Burnout
My Crisis of Emotion and Energy
My continuing deconstruction story: I’m an Aussie who grew up Catholic, became a Protestant, spent six decades as an Evangelical Christian, then de-converted.
Today’s topic is rarely discussed in churches. Burnout is a psychological and emotional condition that develops over time. Symptoms can include emotional exhaustion, withdrawal, and a feeling of hopelessness. Burnout can affect anyone in any church, although we only hear about the clergy, since nobody keeps metrics on congregant burnout. The National Church Life Survey suggest a substantial proportion of church leaders are at risk of, or are, experiencing burnout. In past surveys, around 21% faced significant burnout, and over half were borderline.[i] It’s a massive systemic issue. But it’s not just the clergy; they also inflict damage.
Burnout causes are multi-factorial, but in evangelical megachurches, some factors are by design. Manipulative techniques are rife. Altar calls are a good example. From a psychological perspective, the altar call is a structured influence event. It’s used to pressure people into emotion-based decisions to convert, confess, or rededicate. The false urgency, pressure and emotional intensity, all assault our senses and dull critical thinking. The Altar call combines multiple well-known mechanisms to increase the likelihood of compliance and commitment. Music swells in a minor key, lights dim, the sermon peaks, the pastor slows their voice. High emotional arousal narrows attention and reduces analytical thinking (affective override). In that cognitive state, people are more likely to interpret their feelings as truth and act quickly rather than reflect. Pastors love that, a little too much.
I recall after one altar call, a pastor complained that people weren’t responding. The altar calls were regular and repeated, and people were sick and tired of pastors yanking their chain weekly. People who do respond are often the psychologically vulnerable and easily influenced. Often the same people week after week. At best, someone may pray for them but doesn’t actually help. An altar call doesn’t allow room for slow belief, doubt, gradual change, or informed decision-making. Over time, high emotional arousal can have unintended consequences, like burnout. For both those using the emotional manipulation technique, and their intended victims. When nothing changes afterward, the victims begin to doubt their own sincerity, or think something is wrong with them. Eventually, something has to give.
My contention is burnout is a feature, not a bug, an inevitable result of a flawed belief-system based on ancient middle-eastern mythology. It can only deny reality and manipulate people so much before they start to see through it, and it’s ironic that it’s pastors who are often the first to do so. That should tell us everything.
My own burnout experience was triggered by a family tragedy, but if you’ve followed my story so far, you’ll know it was decades in the making. A decade after dad died, mum sold the farm and moved to Melbourne. She began complaining of pain but was initially reluctant to seek medical care. Then came the diagnosis of Lymphoma. Treatment gave her some respite, but she died in 2010. My wife lost her dad too, so loss and grief seemed ever-present. We bury our parents if we live long enough, and we all respond to that reality in different ways. Mum’s death hit me hard, in unexpected ways, and had wide-ranging impacts for years. I lost a significant anchor, a supporter, and a unique link to my past. The work trauma, while significant, was secondary. I could always find another job.
Mum was a fiercely passionate, energetic woman. Short, slim, and attractive in her youth, her face kept its youthful charm and serenity as she aged. Her facial features round and soft with gentle brown eyes. Her skin olive, hair jet black, often uncombed or pinned back. She was a ferociously hard worker, and ambitious for her children to whom she gave her all. She prioritised education, the one thing denied her by the cruel fate that took her father when she was twelve. That forced her to leave school to support her mother. She married dad sight unseen, changed hemispheres, forged a new life in an alien land, and raised three kids with no family support. What she achieved was extraordinary, but it came at a cost.
Mum’s life formed and scarred her, and those scars marred her youthful idealism. She often lamented her neglected education and her old country. She harboured a soul-deep sense of inner grief for her old life, mostly hidden by her energy and enthusiasm. Her petite, happy, bustling figure singing the songs of her youth is my favourite memory of her. After dad’s death, I fell easily into the role he’d played. He was curious, logical, and pragmatic, moderating mum’s passionate style. I’m a strange mix of both my parents, a combination of pragmatism and passion. But I know mum sometimes resented me mirroring dad’s moderating role.
