113: Back from Burnout: Josh Curtiss' story

Are you the leader who's constantly putting out fires and juggling the demands of ministry, barely pausing to catch your breath?  Join me and Josh Curtiss for an honest conversation about recognizing the tell-tale signs of burnout, the necessity of self-awareness, and the dangers of becoming that crabby pastor nobody wants to invite for coffee.

The thrill of change is undeniable, but so is its ability to drain your batteries. We're tackling the need for balance—how to embrace change without sacrificing your well-being. As Josh and I share from our experiences, we discuss the importance of time off, the pitfalls of trying to revert to 'business as usual' post-pandemic, and the rejuvenating power of rest. 

Chapters

• 0:01 Navigating Burnout in Ministry
• 16:05 Impact of Last Minute Changes
• 28:53 Work-Life Balance Challenges in Ministry
• 42:36 Supporting Sustainability in Ministry Leadership

Transcript

Margie: 0:01

Hey, there it's Margie Bryce, your host of the Crabby Pastor podcast, where we talk about all things sustainability, whether it's sustainability in ministry, in your personal life and we acknowledge that the church is in a transitional time, so we hit topics there too that are going to stretch your mind and the way you lead, especially how you lead yourself, so that you don't become the crabby pastor. So how do the pieces of your life fit together? Do they fit together well and things are humming along just fine, or are there some pieces that are tight or absent or just not fitting the bill? This is your invitation to join me in my glass workshop for a video series, where I am going to do a stained glass project while I talk to you about sustainability and building sustainability into your heart and into your life. So I am going to be doing my art, which is a form of self-care, and I'm going to invite you into that space with me and I'm going to chat.

Margie: 1:21

I'm going to chat about self-care and I'm going to show you how I create, and there's a nifty, nifty analogy Stained glass seems to be a very good metaphor for what I want to talk about, so I'd love for you to join me to do that. To opt in, I'll need you to email me at crabbypastor at gmail dot t com. That's crabbypastor at gmail dot com. So you won't want to miss this. You definitely won't want to miss this. So make a plan to join me in the glass workshop.

Josh: 2:08

By clicking okay.

Margie: 2:10

Yeah, so it's Margie Bryce here today and I am here with Josh Curtiss and we are going to talk about burnout. I was pretty interested in what Josh has to say about witnessing burnout and what that looks like from. Everybody thinks that if they're burning out or pastors think that you know they can walk around and continue to do what they need to do, and usually they do and they pull it off pretty well. I don't think I've heard of anybody like keeling over and passing out in the pulpit because they're burnt out, but it usually happens at some later point. So I was interested in what Josh has to say and I'm going to let Josh introduce himself, tell us a bit about who he is and how he serves in ministry, and then we will talk about burnout.

Josh: 3:09

All right, thank you so much for having me. It's great to talk with you and, as you said, my name's Josh. I've been either a part of ministry or in ministry my entire life, grew up as a pastor's kid and took my first ministry post right out of high school, at 18. I have worked at five different churches, three different denominations, a couple of really large churches, a couple of medium or small churches, and so I've seen burnout from a lot of different angles, not just in my life, but in people I work with or work for, or my own family for that matter. Currently, I'm an associate pastor at Ben Naz and also a leadership coach primarily works with pastors and youth pastors on things like this or any other areas that they need breakthroughs in.

Margie: 4:05

So yeah, where's your, where's your church that you're serving that right now?

Josh: 4:09

Bend, Oregon, central Oregon. Okay, Beautiful location.

Margie: 4:15

I hear that. I hear that I have never been to that section of the country, so maybe someday soon. So anyway, I would like to hear how you came to identify burnout. See that it was burnout, and the part that kind of made the hair on the back of my neck stand up is working. For somebody who is on the verge of burnout, I thought, oh, that sounds like just yards of fun. So give us your take on that.

