Tag: Ministry Burnout, Self-Care

Fred Lehr, Clergy Burnout: Recovering from the 70-hour Week and Other Self-Defeating Practices. Augsburg Fortress, 2005. Referenced in: Ministry Burnout, Preventing and Overcoming LifeandLeadership.com Summary Lehr is a Lutheran minister (ELCA) and a church consultant through his organization, Renewal Ministries. Lehr approaches the issue of burnout through the lens of codependency which typically expresses itself

Kirk Byron Jones, Rest in the Storm: Self-Care Strategies for Clergy and Other Caregivers. Judson Press, 2001. Referenced in: Ministry Burnout, Preventing and Overcoming LifeandLeadership.com Summary One reviewer describes Jones’ volume as “refreshing breeze of support” for over-extended ministers. The concepts are expounded perhaps more fully in other volumes, but certainly no more creatively and

Kent and Barbara Hughes, Liberating Ministry from the Success Syndrome. Crossway Books, 2008. Referenced in: Strengthening and Renewing the Ministry Call LifeandLeadership.com Summary This is especially helpful for ministers experiencing discouragement because their ministries lack the tangible factors often associated with “success.” In Parts I and II, the authors redefine success in terms of faithfulness

Charles Stone, Five Ministry Killers and How to Defeat Them: Help for Frustrated Pastors – Including New Research from the Barna Group. Bethany House, 2010. Referenced in: Ministry Burnout, Preventing and Overcoming LifeandLeadership.com Summary This represents research from Barna Research Group, LifeWay Research, and Christianity Today’s NationalChristianPoll.com on over 2,000 pastors and more than 600

Anne Jackson, Mad Church Disease: Overcoming the Burnout Epidemic. Zondervan, 2009. Referenced in: Preventing and Overcoming Ministry Burnout LifeandLeadership.com Summary There are several good texts that address burnout, but in my opinion, this is the best, especially for those who have been wounded in relation to the church. It underscores what many people connected to

Richard A. Swenson, Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives. NavPress Publishing Group, 2004. Referenced in: Minister Self-Care LifeandLeadership.com Summary Swenson is physician and medical educator who practiced for fifteen years and then began researching and writing about the intersection of culture and life. In this best-selling book, originally published in

Roy Oswald, Clergy Self-Care: Finding a Balance for Effective Ministry. Alban Institute, 1995. Referenced in: Minister Self-Care LifeandLeadership.com Summary Oswald, as Senior Consultant with the Alban Institute, argues that many ministers adopt of a view of self-sacrifice that is both biblically unintended and destructive to one’s personhood. This faulty perspective simply adds to the already

Donald R. Hands and Wayne L. Fehr, Spiritual Wholeness for Clergy: A New Psychology of Intimacy with God, Self and Others. Alban Institute, 1994. Referenced in: Minister Self-Care LifeandLeadership.com Summary A result of the authors’ work with troubled ministers, this insightful book begins with a summary of the theological, psychological and spiritual factors contributing to

Gwen Wagstrom Halaas, M.D. The Right Road: Life Choices for Clergy. Augsburg Fortress, 2004. Referenced in: Minister Self-Care LifeandLeadership.com Summary The special contribution of this book is the focus on the physical well-being of ministers. Halaas is a family physician and medical educator who since 2001 has directed the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s (ELCA)