Pastors Don’t Get Time Off
This statement might surprise you. You are well aware that your pastor takes one or two days off plus a month or more of holidays each year. This is true. Pastors do get days and weeks to not be involved in the regular activities of the church.
But pastors don’t get time off.
What I mean by that is that there is no point, unless the pastor resigns, that a pastor truly is “off duty.” It may be that they are not expected to be at the Sunday worship service or to lead the Bible study or to attend the meeting. But they are still operating in the capacity of being a pastor.
This is not meant as a complaint or as a request for sympathy or as a comparison to any other occupation.
This is simply about increasing awareness. A pastor is always aware of the situations active at the church, the crisis that some family that is going through, the pressure to see the church grow numerically and spiritually, and that does not go away.
I share this so that you are aware. People sometimes wonder why burnout is so prevalent. It is not necessarily the hours of active ministries, things that can be marked on a calendar and measured in units of time.
For many pastors, that which wears them down is the sense of always being on duty. They may never (or rarely) get emergency calls from the congregation, but there is a constant awareness that one is pastoring at all times and in all places.