Josh: 4:47

Generally speaking, before I get into the story that I want to share, generally speaking, I notice with pastors a couple of things when they start to burn out. Probably the biggest thing is irritability. But I've seen pastors who are great leaders and excellent at what they do completely change into a totally different kind of leader when they're burnt out, and irritability is usually kind of the first sign. But another sign is, like in vision casting. It takes a lot of energy to work with a group of people, develop a vision and a direction and then push it forward, and it seems like when people have burnout they might start that process and then restart it and restart it and restart it, because when they try to push it forward they're too tired to take it very far and so they just redo it.

Margie: 5:47

That's interesting. And, first off, the first thing that you did there with what you told me was you validated the name of this podcast, right, crabby Pastor. I did have one guy come up to me at an event and say I'm never a crabby pastor and he sounded a little crabby but I thought okay, and I said to him we'll go get your spouse and bring your spouse over here and we'll talk. And he didn't come back with a spouse either. But you have kind of validated that. That's kind of where we want to, what we hope to prevent and hope that people have the humility level to, and self-awareness to, say something's not right.

Josh: 6:32

Yeah, Yep, and you know, it may not just show up at work either. It might be something at home that springs up before it springs up at work that springs up before it springs up at work In my case. So the church I'm going to talk about is called Living Hope in Vancouver, Washington, and the pastor was somebody that my dad had led to Christ years earlier and had felt a call to ministry and planted the church out of the church that I grew up in and it had grown exponentially, Like at one point it was one of the top five fastest growing churches in the country. They were running six, seven, eight services a weekend. They were bringing in thousands of people and there were, you know, articles in Christian newspapers and stories and things like that all over the country about what was happening there.

Josh: 7:29

When I, my story was a little different. I actually moved to Detroit, Michigan, and did ministry at a church there for six years and when I came back because my wife had gotten hired as a professor at my alma mater, we started attending Living Hope and it was exciting. It was a really extraordinary service. A lot of people were coming to Jesus. It was billed as kind of a church for people who don't like church, which is a large market for people who don't like church, which is a large market by the way, it's an exceedingly large yes.

Josh: 8:09

And before you go, any further.

Margie: 8:11

This is like a personal side interest here, because you know I'm north of Detroit, right? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right, where was?

Josh: 8:20

that, oh my God, clinton Township, mount Clemens area. There's a church there called Crosspoint that used to be First Baptist Church. Oh, okay, I actually designed the logo on their sign, so if you, ever drive by it.

Margie: 8:39

Sorry for the detour everyone.

Josh: 8:40

That's okay. It was like what.

Margie: 8:48

Yeah, that's where my wife was born and raised, in Detroit, so, okay, okay, well, you're talking about living hope and I did do some pre reading on the story about some of what happened, because, you know, here out in Detroit we may or may not know that, and that's like Christianity Today picks up on it and does a, does a podcast series about your something up on it and does a podcast series about it or something. You know. This one I totally missed, but I said to you earlier this is like a Clint Eastwood movie. He did something called the Mule and you know, kind of a crazy, crazy thing.

Margie: 9:18

But go ahead finish your perspective.

Josh: 9:23

Yeah well, and your perspective?

Josh: 9:32

Yeah well, and there was a major scandal years later, but we could start on the burnout conversation literally from day one, because I was working for a nonprofit in Portland and their youth pastor stepped down and so I was helping with the youth group. I was kind of thinking about stepping in and so we did some interviews and I ended up taking the position and I'll never forget it was December 1st my first official day on the job as a staff member, as the high school pastor. There's another guy who is the middle school and college pastor At Living Hope. At Living Hope yeah, okay.

Josh: 10:12

Now, at this point the church is 2,000, 2,500 members, something like that. The youth ministry is probably 150 or 200, somewhere in that neighborhood. So the pastor's wife calls me into her office on this first day of the job and she says the other youth guy is stepping down and so we want you to take all three groups. And I'm kind of processing like services in my head and what's actually entailed and and I was like well, there's, there's two high school services and three middle school services and a college service. So so you're asking me to take over six services a week for three different age groups. And her response was actually we want you to add a discipleship service Thursday night, so that'll be seven. I probably should have quit.

Margie: 11:19

That day I started.

