The Practice of the Pastoral Ministry
Toward A Theology of Relationship
Developing a Theology of Failure
Additional Material located at the end of the syllabus
Steven Covey: Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Habit 5 Listening
Dr. Arch Hart : DIFFERENCES BETWEEN BURNOUT AND STRESS
Carmen Renee Berry: Coping With Stress and Burnout in Youth Ministry
Richelle Wiseman:
Holy Burnout
KEEP THIS DOCUMENT FOR YOUR STUDENT PORTFOLIO
ANAHEIM DISTRICT MINISTERIAL TRAINING CENTER
SYLLABUS: PAS-2013
THE PRACTICE OF CHRISTIAN MINISTRY
PROFESSOR: Dr. Mike Boswith
COURSE PAS-2013 The Practice of the Christian Ministry 3 Semester Hours Credit
PHONE: Wk 714-847-3050
LOCATION: Anaheim District Office 524 E. Chapman Ave., Orange CA 92866
(According to class dynamics sessions may be held at Huntington Beach
Community Church 8101 Slater Ave, at Beach and Slater)
TIME: Monday 7 to 10:40 p.m.
COURSE DESCRIPTION
A course giving special attention to the personal and professional character of the minister and the practice of ministry. NBC Prerequisite: Introduction to the Ministry.
COURSE OBJECTIVES
The following are competencies for Ordination Course of Study which are achieved by this course:
1. Ability to write an integrative philosophy of ministry that will answer, "why I do what I do when I do it." (CP-4)
2. Ability to envision, order, participate, and lead in contextualized theologically grounded worship and to develop and lead appropriate services for special occasions (i.e. wedding, funeral, baptism, and Lord’s Supper). (CP-21)
3. Ability to understand and apply the unique ethical dimensions of spiritual leadership in the church.(CH-4)
4. Ability to apply Christian ethics to the issues of the integrity, specifically as they relate to ministers and laity for authentic Christian faithfulness and public witness. (CH-5)
5. Ability to practice faithful stewardship of personal relations including gender relationships, marriage and family, personal finance, and professional conduct. (CH-12)
6. Ability to describe and cultivate healthy inter-personal relationships through personal communication skills, conflict resolution skills, nurturing relational strategies for marriage/family and congregational interaction. (CH-13)
7. Ability to maintain a healthy balance between family, church, and community commitments. (CH-14)
COURSE PROFESSOR
Dr. Mike Boswith: Psy.D., American Behavioral Studies Institute, 2000; MA (Theology), Trevecca Nazarene University, 1989; BA (Religious Studies), Trevecca Nazarene University, 1985; AS (Physical Science), University of the State of New York Regents, 1982. Pastor, Church of the Nazarene, 1988-Present, Associate Pastor, Church of the Nazarene 1985-1988. United States Navy, 1976-1983
COURSE TEXTBOOKS
REQUIRED
1. Church of the Nazarene, Sourcebook for Ministerial Development for Ordination and
Lifelong Learning. Pastoral Ministries; Church of the Nazarene. Nazarene Publishing House. ISBN: U2000
2. Berkley, James D., General Editor, Leadership Handbook of Preaching and Worship
3. Gibbs, Eddie, Church Next: Quantum Change in How We Do Ministry
4. MANUAL, Church of the Nazarene. Nazarene Publishing House. ISBN: 083-411-9447 (Soft)
5. Middendorf, Jesse C. Church Rituals Handbook. Kansas City: Nazarene Publishing House, 1997.
6. Stowell, Joseph. Shepherding the Church. Chicago: Moody Press, 1997.
RECOMMENDED
Anderson, Ray S., The Shape of Practical Theology
Berkley, James D., General Editor, Leadership Handbook of Preaching and Worship
Earle, Ralph Jr. and Laaser, Mark. R., The Pornography Trap
London, Jr. H. B. and Wiseman, Neil B., They Call Me Pastor
MacArthur, John Jr., Rediscovering Pastoral Ministry
McLaren, Brian D., Reinventing Your Church
Malphurs, Aubrey, Developing a Vision for Ministry in the 21st Century
Maxwell, John C., The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership
Morgenthaler, Sally, Worship Evangelism
Oden, Thomas C. Pastoral Theology: Essentials of Ministry. San Francisco: Harper, 1983.
Rainer, Thom, The Book of Church Growth
Wagner, C. Peter, How to Have a Healing Ministry
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
This class requires effective planning and time management to complete. It’s part of learning how to carry out demanding task of ministry.
There are no tests or quizzes, but there is a lot of writing, field research, and discussion. No handwritten projects will be accepted.
Field Research: Various field trips and interviews are required to complete these assignments. Your written responses should focus on the practical application of what you learned through the trip or interview. Some field trips require you to create a template or basic methodology on how you plan to conduct a particular ministry.
This class requires effective planning and time management to complete. It’s part of learning how to carry out demanding task of ministry.
Class Presentations: The Class Presentation is an Oral answer to specific question or topic for that particular class session. You are required to write a 250 word essay on your position (make copies for all class participants). You must present your position to the class in an open dialogue. Utilize the objective stated for each class session to guide your thoughts. Please note that often your reading assignment will have direct bearing on your presentation. So it is wise to read before you write.
This class requires effective planning and time management to complete. It’s part of learning how to carry out demanding task of ministry.
Writing Assignments: You will be required to read Eddie Gibbs, ChurchNext: Quantum Change in How We Do Ministry. After reading the chapter you are to write 150 word “My Thought Essay.” A “My Thought Essay” is your reflection on the material you have read. You are to take special interest as to how what Gibbs presents may effect your practice of the ministry. You are not to repeat what is written in the book (I’ve already read it) You are not to take direct quotes from the book (you my cite page numbers). This is to be your thought on what Gibbs has written. You are to make a copy of your essay for each class participant.
Still stuck? Here are some starter questions:
Were you inspired to share any of what you read with someone else?
Did the material challenge any assumptions you held?
Did the text confirm something you have been thinking about for a while?
Was there new information that made an impression on you ?
How will you apply what you read to your practice of the ministry?
Be prepared to discuss your findings in an open dialogue session on each assigned chapter.
This class requires effective planning and time management to complete. It’s part of
learning how to carry out demanding task of ministry.
