, that are more flexible in our lives, and people are often far more understanding than we give them credit for.
Jim Latimer
That’s a huge one right there. They actually are. There are some clergy killing parishioners. But there are a lot more that aren’t and that love us and are offering us grace and flexibility more than we realize and we’re not taking advantage of it sometimes. I have caught myself in that situation multiple times. Nice, Anna.
Anna Tew
Yeah. And for the clergy killers, I often I have been blessed not to have very many in any of my congregations that have served. But the ones that I have had, I think about it like, like this, I’m not their savior, Jesus is. And what’s the worst thing that can happen? They leave my church. They stop killing me. They go find somebody else. And there are just some people with whom you’re just never going to win the game. So, it’s probably best to, you know, do right by them. Do your due diligence. But you know, don’t kill yourself over it.
And then the one bonus resource that I know Jim, you’ve heard me say this before, if I could put one book in every clergy person’s mailbox, it would be, Set Boundaries, Find Peace, by Nedra Glover Tawwab. She talks brilliantly about setting boundaries and sticking to them. About being consistent with our boundaries so that people know what to expect from us about how our boundaries are our responsibility and not others. And she’s just over time taught me so much about setting boundaries and keeping them for my own health and for the health of others. And so that’s been great. And also, Nedra Glover Tawwab is a great follow on Instagram. If people would rather not purchase something they can follow her on Instagram,
Jim Latimer
Set Boundaries, Find Peace. Give me the name of author again.
Anna Tew
Yes, her name is Nedra Glover Tawwab. She’s wonderful. She’s a therapist and an author.
Jim Latimer
Perfect. That’s sounds like a good place to wrap this one up. And I also love your idea of scheduling open time. Scheduling open time! Just don’t wait for it to happen. And the sophistication – there’s open flexible and there’s open firm. Smart Anna, really smart. Well, thank you so much for sharing these with us. I took notes! And I think a lot of our colleagues will benefit. Thanks, Anna.
Anna Tew
I hope so. Thank you!