Josh: 11:20

yeah, that day yeah, because you'd be hard-pressed to find a pastor anywhere who oversees seven different services a week.

Margie: 11:28

Now, how old were you at this point?

Josh: 11:30

2011. So I would have been early 30s.

Margie: 11:36

Okay, I was going to say if you're in your 20s, you might think that's an okay idea.

Josh: 11:40

Well, I mean, it was my first large church and so I had no understanding of, like, how large churches work or you know, doing events on a large scale or managing. So I was, I mean, a small church and a large church are two very different animals as far as administration church are two very different animals as far as administration and and I, I mean I was excited to learn.

Josh: 12:10

But good Lord is trial by fire and and that was one of the hardest years of my life I mean it was the way they described it is. They would say, you know, people come into living hope and it's really hard for a while but then they kind of get their sea legs under them and adjust to it, which is only partly true, but it was like just a can of burnout. That first year. I mean I was at the church all the time. I was scraping by to keep up with everything they gave me. My marriage relationship suffered a lot.

Josh: 12:48

I mean my wife still has some bitterness towards what happened to our relationship. I mean she remembers me coming home and just saying like I'm spent, I have nothing left to offer today, and just having that be. Day after day after day. They would come up with things like you know what, why don't we feed all the congregation hot dogs for lunch this Sunday? And Josh, why don't you cover that? And still, on top of seven services, I'd have to figure out how to make 3,000 hot dogs for the weekend service and just stuff like that all the time. I mean it was a total sellout to whatever the church wanted and they didn't pay any more. I mean they didn't pay any more. I mean they didn't pay me the guy's salary who stepped down.

Margie: 13:56

And a lot of times they would kind of fill the gap with God stuff you know like well, give me an example of that.

Josh: 14:00

Well, it's pretty common. You know, like I understand, that in ministry you don't get into ministry to get rich. And I understand that, like one of my professors in Bible college put it beautifully, which was that you want to work for a church that's generous.

Josh: 14:17

And generous looks different for different churches, you know so if you have a church that you know brings in $100,000 a year and you're the only pastor and they give you, you know, $60,000 or $70,000, that's an okay salary, but it's very generous, you know. Whereas, if you work for a church that has a multimillion dollar budget and they give you the same salary, that may not be very generous depending on what you're doing. So, so generous in the context right, they were not. They were not very generous to a lot of their staff, mostly just their executives. But you know, churches and this is not just living hope, but churches will use God to close the gap between what they're asking and what they're paying, which is, you know, like you're doing this for God or you're doing this for you know, like he'll reward you Maybe 3,000 hot dogs for God.

Josh: 15:31

And it's not untrue necessarily, but if you're using it to manipulate people and save money and you're taking a bunch of money.

Margie: 15:34

That's when it becomes a problem. Yeah, yeah, okay.

Josh: 15:36

And so you know it's something that a leader has to kind of search their own hearts with how they're using it, make sure they're not using it to be unfair to their staff. But it is true, you don't pay church leaders as much as you pay hospital staff or in other industries sometimes so I was well, and a lot of the staff felt like this.

Josh: 16:05

I mean, things would change all the time. They change very quickly, and so we were constantly trying to keep up with the change. And that was culture-wise. It was part of the secret sauce of why we grew, because it was always so exciting and interesting and you never knew what to expect. It was also the thing that burned people out a lot, because everything was last minute, everything was urgent, everything you know. Like there was a constant. You know I'm gonna have to stay at work three more hours to keep up with this and I'm'm going to have to come in on my day off, and it just required you to keep putting more and more hours in to keep up with the last minute changes.

Josh: 16:55

And so I think that's a personality driven thing. As far as if a leader wants to have an environment where they can change things quickly, I don't think that's inherently bad. I just think they need to be cognizant of how that might affect the people they work with and have some checks and balances, you know, like offering comp days or paying attention to. You know we made a lot of changes last month and where's everybody at? You know, do you need a long weekend or something like that, with your family?

