To prevent clergy burnout, try the following:

(l) Breakfast out with your spouse once each week. Put it on the family calendar and make it a permanent, needed getaway from the parsonage phone.

(2) Exchange house keys with another couple. When you and your spouse need a breather, skip town. Stay an overnight at your friend's home. They can have the same privilege with your home. A phone call to the friend prior to landing on their front porch would be helpful. This kind of reciprocity works wonders for all concerned.

(3) Get a more organized schedule for your weekly responsibilities. Some burnout is brought on simply by a haphazard work plan.

(4) Start next Sunday's sermons early in the week. This prevents pile-up at the close of the week.

(5) Schedule each day efficiently so as not to overlap travelings and other duties.

(6) Prioritize your weekly responsibilities so that majors are major and minors are minor. Some persons do not have a precisioned awareness of what is major and what is minor regarding duties.

(7) Fellowship with clergy of other denominations. These persons cannot harm you ecclesiastically for they are not of your official circle. There is no political string they can pull to undo you. Therefore, this safe turf is invaluable for being more open about the ministry's workings.

(8) Take at least one full day a week off from churchly duties.

(9) Filter phone calls to the parsonage via an answering machine. The parsonage phone automatically brings the workplace from the church into the home; such is the nature of the job. However, this does not have to imprison the pastor. He can filter calls so as to schedule responses more efficiently.

(10) Get sitters for the young parsonage children so that both parsonage spouses can have their free times. This is absolutely imperative for obvious reasons; yet many parsonage adults do not seem to get around to planning such opportunities in their lives.

(11) Eat out at inexpensive restaurants and coffee shops. Some parsonage adults do not plan on eating out that much for they conclude that it costs too much. It does if one chooses the more expensive dining spots; but the less expensive respites are just as refreshing.

(12) Develop your hobby. Keep at it. Use that pastime as your rightful opportunity for creativity outside the world of religion.

(13) Plan recreational breaks in your weekly schedule. If you are not athletic, at least plan walks through rural sections or other neighborhoods than where you reside.

(14) Read other than religious materials. The brain needs that kind of detour. Leisure reading magazines are especially renewing for the mind.

(15) Have a policy by which parishioners do not own your living quarters, even if the parsonage is alongside the church building. The parsonage is the private living area of the parsonage family, except when by invitation parishioners are invited in for special occasions.

(16) Plan ahead. Keep a working calendar in the church and parsonage so that you can refer to it quickly. Check off items as they are seen through.

(17) Take a walk through the mall. Plan to buy nothing. Such a simple change of scenery is a positive move therapeutically for the mind.

(18) Drive around the countryside when uptight. Take your time returning to the workplace.

(19) Take your annual vacations; do not think it heroic to skip these needful breaks.

(20) Be realistic about your vocation. Do not try to put a happy face on everything or everyone. Express your feelings to a trusted friend; but be careful. Know for certain that that individual can indeed be trusted. It is best to find such a confidant outside the "system."

(21) Watch for danger signals in your body and mind. If something irregular begins to appear, it may be time to see your family doctor. Perhaps there is a chemical change in your body that needs tending.

(22) Cut through the habit of watching too much television, if that is your bent.

(23) Try to get to sleep at a reasonable hour each night. Nighthawks pay for it.

(24) Answer your mail as soon as possible. This is one simple move that can efficiently keep your work responsibilities up to date.

(25) Delegate more churchly doings to parishioners. Do not try to do it all yourself. Such does not make sense. Then if there are no parishioners to pick up on some duties, ask yourself if that particular item has to be. If it does not, then discard it.

(26) Regarding visitation in parishioners' homes, put a tear-off in the church bulletin by which you ask for worshipers to state the day and time that they would like the pastor to stop by for a pastoral visit (prayer and Bible reading). This cuts through criticism that the pastor does not call on parishioners in their homes. With today's frenetic schedule in most homes, the old-fashioned pastoral calling methodology has to be adapted to the present-day rat race.

(27) Slow down if you tend to be a hurried person. Pare down all that is nonessential. Cut out needless movement. It is easy to create movement ruts that are unnecessary; eliminate these.

(28) Listen to your spouse's appraisal of your reaction to the ministerial work responsibilities. That spouse is looking on objectively to what you have impregnated subjectively. Perhaps your spouse is the only individual in the world who knows your work world and your reactions to it; therefore, the spousal advise is very significant in being realistic regarding the ministry.

(29) Realize that God has to change lives. The minister can lead people to God; but then it is up to God and the free will of the individual to move on from there.

(30) Realize that God said HE would build HIS church. Clergy are simply facilitators. The overall divine move has to come upon each local congregation; much of that is a mystery to us. Therefore, we must relinquish continually the final ministerial outcome to God alone.

(31) Refuse to read material that is depressing, especially information regarding other congregations, particularly those that seem to be overflowing the charts statistically. Each situation is an individual work in the eyes of God. Therefore, keep your mind positive by refusing to intake competing information which would cause you to be discouraged.

(32) Stay away from competitive comparisons regarding other churches. Simply don't gather with clergy who are into this dialogue game of comparing ad infinitum. Is not this of "the flesh" and not truly of the divine?

(33) Abandon your work and soul continually to the Lord God. Refrain from analyzing too meticulously where you are on the "success charts."

(34) Enjoy local concerts and community gatherings.

(35) Plan family excursions that have nothing to do with church work.

(36) When pressure builds, take a morning off to do nothing in particular. See to it that your mind winds down so that you can get back on track again. Winding up the mind when it is already exhausted leads to trouble.

(37) Listen to relaxing music.

(38) Eat properly--nutritionally.

(39) Keep your devotional life alive. Get into truly stimulating devotional reading.

(40) Know that ultimately you own nothing but Jesus Christ. Bask in that freedom.
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MINISTRY IS A CALLING, NOT A CAREER.
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