COURSE SCHEDULE/OUTLINE
1. Session 1 Objective: Introduction to the Course.
Reading Assignments:
a. MANUAL, Church of the Nazarene, paragraphs 400 thru 423.1
b. Sourcebook for Ministerial Development for Ordination
and Lifelong Learning. Stage One, S-1-1 to S-1-15
Class Presentation: Tell us About Your Call To Ministry
Lecture: Towards A Theology of Relationship
2. Session 2 Objective: Ability to envision, order, participate, and lead in contextualized theologically grounded worship and to develop and lead appropriate services for special occasions (i.e. wedding, funeral, baptism, and Lord’s Supper). (CP-21)
Reading Assignments: Leadership Handbook of Preaching and Worship: pages
171-208
Class Presentation: What is Contextualized Theologically Grounded Worship? Lecture: Being A Celebrant
Field Research –Lord’s Supper: Attend Catholic or and Episcopalian Mass.
Compare and Contrast their communion service with how the Lord’s Supper is observed in your local congregation. Refer to Dr. Middendorf’s Church Rituals Handbook pages 39-54 and create your own template on officiating the Lord’s Supper. In addition consult MANUAL, Church of the Nazarene paragraph 413.11 and state your opinion on how often you would like to celebrate the Lord’s Supper. Make a copy of your research available to the class.
Writing Assignment: Gibbs, Eddie, Church Next: Chapter 1
3.Sesison 3 Objective: Ability to understand and apply the unique ethical dimensions of spiritual leadership in the church.(CH-4)
Reading Assignments:
a. Leadership Handbook of Preaching and Worship: pages 411-459
b. Shepherding the Church pages 95-118
Class Presentation: How can I position my life and ministry to break down the encasements that surround hearts and minds, capture people’s attention, and effectively lead them to personal growth and communal development?”
Lecture: Earning the Right to Lead
Field Research –Weddings: Attend a Wedding, Compare and Contrast what you observed with Middendorf’s Church Rituals Handbook (pages 57-89), Create a Wedding Ceremony of the basic elements for A Christian Wedding that you will be able to use as a template for the Wedding’s you will perform. (See example) Indicate the Place, Date and the officiant of the wedding. Make a copy of your template for each class participant.
Writing Assignment: Gibbs, Eddie, Church Next: Chapter 2
4. Session 4 Objective: Ability to apply Christian ethics to the issues of the integrity, specifically as they relate to ministers and laity for authentic Christian faithfulness and public witness. (CH-5)
Reading Assignments: Shepherding the Church pages 147-176
Class Presentation: What Are The Unwritten, Yet Expected, Principles Of Right And Wrong Behavior That Govern The Conduct Of A Pastor? (the written principles can be found in MANUAL, Church of the Nazarene, paragraphs 27-27.3 and 33-38.1)
Field Research Interview: To aid you in completing your class presentation you may contact district pastors to get their opinions as to their personal codes of professional conduct.
Lecture: Above Being Above Board
Writing Assignment: Gibbs, Eddie, Church Next: Chapter 3
5. Session 5 Objective: Ability to practice faithful stewardship of personal relations including gender relationships, marriage and family, personal finance, and professional conduct. (CH-12)
Reading Assignments:
a. Leadership Handbook of Preaching and Worship: Pages 461-499
b. Shepherding the Church pages 205-226
Class Presentation: What is the role of Pastor as Steward and how do you faithfully practice stewardship in every area of your life?
Lecture: Being an Ambassador
Field Research—Funerals 1: Contact a local mortuary and ask what are the expectations they have for the minister in the funeral process. Contact a district pastors and discover how they conduct their initial interview with the deceased’s family. In 250 words indicate the mortuary personnel and pastor’s you contacted, then state your methodology for meeting the needs the surviving family and friends. Make you finding available to your classmates.
Writing Assignment: Gibbs, Eddie, Church Next: Chapter 4
6. Session 6 Objective: Ability to describe and cultivate healthy inter-personal relationships through personal communication skills, conflict resolution skills, nurturing relational strategies for marriage/family and congregational interaction. (CH-13) Part 1 of 2
Reading Assignments: Covey, Stephen R., The 7 Habits of Highly Effective (Chapter provided in Syllabus)
Class Presentation: How would you go about creating strong fellowship bonds within the church that will facilitate parishioners providing a degree of pastoral care to one another?
Lecture: Keys To Conflict Resolution.
Field Research –Funerals 2: Attend a funeral that includes both chapel and graveside services. Compare and contrast what you observed with Middendorf’s Church Rituals Handbook (Pages 93-97). Create a ceremony of the basic elements for the funeral of a believer that you will use as a template for funerals that you will perform. Indicate the Place, Date and the officant of the funeral service. Make a copy of your template for each class participant.
Writing Assignment: Gibbs, Eddie, Church Next: Chapter 6
7. Session 7 Objective: Ability to describe and cultivate healthy inter-personal relationships through personal communication skills, conflict resolution skills, nurturing relational strategies for marriage/family and congregational interaction. (CH-13) Part 2 of 2
Reading Assignments: Shepherding the Church pages 177-204
Field Research –Difficult Sheep: Contact a district pastor to discover what makes a parishioner difficult and how he or she handles the disgruntled or difficult person. Indicate the pastor you contacted and state your general approach to conflict resolution with a difficult person. Make a copy available for your classmates.
Class Presentation: This person is critical, argumentative, oppositional and doesn’t seem to like you, they are also a member of your church board, how do you deal with them?
Lecture: Dealing With Difficult People
Writing Assignment: Gibbs, Eddie, Church Next: Chapter 7
8. Session 8 Objective: Ability to avoid pornography and sexual misconduct.
Reading Assignments: Shepherding the Church pages 227-250
Class Presentation: “How Can A Pastor Hold Him or Herself
Accountable In Avoiding Sexual Misconduct?”
Field Research --Pornography: Research pornography and objectionable site blocking software. Install the software on your personal and office computers. Report the following, the name of the software, where the software is available, why you choose this particular software and the person who has the password to override the software. Make a copy of your findings available for each class participant.
Lecture: Towards A Theology Of Sex
Writing Assignment: Gibbs, Eddie, Church Next: Chapter 5
9. Session 9 Objective: Ability to maintain a healthy balance between family, church, and community commitments. (CH-14)
Reading Assignments: (Articles are provided in Syllabus)
a. Stress and Burnout in Ministry
b. Difference Between Stress and Burnout
c. Coping With Stress and Burnout in Youth Ministry
d. Holy Burnout
Class Presentation: How Do You Save Yourself From Going Down In
Flames When It Comes To Your Commitments?
Lecture: Margin—Creating Space In An Over Crowded Life.