Margie: 17:29

Sure, and as you're talking, then I'm thinking about we are mortals, we have limitations, and one of those limitations is creativity, because that's what you're talking about is a nonstop, ongoing level of creativity, and it's for a good cause, right, you want people to be attracted. You want people, you have to attract attention. That's what Jesus did with the miracles. He attracted attention to draw the crowd to then share the gospel.

Josh: 18:01

But we have finite creativity of the gospel, but we have finite creativity. Well, and there's an ironic connection there, because and this is there's a book I wanted to mention as part of this conversation. It's by Tony Schwartz and it's called the Way we're Working Isn't Working, and it's based on studies about burnout and health in the workplace. It's not a Christian book, necessarily, but one of the things they argue that I thought was so fascinating about this conversation is that energy, creativity, productivity all come from the same source inside of us. You imagine, like an energy bar that also fuels our creativity and our productivity, and I, I would add, our ability to resist temptation.

Margie: 18:58

We'll say Would you say that our ability to resist temptation increases when our creativity and energy levels decrease?

Josh: 19:10

No, I think it all increases when we take care of ourselves and it all decreases when we burn out. Okay, and I think I believe, from what I've seen, that there's a profound connection between burnout and, you know, scandals or indiscretion. Like, we all have unhealthy things that we turn to to deal with stress if we're not careful, and and burnout makes it so much harder to resist those unhealthy things that we turn to.

Margie: 19:44

And this is a really important point, yeah, and in this time where many churches are seeking to recapture the number of people that were there before COVID, you know, and in many cases they'll try to get that group back, which I always liken to. Oh, let's go fishing in this little bucket, even though God has stocked the pond like crazy, like you said, there's more people to engage that have never been a part of a faith community, but there seems to be, in some instances, a real franticness to get back to where we were before, when in reality, you know, god may be asking us to move forward in new and different ways.

Josh: 20:30

Yeah, yeah, well, and I am a huge proponent of the Sabbath. I would agree with the Ten Commandments in that regard.

Margie: 20:43

Well, that's nice, that's nice of you.

Josh: 20:47

I mean, it seems like it should be a given, but sometimes I wonder, because there's passages in the Bible that talk about resisting temptation, that God will always give us a way out, right, right. And sometimes I wonder, you know, if we give in to temptation and we ask God, you know what was the way out that you gave us? If he wouldn't answer the Sabbath, yeah, that would probably be a good answer.

Margie: 21:21

A good answer because I would like to say you can't load your pockets with change. Of course, in the digital era that doesn't mean exactly the same thing, but it's a good picture. You can't load your pockets with change. Get on an airplane, fly to Vegas, get in the middle of the casino and say you know, lord, help me not to gamble. I mean, you've kind of set yourself up.

Josh: 21:44

Yep, Well, and like we talked about, you know that obviously the scandals can really derail a ministry, but all that other stuff is connected too. I mean, it's connected as far as how you can push the vision forward. It's connected to how creative you and your staff can be. It's a lot of different ways that can go wrong, and one of the ways it can go wrong is without any scandal at all. The church can just coast you know, for years.

Josh: 22:31

But in the case of Living Hope, you could see a lot of that in the staff and in the head pastor. I mean, you could see, you know he was. He was dealing with some old injuries and there were some pain pills involved and there were some other substances and things like that. And I don't I'm not like trying to get into the the weeds of it to make it a gossip thing, but but just to say like more and more and more leaning on unhealthy ways and we had no idea how bad it had gotten underneath the surface. But um you, you saw his weight increase, you saw more. It was like he would try, like he would try to take trips or try to take vacations, but it wasn't working. It was actually kind of funny because we had about 40 people on staff. Kind of funny because we had about 40 people on staff and we worked so hard when he was there that anytime he went on vacation, like nobody would show up for work. I mean, it was just a ghost town. It was the funniest thing.

Margie: 23:49

That's interesting, that's interesting.

