c. 2008 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) As colleagues and I snapped at each other under the pressure of Holy Week duties, I resonated with how a friend describes herself six months into starting a congregation: “Exhausted, run down and emotional.”

I felt that state as we cycled through a full slate of complex liturgies, competing demands, and the constant pressure of turning our congregation toward growth and vitality. I was exhausted but too keyed up to sleep. I felt things more deeply, from city life to church life to home life, with rawness of emotion, not inner calm.

Clergy wellness experts advise seeking exactly the opposite state, of course. Be rested, they say. Pace yourself, protect your boundaries, stay cool under pressure.

I don’t doubt the wisdom of that advice. Compulsive exertion can be as destructive as compulsive avoidance. Courting burnout can be foolish. Working “smarter” is better than working too much or too little.

At the same time, as Holy Week and Easter reminded many thousands of church workers, we do have work to do, all of us. Ordained and lay, staff and volunteer, when you take ministry seriously, it wears you out. People are so needy, tasks are so complicated. Being at the center of people’s encounters with the gospel cannot be slotted into serenity.

If you see the crowds, you see nuances of despair, fear, sorrow, shame, uncertainty, arrogance. Welcoming people to church isn’t just shaking hands, it’s allowing one’s heart to break at the sign of such brokenness.

The safer we try to stay, the less we have to offer. A well-tended calmness can make one inaccessible. Better boundaries can make one aloof.

The issue is not how to avoid fatigue, not how to handle it.

Managing exhaustion isn’t easy. I tend to become impatient; others become aggressive, whiny or harsh. But there is something essential and holy in the emotionalism and vulnerability that accompany exhaustion. They take us closer to the center, to that nonrational, noncontrolled place where we cry out, “Abba! Father!”

On Good Friday, for example, staff tempers were short, harsh words were exchanged and spirits sagged during the three-hour service. But I also heard us preach with unusual power, and I saw us hugging parishioners and hearing confessions with tenderness. I suspect the coin of ministry always has these two sides: exhaustion and accessibility. We connect with people when our own defenses are down and our cores exposed.

I saw the same two-sided coin among volunteers, who gave extravagantly to their church and didn’t have the excuse of a paycheck for doing so. They, too, were exhausted, run down and emotional. For them, as well as for staff, it’s what made them effective.

Heavy pressure enables church workers to function as a team, not trapped inside the usual divisions. In facing the demands of needy and hungry souls, it matters little who has what role, or who claims which doctrinal perch, or who can claim the virtues of tenure or training or worldly stature.

“Exhausted, run down and emotional.” It isn’t a recipe for a peaceful pastorate, and it probably explains why Jesus’ ministry was so short _ he got worn out, he was depleted. He had little left to give: just his life.

I suspect that effective, gospel-serving ministries aren’t ever likely to be calm, well-paced affairs.

(Tom Ehrich is a writer, church consultant and Episcopal priest based in New York. He is the author of “Just Wondering, Jesus,” and the founder of the Church Wellness Project, http://www.churchwellness.com. His Web site is http://www.morningwalkmedia.com.)

KRE DS END EHRICH600 words

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