Field Research --Visitation: Accompany your Pastor on a Hospital or Shut-in Visitation. Observe how the pastor ministers to the individual and then develop your own methodology for visiting the sick and infirm. Distribute copies to the class.
Writing Assignment: Gibbs, Eddie, Church Next: Chapter 8
10. Session 10 Objective: Ability to write an integrative philosophy of ministry that will answer, "why I do what I do when I do it." (CP-4)
Reading Assignments:
a. Shepherding the Church pages 309-325
Class Presentation: “Why Do You Do What You Do When You Do It?”
Lecture:
Field Research—Baptism: Consult Middendorf’s Church Rituals Handbook (Pages 13-29). Create a template for a believer’s baptism and an infant’s baptism or dedication ritual. In 250 words describe the significance of the rite and it’s symbolism. Distribute your research to the class.
Writing Assignment: Gibbs, Eddie, Church Next: Chapter 9
ADDITIONAL
MATERIALS
Wedding Ceremony Template
Dearly Beloved: We are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the presence of these witnesses, to join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony, which is an honorable estate, instituted of God in the time of man’s innocence. This holy estate Christ adorned and beautified with His presence and with first miracle that He did, by turning the water into wine at a wedding feast. It is, therefore, not to be entered into unadvisedly, but reverently, discreetly, and in the fear of God. Hear the Word of the Lord
1 Corinthians 13:4-8 (NIV)
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.
Into this holy estate these persons present now come to be joined.
THE CHARGE
______________ and ______________, I require and charge you both as you stand in the presence of God, to remember that the commitment to marriage is a commitment to
permanence. It is the intent of God that your marriage will be for life, and that only
death will separate you. If the vows you exchange today be kept without violation,
and if you seek always to know and do the will of God, your lives will be blessed with His presence, and your home will abide in peace.
If either of you knows any reason why you may not be lawfully joined together in matrimony, I require that you confess it: for be well assured that so many as are coupled together otherwise than God’s Word allows are not joined together by God,
neither is their matrimony lawful.
______________, will you have this woman to be your wedded wife, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony? Will you love her, comfort her,
honor and keep her in sickness and in health; and forsaking all others, keep yourself only unto her, so long as you both shall live? Response: I will.
______________, will you have this man to be your wedded husband, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony? Will you love him, comfort him, honor, and keep him, in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, keep yourself only unto him, so long as you both shall live? Response: I will.
Who gives this woman to be married to this man?
THE VOWS
I, ______________, take you, ______________, to be my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better—for worse, for richer—for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God’s holy ordinance;
I pledge to you my faith and loyalty.
I, ______________, take you, ______________, to be my wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better—for worse, for richer—for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God’s holy ordinance; I pledge to you my faith and loyalty.
THE RINGS
These rings are the outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace,
signifying to us the joining of ______________ and ______________ in holy matrimony.
______________ as you place this ring on your bride’s finger repeat after me: ______________, I give you this ring as a symbol of my love, and with all that I am and all that I have, I commit myself to you.
______________ as you place this ring on your groom’s finger repeat after me:
______________, I give you this ring as a symbol of my love, and with all that I am and all that I have, I commit myself to you.
LIGHTING THE UNITY CANDLE
The unity candle symbolizes that ______________ and ______________ are joined together as one.
O Eternal God, Creator and Preserver of all mankind,
Giver of all spiritual grace, the Author of everlasting life,
send Your blessing upon James and Stephanie,
may they live faithfully together,
keeping the vow and covenant made between them this hour
and may ever remain in love and peace together,
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
THE PROCLAMATION
Forasmuch as this man and woman have consented together in holy wedlock, and have witnessed the same before God and this company, and have declared the same by joining of hands, I pronounce that they are husband and wife together, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Those whom God has joined together let not man put asunder.
Sir, you may kiss your bride.
THE BLESSING
God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, bless, preserve, and keep you; the Lord mercifully with His favor look upon you, and fill you with all spiritual benediction and grace. May you so live together in this life that in the world to come you may have life everlasting.
Ladies and Gentleman it gives me great pleasure to introduce to you Mr. and Mrs.
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
By
Steven R. Covey
Habit 5 Seek First To Understand, Then To Be Understood
Principles of Empathic Communication
The heart has its reasons which reason knows not of.
-- Pascal
Suppose you've been having trouble with your eyes and you decide to go to an optometrist for help. After briefly listening to your complaint, he takes off his glasses and hands them to you.
"Put these on," he says. "I've worn this pair of glasses for 10 years now and they've really helped me. I have an extra pair at home; you can wear these."
So you put them on, but it only makes the problem worse
"This is terrible!" you exclaim. "I can't see a thing!"
"Well, what's wrong?" he asks. "They work great for me. Try harder."
"I am trying," you insist. "Everything is a blur."
"Well, what's the matter with you? Think positively."
"Okay. I positively can't see a thing."
"Boy, you are ungrateful!" he chides. "And after all I've done to help you!"
What are the chances you'd go back to that optometrist the next time you need help? Not very
good, I would imagine. You don't have much confidence in someone who doesn't diagnose before he
or she prescribes.
But how often do we diagnose before we prescribe in communication?
"Come on, honey, tell me how you feel. I know it's hard, but I'll try to understand."
"Oh, I don't know, Mom. You'd think it was stupid."
"Of course I wouldn't! You can tell me. Honey, no one cares for you as much as I do. I'm only
interested in your welfare. What's making you so unhappy?"
"Oh, I don't know."
"Come on, honey. What is it?"
"Well, to tell you the truth, I just don't like school anymore."
"What?" you respond incredulously. "What do you mean you don't like school? And after all the sacrifices we've made for your education! Education is the foundation of your future. If you'd apply yourself like your older sister does, you'd do better and then you'd like school. Time and time again, we've told you to settle down. You've got the ability, but you just don't apply yourself. Try harder Get a positive attitude about it."
Pause
"Now go ahead. Tell me how you feel."
We have such a tendency to rush in, to fix things up with good advice. But we often fail to take the time to diagnose, to really, deeply understand the problem first. If I were to summarize in one sentence the single most important principle I have learned in the field of interpersonal relations, it would be this: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood. This principle is the key to effective interpersonal communication.
Character and Communication
Right now, you're reading a book I've written. Reading and writing are both forms of
communication. So are speaking and listening. In fact, those are the four basic types of
communication. And think of all the hours you spend doing at least one of those four things. The
ability to do them well is absolutely critical to your effectiveness.