Margie: 23:52

And the other thing that you said that I thought was interesting was the weight gain. You know sometimes that's food related. You know you got your stash at candy bars and you're just not eating healthy or whatever. That's one piece of it. But what I've come to understand as well is that if you're under a great deal of stress, your cortisol levels will go up and you can be dieting. You can be dieting like eating healthy, working out or whatever, and you can still gain weight if your cortisol levels are out of control well, and and I gained a lot of weight while I was there and that's one of my unhealthy go-tos, you know is like stressy and I.

Josh: 24:35

You know when you're, when your schedule is overloaded, it's harder to plan for healthier meals, but it, but it goes back to your pocket full of quarters thing you know is like when, when you're on empty, you don't have the wherewithal to eat things you don't want to eat. You just it's just, you know. I mean a different way of saying that is like there's a cheeseburger sitting on your desk and you're gonna grab it, you know you just don't have, you don't have the strength to resist.

Margie: 25:09

I suppose Well, maybe you don't have the resolve to really. That's just one more thing you've got to think about. Yeah eating healthy. Yep and you just don't have the reserve to even contemplate that, especially if your creativity is being sapped repeatedly.

Josh: 25:29

One of our college presidents used to say that the body and the spirit are so closely connected that they get each other's diseases, and I think that health plays a big factor in it and it contributes to things like irritability and lack of creativity and mood swings and things like that.

Josh: 25:53

So, and there was a lot of that on our staff. I mean there was, you know, people that were kind of living off of the extra chips after a potluck or that you're getting donuts for volunteers all the time and that ends up being your breakfast. And the other funny thing. I mean I already said it was really rough on my marriage and there was a lot of marriages that were in a tough place. Some people actually ended up divorcing while working at Living Hope and I remember one time one of the executives was talking to me and she said she said, man, it's like everybody's marriage is struggling. We need to bring in like a marriage conference or send you guys to a class or something like that. And I remember thinking like adding a class, like you know like, stop making us work 70, 80 hours a week, you know, plus, maybe that will help our marriage.

Margie: 26:58

Maybe. But now let's be fair thinking about in the culture. All right, if somebody is married to somebody that is, say, going to be a physician and they're in a residency program, and that's like ultra demanding. I mean, usually those are two, three or four years commitment of you know, really intensive time commitment. How do you think the church then compares, or?

Josh: 27:27

kind of that. So I have people close to me that one of them's actually in a residency for her PhD right now or her PhD right now, and I think that the difference is, especially in America, that's a pretty straightforward process. I mean, if you sign up for that, there's not a lot of wiggle room about what that's going to entail. You know between, even between, the top programs and the lower end programs of residency, like you're going to have to sell out for it. And if you get married beforehand or in the midst of it, I mean and that's maybe a different conversation about marriage coaching, but there has to be some kind of understanding that this is what we're doing In the church.

Josh: 28:23

There can be some of that, possibly, but the difference is that it's not a standard, it's an individual's decision on a regular basis, and they're deciding to make this change which will cost their whole staff a number of more hours, and then just continually doing it, just continually borrowing against it and borrowing against it. Now, if you work at a, again, if you work at a hospital, depending on the type of work that you do, there can be a lot of emergencies or call-ins, or you can end up working all hours of the night. But that's not necessary and I'm obviously not a doctor, so I'm theorizing at this point. And I don't. I'm obviously not a doctor, so I'm theorizing at this point, but it's not necessarily your boss.

Margie: 29:44

You know waking up and going.

Josh: 29:45

I have a creative idea that I don't want a burnout doctor working on me. You know, especially if it's a serious injury, like I don't. I and I've heard of you know some hospitals looking at things like this like could actually be dangerous. Airline pilots are the same way. You know you don't want an airline pilot that hasn't slept in two days or something like that.

Josh: 30:03

My neighbor's actually an airline pilot, so so I, I, I do think that you know a place for, like working hard, selling out, putting in long hours, but at the same time, especially in a church, there is like you're a shepherd of your staff, and I think that a church should be a place where you bring both together, where people work at a high level and also care for their work at a high level and also care for their families at a high level. I can't tell you, I mean this is another huge issue for me, but like I don't want my kids to hate the church and they don't have a concept of, like you know, working for God, necessarily it's basically just the church versus me, and so me as a kid.