Mums’ death unmoored me, ending a lifelong relationship combining great memories and tense moments. I was there to help, but she hid her worsening health and hated her treatment. I spent her last year often arguing with her about getting help, taking her to endless medical appointments, and she hated me for all of it and often let me know. In hindsight she wasn’t mad at me, but at the pain of her grief, the harsh hand dealt her, and the cruelty of cancer. However, me dealing with all of that was intensely personal and often traumatic.
The trauma didn’t end with her death. I was her executor dealing with the estate, while working as an on-road IT tech. Emptying her home felt like setting fire to my childhood. It took a year to complete. Everything I touched, or often disposed of, held sentimental childhood memories. In the first few weeks, I’d last an hour at her house before breaking down. I battled emotionally but somehow got through it. However, my inner struggles and grief spilled out in unexpected ways.
My wife and I continued as house-pastors for our megachurch after we married. After mum’s death, I wasn’t coping well with my responsibilities. Someone pointed that out unkindly, and I reacted badly, then abruptly stepped down as leader.
With hindsight, it was a good decision. My grief had caught up with me, and I needed time out to recover, reassess, and refocus. While no longer involved in ministry, we both still attended church. I still thought we’d return to a full church life, including leadership roles, but I badly underestimated the extent of our personal trauma. Instead, we left the church altogether within eighteen months.
We never consciously decided to leave, or had a discussion about it, but by 2013 we’d just stopped attending. We stopped because we needed one Sunday at home to recover. That became two, and we never restarted. It was more an unconscious choice than an overt decision. There was no one trigger, just a preponderance of negative experiences and our own need for respite.
Megachurches are high commitment, high demand, unrelenting. Even before we stopped, I felt a growing sense of disconnection, like attending was a habit. Big churches can be impersonal with a high turnover. In time, few people were left who knew me. For example, I had a succession of supervisors for my leadership role, but I didn’t know the last two and never met them. They sent me an email to tell me they’d taken over. No visit, no call, no human connection. Weird.
With everything going on, I needed supportive people around, especially if I was meant to support others as a church leader. My faith still felt strong, but now church didn’t help and didn’t work for me. It wasn’t just the people, the physical environment had changed too, and there were signs. The church was chasing a fever dream of mega-fame and instead became a dark place.
Still, I wasn’t having a crisis of faith, but of emotion and energy. I was exhausted, burnt out. My mother’s illness and death were extremely stressful. My move into ministry ended, my leadership role over, the switch to IT had faltered, and I faced an uncertain future. The god I’d always believed in seemed distant and unresponsive, and church didn’t work for me. My whole life was in flux, everything seemed wrong, and most of it seemed to be me.
I’m not saying things were unusually bad. Who hasn’t faced a similar crisis at some point? It’s a common life experience, but I was not in a good place emotionally. I’m naturally resilient, and mostly an optimist, so I expected to recover my health, find a job, and return to church. Some things were unusually good. I was married; we were financially secure. Things would be worse if I was still single. I expected we’d recover and go on as before, after a suitable time of rest and recovery.
I spent the next few years settling into my new role supporting my wife. There was time to explore, read, and digest events in the online Christian world. We were now in the new social media age. I’d been on Facebook for a decade, posting comments, photos, plus an occasional thought-piece under the ‘AGRACE Ministries,’ ‘A Sunday Reflection,’ and ‘IT Matters’ banners. This was my way of processing, reflecting, and sharing helpful insights with my family and friends.
I might still be doing that, but life intervened. There’d be no recovery, no return to faith, only deconstruction and deconversion. In 2017, Australia had the public debate it had to have on Same Sex Marriage. That was the final nail in my faith coffin. My experience, trauma, and doubts finally coalesced to change me forever and thrust me head-first into a new reality.
Coming up, I’ll discuss the Australian SSM Debate and the many lessons I learned from it. I hope you’ll read it and reflect on UNSAVED: From Religion to Reality.
Next: A Fateful Decision. #HaveAGoodWeekend.
[i] https://www.ncls.org.au/articles/leader-effectiveness-and-stress/