Communication is the most important skill in life. We spend most of our waking hours
communicating. But consider this: You've spent years learning how to read and write, years learning
how to speak. But what about listening? What training or education have you had that enables you
to listen so that you really, deeply understand another human being from that individual's own frame of reference?
Comparatively few people have had any training in listening at all. And, for the most part, their training has been in the personality ethic of technique, truncated from the character base and the
relationship base absolutely vital to authentic understanding of another person.
If you want to interact effectively with me, to influence me -- your spouse, your child, your neighbor, your boss, your coworker, your friend -- you first need to understand me. And you can't do that with technique alone. If I sense you're using some technique, I sense duplicity, manipulation. I wonder why you're doing it, what your motives are. And I don't feel safe enough to open myself up to you.
The real key to your influence with me is your example, your actual conduct. Your example flows naturally out of your character, of the kind of person you truly are -- not what others say you are or what you may want me to think you are. It is evident in how I actually experience you.
Your character is constantly radiating, communicating. From it, in the long run, I come to
instinctively trust or distrust you and your efforts with me.
If your life runs hot and cold, if you're both caustic and kind, and, above all, if your private
performance doesn't square with your public performance, it's very hard for me to open up with you.
Then, as much as I may want and even need to receive your love and influence, I don't feel safe enough to expose my opinions and experiences and my tender feelings. Who knows what will happen?
But unless I open up with you, unless you understand me and my unique situation and feelings, you won't know how to advise or counsel me. What you say is good and fine, but it doesn't quite pertain to me.
You may say you care about and appreciate me. I desperately want to believe that. But how can you appreciate me when you don't even understand me? All I have are your words, and I can't trust words.
I'm too angry and defensive -- perhaps too guilty and afraid -- to be influenced, even though inside know I need what you could tell me.
Unless you're influenced by my uniqueness, I'm not going to be influenced by your advice. So if you want to be really effective in the habit of interpersonal communication, you cannot do it with
technique alone. You have to build the skills of empathic listening on a base of character that inspires
openness and trust. And you have to build the Emotional Bank Accounts that create a commerce
between hearts.
Empathic Listening
"Seek first to understand" involves a very deep shift in paradigm. We typically seek first to be
understood. Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to
reply. They're either speaking or preparing to speak. They're filtering everything through their own
paradigms, reading their autobiography into other people's lives.
"Oh, I know exactly how you feel!"
"I went through the very same thing. Let me tell you about my experience."
They're constantly projecting their own home movies onto other people's behavior. They prescribe their own glasses for everyone with whom they interact.
If they have a problem with someone -- a son, a daughter, a spouse, an employee -- their attitude is, "That person just doesn't understand."
A father once told me, "I can't understand my kid. He just won't listen to me at all."
"Let me restate what you just said," I replied. "You don't understand your son because he won't listen to you?"
"That's right," he replied.
"Let me try again," I said. "You don't understand your son because he won't listen to you?"
"That's what I said," he impatiently replied.
"I thought that to understand another person, you needed to listen to him," I suggested.
"OH!" he said. There was a long pause. "Oh!" he said again, as the light began to dawn. "Oh,
yeah! But I do understand him. I know what he's going through. I went through the same thing
myself. I guess what I don't understand is why he won't listen to me."
This man didn't have the vaguest idea of what was really going on inside his boy's head. He
looked into his own head and thought he saw the world, including his boy.
That's the case with so many of us. We're filled with our own rightness, our own autobiography. We want to be understood. Our conversations become collective monologues, and we never really understand what's going on inside another human being.
When another person speaks, we're usually "listening" at one of four levels. We may be ignoring another person, not really listening at all. We may practice pretending. "Yeah. Uh-huh. Right." We may practice selective listening, hearing only certain parts of the constant chatter of a preschool child. Or we may even practice attentive listening, paying attention and focusing energy on the words that are being said. But very few of us ever practice the fifth level, the highest form of listening, empathic listening.
When I say empathic listening, I am not referring to the techniques of "active" listening or "reflective" listening, which basically involve mimicking what another person says. That kind of listening is skill-based, truncated from character and relationship, and often insults those "listened" to in such a way. It is also essentially autobiographical. If you practice those techniques, you may not project your autobiography in the actual interaction, but your motive in listening is autobiographical. You listen with reflective skills, but you listen with intent to reply, to control, to manipulate.
When I say empathic listening, I mean listening with intent to understand. I mean seeking first to understand, to really understand. It's an entirely different paradigm.
Empathic (from empathy) listening gets inside another person's frame of reference. You look out through it, you see the world the way they see the world, you understand their paradigm, you
understand how they feel.
Empathy is not sympathy. Sympathy is a form of agreement, a form of judgment. And it is
sometimes the more appropriate emotion and response. But people often feed on sympathy. It
makes them dependent. The essence of empathic listening is not that you agree with someone; it's that you fully, deeply, understand that person, emotionally as well as intellectually.
Empathic listening involves much more than registering, reflecting, or even understanding the
words that are said. Communications experts estimate, in fact, that only 10 percent of our
communication is represented by the words we say. Another 30 percent is represented by our sounds, and 60 percent by our body language. In empathic listening, you listen with your ears, but you also, and more importantly, listen with your eyes and with your heart. You listen for feeling, for meaning. You listen for behavior. You use your right brain as well as your left. You sense, you intuit, you feel.
Empathic listening is so powerful because it gives you accurate data to work with. Instead of
projecting your own autobiography and assuming thought, feelings, motives, and interpretation, you're dealing with the reality inside another person's head and heart. You're listening to understand.
You're focused on receiving the deep communication of another human soul.
In addition, empathic listening is the key to making deposits in Emotional Bank Accounts, because nothing you do is a deposit unless the other person perceives it as such. You can work your fingers to the bone to make a deposit, only to have it turn into a withdrawal when a person regards your efforts as manipulative, self-serving, intimidating, or condescending because you don't understand what really matters to him.
Empathic listening is, in and of itself, a tremendous deposit in the Emotional Bank Account. It's deeply therapeutic and healing because it gives a person "psychological air.
If all the air were suddenly sucked out of the room you're in right now, what would happen to your interest in this book? You wouldn't care about the book; you wouldn't care about anything except getting air. Survival would be your only motivation.
But now that you have air, it doesn't motivate you. This is one of the greatest insights in the field of human motivations: Satisfied needs do not motivate. It's only the unsatisfied need that motivates. Next to physical survival, the greatest need of a human being is psychological survival -- to be understood, to be affirmed, to be validated, to be appreciated.