Josh: 31:03

And so, like with my son, you know I'm real careful about how I talk, about my commitment to the church and my working at the church and also talking to him about you know I was gone at a camp this weekend and so I'm going to take Monday off just to be with you and even say things. Like you know, my church is going to give me Monday off because they want me to be able to spend time with you too, because that has a huge effect on his relationship with God and his spiritual life, and that went both ways. At Living Hope, I mean, we had some great pastor's kids who had a good relationship with God, but a lot of times it was kind of in spite of the church.

Margie: 31:49

Were there some staff members that were better at carving a boundary for that out? I mean, that's kind of my glimmer of hope that I see with younger clergy today is that work-life balance really matters, as opposed to the clan of the folks that you know at my end of the spectrum, that really, which I never wanted to work that way anyway personally, because I I'm crabby, this is, you know, I'm not fun to be around, you know not, not that I always am, but you know, I mean if you're, if you're taxed, you're just not.

Josh: 32:29

Yeah, well, you know, the the shift is from a generation that considered work as life to a younger generation that is work as part of life.

Josh: 32:46

And I mean, in many circles it's pendulum swung too far. I talk with a lot of employers that are kind of pulling their hair out with young people just trying to get them to show up, and so there is taking it too far. And I think that you know, in any job we're supposed to do it with excellence, as unto the Lord, whether you're a doctor or a pastor. But there's this weird dynamic about being a pastor. Is that there's something about your relationship with God that you feel like should be able to be mimicked right Like you're a tour guide of life with God. And if you operate in such a way where you're exhausted and it's hurting your relationship with God, and you know it, and there's like a there's that huge disconnect there, I mean you feel that you feel this like you and you might even get in a place where you're mad at God or disillusioned at God, and then you got to go up and tell people how to get close to God, and it's like.

Margie: 34:09

I know well, it's a hard place. It is hard, but people have done that, you know.

Josh: 34:15

Oh, I've been there. I've definitely been there. Yeah, and and I you know, back to your point about being able to say no and carve out boundaries yes, and I mean you could.

Margie: 34:27

You could get fired for saying no, and part of what how could you get fired for saying you know, I mean, aren't there employment rules or and?

Josh: 34:39

a little more now, but but it was part of. The thing about a church that has a lot of momentum is that there's a lot of people that want to work there.

Josh: 34:54

Oh you know, naively it was always funny, because people are like, oh, I'd love to be on staff or I'd love to work, and you just be like, no, you wouldn't, you just think you would. But because of that, you know, there's a line of 10 people for every job and so if you drop the ball enough, I mean they've got plenty of people waiting for your job, which, you know, kind of enables them to lean more heavily on people. I would say that for me, I learned a lot about, you know, raising up leaders and delegating and letting things go and pushing back on my boss in ways that, and I feel like I tried to build a trust and reputation to be able to do that, especially with other staff members. I mean, like they knew that I was working hard and they would have my back.

Josh: 35:59

You know, if I got in trouble about something, and you just learn to navigate it. And it was still hard. I mean, it was a lot of work till the day I left. And you just learn to navigate it. And it was still hard. I mean, it was a lot of work till the day I left, but years three and four I got much better at navigating that kind of schedule that was me learning to carve out space and mold the job into something that was a little more feasible it.

Margie: 36:38

It wasn't because of their help okay well, that way you know there.

Josh: 36:41

That probably was the most valuable learning well, there's a ton of things I learned that were amazing. I took a lot away from it that I still apply and you know, when there was a big scandal and he, the head pastor, ended up stepping down and his wife and a few family members that were working for the church all had to leave and you can read all about that in the article but one of the things that happened when they left is that we brought some people in to relook at HR and staff structure and scheduling. Some of the pastors that stuck around were given sabbaticals and things and some of them are still there. Know, I mean, this is, this is a dozen years ago and they're ministering strong and revitalized and they have a a much healthier staff structure now, even as a large, larger church that has a lot of ministry going on. For one of the things that was interesting to me because when I left Living Hope, I became a campus pastor for another mega church in Portland called Abundant Life and it was the load was so much more manageable than working for Living Hope and the support structure, the staff, you know, just the supports they had in place were remarkable.