When you listen with empathy to another person, you give that person psychological air. And
after that vital need is met, you can then focus on influencing or problem solving.
This need for psychological air impacts communication in every area of life.
I taught this concept at a seminar in Chicago one time, and I instructed the participants to practice
empathic listening during the evening. The next morning, a man came up to me almost bursting with
news.
"Let me tell you what happened last night," he said. "I was trying to close a big commercial real estate deal while I was here in Chicago. I met with the principals, their attorneys, and another real estate agent who had just been brought in with an alternative proposal.
"It looked as if I were going to lose the deal. I had been working on this deal for over six months and, in a very real sense, all my eggs were in this one basket. All of them. I panicked. I did
everything I could -- I pulled out all the stops -- I used every sales technique I could. The final stop
was to say, 'Could we delay this decision just a little longer?' But the momentum was so strong and
they were so disgusted by having this thing go on so long, it was obvious they were going to close.
"So I said to myself, 'Well, why not try it? Why not practice what I learned today and seek first to understand, then to be understood? I've got nothing to lose.'
"I just said to the man, 'Let me see if I really understand what your position is and what your
concerns about my recommendations really are. When you feel I understand them, then we'll see
whether my proposal has any relevance or not.'
"I really tried to put myself in his shoes. I tried to verbalize his needs and concerns, and he began to open up.
"The more I sensed and expressed the things he was worried about, the results he anticipated, the more he opened up.
"Finally, in the middle of our conversation, he stood up, walked over to the phone, and dialed his wife. Putting his hand over the mouthpiece, he said, 'You've got the deal.'
"I was totally dumbfounded," he told me. "I still am this morning.
He had made a huge deposit in the Emotional Bank Account by giving the man psychological air. When it comes right down to it, other things being relatively equal, the human dynamic is more
important than the technical dimensions of the deal.
Seeking first to understand, diagnosing before you prescribe, is hard. It's so much easier in the
short run to hand someone a pair of glasses that have fit you so well these many years.
But in the long run, it severely depletes both P and PC. You can't achieve maximum
interdependent production from an inaccurate understanding of where other people are coming from. And you can't have interpersonal PC -- high Emotional Bank Accounts -- if the people you relate with don't really feel understood.
Empathic listening is also risky. It takes a great deal of security to go into a deep listening
experience because you open yourself up to be influenced. You become vulnerable. It's a paradox, in
a sense, because in order to have influence, you have to be influenced. That means you have to really
understand.
That's why Habits 1, 2, and 3 are so foundational. They give you the changeless inner core, the
principle center, from which you can handle the more outward vulnerability with peace and strength.
Diagnose Before You Prescribe
Although it's risky and hard, seek first to understand, or diagnose before you prescribe, is a correct principle manifesting many areas of life. It's the mark of all true professionals. It's critical for the optometrist, it's critical for the physician. You wouldn't have any confidence in a doctor's prescription unless you had confidence in the diagnosis
When our daughter Jenny was only two months old, she was sick on Saturday, the day of a football game in our community that dominated the consciousness of almost everyone. It was an important game -- some 60,000 people were there. Sandra and I would like to have gone, but we didn't want to leave little Jenny. Her vomiting and diarrhea had us concerned
The doctor was at that game. He wasn't our personal physician, but he was the one on call. When Jenny's situation got worse, we decided we needed some medical advice
Sandra dialed the stadium and had him paged. It was right at a critical time in the game, and she could sense on officious tone in his voice. "Yes?" he said briskly. "What is it?"
"This is Mrs. Covey, Doctor, and we're concerned about our daughter, Jenny."
"What's the situation?" he asked.
Sandra described the symptoms and he said, "Okay. I'll call in a prescription. Which is your
pharmacy?"
When she hung up, Sandra felt that in her rush she hadn't really given him full data, but that what she had told him was adequate.
"Do you think he realizes that Jenny is just a newborn?" I asked her
"I'm sure he does," Sandra replied.
"But he's not our doctor. He's never even treated her."
"Well, I'm pretty sure he knows."
"Are you willing to give her the medicine unless you're absolutely sure he knows?"
Sandra was silent. "What are we going to do?" she finally said.
"Call him back," I said.
"You c all him back," Sandra replied.
So I did. He was paged out of the game once again. "Doctor," I said, "when you called in that
prescription, did your realize that Jenny is just two months old?"
"No!" he exclaimed. "I didn't realize that. It's good you called me back. I'll change the
prescription immediately."
If you don't have confidence in the diagnosis, you won't have confidence in the prescription.
This principle is also true in sales. An effective salesperson first seeks to understand the needs, the concerns, the situation of the customer. The amateur salesman sells products; the professional sells solutions to needs and problems. It's a totally different approach. The professional learns how to
diagnose, how to understand. He also learns how to relate people's needs to his products and services. And, he has to have the integrity to say, "My product or service will not meet that need" if it will not.
Diagnosing before you prescribe is also fundamental to law. The professional lawyer first gathers the facts to understand the situation, to understand the laws and precedents, before preparing a case. A good lawyer almost writes the opposing attorney's case before he writes his own.
It's also true in product design. Can you imagine someone in a company saying, "This consumer research stuff is for the birds. Let's design products." In other words, forget understanding the consumer's buying habits and motives -- just design products. It would never work.
A good engineer will understand the forces, the stresses at work, before designing the bridge. A good teacher will assess the class before teaching. A good student will understand before he applies. A good parent will understand before evaluation or judging. The key to good judgment is
understanding. By judging first, a person will never fully understand.
Seek first to understand is a correct principle evident in all areas of life. It's a generic,
common-denominator principle, but it has its greatest power in the area of interpersonal relations.
Four Autobiographical Responses
Because we listen autobiographically, we tend to respond in one of four ways. We evaluate – we either agree or disagree; we probe -- we ask questions from our own frame of reference; we advise – we give counsel based on our own experience; or we interpret -- we try to figure people out, to explain their motives, their behavior, based on our own motives and behavior.
These responses come naturally to us. We are deeply scripted in them; we live around models of them all the time. But how do they affect our ability to really understand?
If I'm trying to communicate with my son, can he feel free to open himself up to me when I evaluate everything he says before he really explains it? Am I giving him psychological air?
And how does he feel when I probe? Probing is playing 20 questions. It's autobiographical, it
controls, and it invades. It's also logical, and the language of logic is different from the language of
sentiment and emotion. You can play 20 questions all day and not find out what's important to
someone. Constant probing is one of the main reasons parents do not get close to their children.
"How's it going, son?"
"Fine."
"Well, what's been happening lately?"
"Nothing."
"So what's exciting at school?"
"Not much."
"And what are your plans for the weekend?"
"I don't know."
You can't get him off the phone talking with his friends, but all he gives you is one- and two-word
answers. Your house is a motel where he eats and sleeps, but he never shares, never opens up.
And when you think about it, honestly, why should he, if every time he does open up his soft
underbelly, you elephant stomp it with autobiographical advice and "I told you so's."
We are so deeply scripted in these responses that we don't even realize when we use them. I have taught this concept to thousands of people in seminars across the country, and it never fails to shock them deeply as we role-play empathic listening situations and they finally begin to listen to their own typical responses. But as they begin to see how they normally respond and learn how to listen with empathy, they can see the dramatic results in communication. To many, seek first to understand becomes the most exciting, the most immediately applicable, of all the Seven Habits.
Let's take a look at what well might be a typical communication between a father and his teenage son. Look at the father's words in terms of the four different responses we have just described.
"Boy, Dad, I've had it! School is for the birds!"
"What's the matter, Son?" (probing).
"It's totally impractical. I don't get a thing out of it."
"Well, you just can't see the benefits yet, Son. I felt the same way when I was your age." I
remember thinking what a waste some of the classes were. But those classes turned out to be the most
helpful to me later on. Just hang in there. Give it some time" (advising).
"I've given it 10 years of my life! Can you tell me what good 'x plus y' is going to be to me as an
auto mechanic?"
"An auto mechanic? You've got to be kidding" (evaluating).
"No, I'm not. Look at Joe. He's quit school. He's working on cars. And he's making lots of
money. Now that's practical."
"It may look that way now. But several years down the road, Joe's going to wish he'd stayed in
school. You don't want to be an auto mechanic. You need an education to prepare you for something
better than that" (advising).
"I don't know. Joe's got a pretty good set-up."
"Look, Son, have you really tried?" (probing, evaluating).
"I've been in high school two years now. Sure I've tried. It's just a waste."
"That's a highly respected school, Son. Give them a little credit" (advising, evaluating).
"Well, the other guys feel the same way I do."
"Do you realize how many sacrifices your mother and I have made to get you to where you are? You can't quit when you've come this far" (evaluating).
"I know you've sacrificed, Dad. But it's just not worth it."
"Look, maybe if you spent more time doing your homework and less time in front of TV." (advising, evaluating).
"Look, Dad. It's just no good. Oh, never mind! I don't want to talk about this anyway."
Obviously, his father was well-intended. Obviously, he wanted to help. But did he even begin to really understand?
Let's look more carefully at the son -- not just his words, but his thoughts and feelings (expressed parenthetically below) and the possible effect of some of his dad's autobiographical responses.
"Boy, Dad, I've had it! School is for the birds!" (I want to talk with you, to get your attention.)
"What's the matter, Son?" (You're interested! Good!)
"It's totally impractical. I don't get a thing out of it." (I've got a problem with school, and I feel just terrible.
"Well, you just can't see the benefits yet, son. I felt the same way when I was your age." (Oh, no! Here comes Chapter three of Dad's autobiography. This isn't what I want to talk about. I don't really care how many miles he had to trudge through the snow to school without any boots. I want to get to the problem.) "I remember thinking what a waste some of the classes were. But those classes turned out to be the most helpful to me later on. Just hang in there. Give it some time." (Time won't solve my problem. I wish I could tell you. I wish I could just spit it out.)
"I've given it 10 years of my life! Can you tell me what good 'x plus y' is going to do me as an auto mechanic?"
"An auto mechanic? You've got to be kidding." ( He wouldn't like me if I were an auto mechanic. He wouldn't like me if I didn't finish school. I have to justify what I said.)
"No, I'm not. Look at Joe. He's quit school. He's working on cars. And he's making lots of
money. Now that's practical."
"It may look that way now. But several years down the road, Joe's going to wish he'd stayed in
school." (Oh, Boy! here comes lecture number 16 on the value of an education.) "You don't want to
be an auto mechanic." (How do you know that, Dad? Do you really have any idea what I want?)
"You need an education to prepare you for something better than that."
"I don't know. Joe's got a pretty good set-up." (He's not a failure. He didn't finish school and
he's not a failure.)
"Look, Son, have you really tried?" (We're beating around the bush, Dad. If you'd just listen, I
really need to talk to you about something important.)
"I've been in high school two years now. Sure I've tried. It's just a waste."
"That's a highly respected school, Son. Give them a little credit." (Oh, great. Now we're talking
credibility. I wish I could talk about what I want to talk about.)
"Well, the other guys feel the same way I do." (I have some credibility, too. I'm not a moron.)
"Do you realize how many sacrifices your mother and I have made to get you where you are?"
(Uh-oh, here comes the guilt trip. Maybe I am a moron. The school's great, Mom and Dad are great,
and I'm a moron.) "You can't quit when you've come this far."
"I know you've sacrificed, Dad. But it's just not worth it." (You just don't understand.)
"Look, maybe if you spent more time doing your homework and less time in front of TV..." (That's not the problem, Dad! That's not it at all! I'll never be able to tell you. I was dumb to try.)
"Look, Dad. It's just no good. Oh, never mind! I don't want to talk about this anyway."
Can you see how limited we are when we try to understand another person on the basis of words alone, especially when we're looking at that person through our own glasses? Can you see how limiting our autobiographical responses are to a person who is genuinely trying to get us to understand his autobiography?
You will never be able to truly step inside another person, to see the world as he sees it, until you develop the pure desire, the strength of personal character, and the positive Emotional Bank Account, as well as the empathic listening skills to do it.
The skills, the tip of the iceberg of empathic listening, involve four developmental stages
The first and least effective is to mimic content. This is the skill taught in "active" or "reflective"
listening. Without the character and relationship base, it is often insulting to people and causes them
to close up. It is, however, a first-stage skill because it at least causes you to listen to what's being said
Mimicking content is easy. You just listen to the words that come out of someone's mouth and you repeat them. You're hardly even using your brain at all
"Boy, Dad, I've had it! School is for the birds!"
"You've had it. You think school is for the birds."
You have essentially repeated back the content of what was being said. You haven't evaluated or probed or advised or interpreted. You've at least showed you're paying attention to his words. But
to understand, you want to do more.
The second stage of empathic listening is to rephrase the content. It's a little more effective, but it's still limited to the verbal communication
"Boy, Dad, I've had it! School is for the birds!"