Josh: 38:15

But I found myself like kind of overloading myself and being back in a position of being overwhelmed in other ministry positions and kind of having this realization of like nobody's doing this to me. I'm doing this to myself. Just what? Like if those were patterns that I picked up in an unhealthy environment and then just kept them right into better environments and and impose them on myself. It's like like you can get to a place where you you don't feel comfortable and let it. I mean it's kind of an oxymoron but you don't feel comfortable. I mean it's kind of an oxymoron but you don't feel comfortable unless you're like overwhelmed and too busy or something that feels normal about it.

Margie: 39:14

Yeah, some people have said that you can almost like get addicted to that.

Josh: 39:18

Yes, that's a good word to use.

Margie: 39:20

Yeah, you have to do that.

Josh: 39:23

And I think that for me personally, the best measure of that is on a Sabbath day. I mean, if I hit Sabbath with my family and I feel guilty because I'm not doing anything and I feel like uneasy and twitchy because I don't have any product, like that to me is I'm addicted to work.

Margie: 39:45

We're addicted to the chronic. I got to keep going, I got to keep going. I can't. You know, it's kind of like you're trying to juggle and not let the balls hit the ground and it just yeah.

Josh: 39:58

Yep absolutely.

Margie: 39:59

Well, I think too, that's a great place to stop. I want you to. Can you remind us of that book, the title?

Josh: 40:05

of the book yeah, the book was the show notes. Yeah, sure, the book is the Way we're Working, isn't Working? By Tony Schwartz.

Margie: 40:17

Okay, because there are some things we can indeed learn from or unlearn from some secular authors, but I want to thank you very much for coming on and for sharing, and maybe somebody will hear this and God will be speaking to them and we could have one less crabby pastor out there. I love it, which would be a great thing. So thank you so much for coming on and sharing.

Josh: 40:48

Yeah, thank you for your time.

Margie: 40:51

Are you wondering whether your fatigue, your lack of motivation, your lack of interest is burnout Maybe? I just wanted to let you know that I have a resource on the website, margiebricecom that's B-R-Y-C-E margiebricecom and it is a burnout questionnaire, free for you to download and kind of self-assess and get a sense of where you're at. There are questions that not only ask about what you're going through but maybe how often you're experiencing it and that's kind of a key to where you might be, because you have to know where you are in order to chart a course forward. And most pastors who experience pastors and ministry leaders who experience burnout rarely know that that's where they're at until they're well into it. And if you're unsure about that little statistic, so far, everybody that I've interviewed on this podcast who has experienced burnout, when I asked that kind of question, they're like, yeah, I didn't know, that's where I was at. So again, go to margiebricecom it's on the homepage of the website and you can get your burnout questionnaire and kind of see where you're at. Burnout questionnaire and kind of see where you're at.

Margie: 42:36

Hey friends, the Krabby Pastor podcast is sponsored by Bryce Art Glass and you can find that on Facebook.

Margie: 42:39

I make stained glass as part of my self-care, and also by Bryce Coaching, where I coach ministry leaders and business leaders, and so the funds that I generate from coaching and from making stained glass is what is supporting this podcast and I will have opportunities for you to be a part of sponsoring me, to be a part of sponsoring me and, as always, you can do the buy me a cup of coffee thing in the show notes.

Margie: 43:17

But I will have some other ways that you can be a part of getting the word out about the importance of healthy self-care for ministry leaders. Hey, thanks for listening. It is my deep desire and passion to champion issues of sustainability in ministry and for your life, so I'm here to help. I stepped back from pastoral ministry and I feel called to help ministry leaders create and cultivate sustainability in their lives so that they can go the distance with God and whatever plans that God has for you. I would love to help, I would consider it an honor and, in all things, make sure you connect to these sustainability practices you know, so that you don't become the Krabby Pastor.