"You don't want to go to school anymore."
This time, you've put his meaning into your own words. Now you're thinking about what he said, mostly with the left side, the reasoning, logical side of the brain.
The third stage brings your right brain into operation. You reflect feeling.
"Boy, Dad, I've had it! School is for the birds!"
"You're feeling really frustrated."
Now you're not paying as much attention to what he's saying as you are to the way he feels about
what he's saying. The fourth stage includes both the second and the third. You rephrase the content
and reflect the feeling.
"Boy, Dad, I've had it! School is for the birds!"
"You're really frustrated about school."
Frustration is the feeling; school is the content. You're using both sides of your brain to understand both sides of his communication.
Now, what happens when you use fourth stage empathic listening skills is really incredible. As you authentically seek to understand, as you rephrase content and reflect feeling, you give him psychological air. You also help him work through his own thoughts and feelings. As he grows in his confidence of your sincere desire to really listen and understand, the barrier between what's going on inside him and what's actually being communicated to you disappears. It opens a soul-to-soul flow. He's not thinking and feeling one thing and communicating another. He begins to trust you with his innermost tender feelings and thoughts.
"Boy, Dad, I've had it! School is for the birds!" (I want to talk with you to get your attention.)
"You're really frustrated about school." (That's right! That's how I feel.)
"I sure am. It's totally impractical. I'm not getting a thing out of it."
"You feel like school's not doing you any good." (Let me think -- is that what I mean?)
"Well, yeah. I'm just not learning anything that's going to help me. I mean, look at Joe. He's
dropped out of school and he's working on cars. He's making money. Now that's practical."
"You feel that Joe really has the right idea." (Well...)
"Well, I guess he does in a way. He's really making money now. But in a few years I bet he'll
probably be ticked off at himself."
"You think Joe's going to feel he made the wrong decision."
"He's got to. Just look at what he's giving up. I mean, if you don't have an education, you just
can't make it in this world."
"Education is really important."
"Oh, yeah! I mean, if you don't have a diploma, if you can't get jobs or go to college, what are you going to do? You've just got to get an education."
"It's important to your future."
"It is. And, you know what? I'm really worried. Listen, you won't tell Mom, will you?"
"You don't want your mother to find out."
"Well, not really. Oh, I guess you can tell her. She'll probably find out anyway. Look, I took this test today, this reading test. And, Dad, they said I'm reading on a fourth-grade level. Fourth grade! And I'm in junior high school!"
What a difference real understanding can make! All the well-meaning advice in the world won't amount to a hill of beans if we're not even addressing the real problem. And we'll never get to the problem if we're so caught up in our own autobiography, our own paradigms, that we don't take off our glasses long enough to see the world from another point of view.
"I'm going to flunk, Dad. I guess I figure if I'm going to flunk, I might as well quit. But I don't
want to quit."
"You feel torn. You're in the middle of a dilemma."
"What do you think I should do, Dad?"
By seeking first to understand, this father has just turned a transactional opportunity into a
transformational opportunity. Instead of interacting on a surface, get-the-job-done level of
communication, he has created a situation in which he can now have transforming impact, not only on his son but also on the relationship. By setting aside his own autobiography and really seeking to
understand, he has made a tremendous deposit in the Emotional Bank Account and has empowered his son to open, layer upon layer, and to get to the real issue.
Now father and son are on the same side of the table looking at the problem, instead of on opposite sides looking across at each other. The son is opening his father's autobiography and asking for advice.
Even as the father begins to counsel, however, he needs to be sensitive to his son's communication. As long as the response is logical, the father can effectively ask questions and give counsel. But the moment the response becomes emotional, he needs to go back to empathic listening.
"Well, I can see some things you might want to consider."
"Like what, Dad?"
"Like getting some special help with your reading. Maybe they have some kind of tutoring
program over at the tech school."
"I've already checked into that. It takes two nights and all day Saturday. That would take so
much time!"
Sensing emotion in that reply, the father moves back to empathy.
"That's too much of a price to pay."
"Besides, Dad, I told the sixth graders I'd be their coach."
"You don't want to let them down."
"But I'll tell you this, Dad. If I really thought that tutoring course would help, I'd be down there every night. I'd get someone else to coach those kids."
"You really want the help, but you doubt if the course will make a difference."
"Do you think it would, Dad?"
The son is once more open and logical. He's opening his father's autobiography again. Now the father has another opportunity to influence and transform.
There are times when transformation requires no outside counsel. Often when people are really given the chance to open up, they unravel their own problems and the solutions become clear to them in the process.
At other times, they really need additional perspective and help. The key is to genuinely seek the welfare of the individual, to listen with empathy, to let the person get to the problem and the solution at his own pace and time. Layer upon layer -- it's like peeling an onion until you get to the soft inner core.
When people are really hurting and you really listen with a pure desire to understand, you'll be amazed how fast they will open up. They want to open up. Children desperately want to open up,
even more to their parents than to their peers. And they will, if they feel their parents will love them
unconditionally and will be faithful to them afterwards and not judge or ridicule them.
If you really seek to understand, without hypocrisy and without guile, there will be times when you will be literally stunned with the pure knowledge and understanding that will flow to you from another human being. It isn't even always necessary to talk in order to empathize. In fact, sometimes words may just get in your way. That's one very important reason why technique alone will not work. That kind of understanding transcends technique. Isolated technique only gets in the way.
I have gone through the skills of empathic listening because skill is an important part of any habit. We need to have the skills. But let me reiterate that the skills will not be effective unless they come from a sincere desire to understand. People resent any attempt to manipulate them. In fact, if you're dealing with people you're close to, it's helpful to tell them what you're doing.
"I read this book about listening and empathy and I thought about my relationship with you. I
realized I haven't listened to you like I should. But I want to. It's hard for me. I may blow it at times,
but I'm going to work at it. I really care about you and I want to understand. I hope you'll help me."
Affirming your motive is a huge deposit.
But if you're not sincere, I wouldn't even try it. It may create an openness and a vulnerability that will later turn to your harm when a person discovers that you really didn't care, you really didn't want to listen, and he's left open, exposed, and hurt. The technique, the tip of the iceberg, has to come out of the massive base of character underneath.
Now there are people who protest that empathic listening takes too much time. It may take a little more time initially but it saves so much time downstream. The most efficient thing you can do if
you're a doctor and want to prescribe a wise treatment is to make an accurate diagnosis. You can't say, "I'm in too much of a hurry. I don't have time to make a diagnosis. Just take this treatment."
I remember writing one time in a room on the north shore of Oahu, Hawaii. There was a soft
breeze blowing, and so I had opened two windows -- one at the front and one at the side -- to keep the room cool. I had a number of papers laid out, chapter by chapter, on a large table.
Suddenly, the breeze started picking up and blowing my papers about. I remember the frantic
sense of loss I felt because things were no longer in order, including unnumbered pages, and I began
rushing around the room trying desperately to put them back. Finally, I realized it would be better to
take 10 seconds and close one of the windows.
Empathic listening takes time, but it doesn't take anywhere near as much time as it takes to back up and correct misunderstandings when you're already miles down the road, to redo, to live with unexpressed and unsolved problems, to deal with the results of not giving people psychological air.
A discerning empathic listener can read what's happening down deep fast, and can show such
acceptance, such understanding, that other people feel safe to open up layer after layer until they get to that soft inner core where the problem really lies.
People want to be understood. And whatever investment of time it takes to do that will bring
much greater returns of time as you work from an accurate understanding of the problems and issues
and from the high Emotional Bank Account that results when a person feels deeply understood.
Understanding and Perception
As you learn to listen deeply to other people, you will discover tremendous differences in
perception. You will also begin to appreciate the impact that these differences can have as people try
to work together in interdependent situations.
You see the young woman; I see the old lady. And both of us can be right.
You may look at the world through spouse-centered glasses; I may see it through the
money-centered lens of economic concern.
You may be scripted in the Abundance Mentality; I may be scripted in the Scarcity Mentality.
You may approach problems from a highly visual, intuitive, holistic right-brain paradigm; I may be very left brain, very sequential, analytical, and verbal in my approach.
Our perceptions can be vastly different. And yet we both have lived with our paradigms for years, thinking they are "facts," and questioning the character or the mental competence of anyone who can't "see the facts."
Now, with all our differences, we're trying to work together -- in a marriage, in a job, in a
community service project -- to manage resources and accomplish results. So how do we do it? How
do we transcend the limits of our individual perceptions so that we can deeply communicate, so that we can cooperatively deal with the issues and come up with win-win solutions?
The answer is Habit 5. It's the first step in the process of win-win. Even if (and especially when) the other person is not coming from that paradigm, seek first to understand.
This principle worked powerfully for one executive who shared with me the following experience.
"I was working with a small company that was in the process of negotiating a contract with a large national banking institution. This institution flew in their lawyers from San Francisco, their negotiator from Ohio, and presidents of two of their large banks to create an eight-person negotiating team. The company I worked with had decided to go for Win-Win or No Deal. They wanted to significantly increase the level of service and the cost, but they had been almost overwhelmed with the demands of this large financial institution.
"The president of our company sat across the negotiating table and told them, 'We would like for you to write the contract the way you want it so that we can make sure we understand your needs and your concerns. We will respond to those needs and concerns. Then we can talk about pricing.'
"The members of the negotiating team were overwhelmed. They were astounded that they were going to have the opportunity to write the contract. They took three days to come up with the idea.
"When they presented it, the president said, 'Now let's make sure we understand what you
want.' And he went down the contract, rephrasing the content, reflecting the feeling, until he was sure and they were sure he understood what was important to them. 'Yes. That's right. No, that's not exactly what we meant here...yes, you've got it now.'
"When he thoroughly understood their perspective, he proceeded to explain some concerns from his perspective. . .and they listened. They were ready to listen. They weren't fighting for air. What had started out as a very formal, low-trust, almost hostile atmosphere had turned into a fertile
environment for synergy.
"At the conclusion of the discussions, the members of the negotiating team basically said, 'We want to work with you. We want to do this deal. Just let us know what the price is and we'll sign.'"
Then Seek to Be Understood
Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood. Knowing how to be understood is the other half of Habit 5, and is equally critical in reaching win-win solutions.
Earlier we defined maturity as the balance between courage and consideration. Seeking to
understand requires consideration; seeking to be understood takes courage. Win-win requires a high
degree of both. So it becomes important in interdependent situations for us to be understood.
The early Greeks had a magnificent philosophy which is embodied in three sequentially arranged words: ethos, pathos, and logos. I suggest these three words contain the essence of seeking first to understand and making effective presentations.
Ethos is your personal credibility, the faith people have in your integrity and competency. It's the trust that you inspire, your Emotional Bank Account. Pathos is the empathic side -- it's the feeling. It means that you are in alignment with the emotional trust of another person's communication. Logos is the logic, the reasoning part of the presentation.
Notice the sequence: ethos, pathos, logos -- your character, and your relationships, and then the logic of your presentation. This represents another major Paradigm Shift. Most people, in making
presentations, go straight to the logos, the left-brain logic, of their ideas. They try to convince other
people of the validity of that logic without first taking ethos and pathos into consideration.
I had an acquaintance who was very frustrated because his boss was locked into what he felt was an unproductive leadership style.
"Why doesn't he do anything?" he asked me. "I've talked to him about it, he's aware of it, but he does nothing."
"Well, why don't you make an effective presentation?" I asked.
"I did," was the reply.
"How do you define 'effective'? Who do they send back to school when the salesman doesn't sell --the buyer? Effective means it works; it means P/PC. Did you create the change you wanted? Did you build the relationship in the process? What were the results of your presentation?"
"I told you, he didn't do anything. He wouldn't listen."
"Then make an effective presentation. You've got to empathize with his head. You've got to get
into his frame of mind. You're got to make your point simply and visually and describe the alternative he is in favor of better than he can himself. That will take some homework. Are you willing to do that?"
"Why do I have to go through all that?" he asked
"In other words, you want him to change his whole leadership style and you're not willing to change your method of presentation?"
"I guess so," he replied.
"Well, then," I said, "just smile about it and learn to live with it."
"I can't live with it," he said. "It compromises my integrity."
"Okay, then get to work on an effective presentation. That's in your Circle of Influence."
In the end, he wouldn't do it. The investment seemed too great.
Another acquaintance, a university professor, was willing to pay the price. He approached me one day and said, "Stephen, I can't get to first base in getting the funding I need for my research because my research is really not in the mainstream of this department's interests."
After discussing his situation at some length, I suggested that he develop an effective presentation using ethos, pathos, and logos. "I know you're sincere and the research you want to do would bring great benefits. Describe the alternative they are in favor of better than they can themselves. Show that you understand them in depth. Then carefully explain the logic behind your request."
"Well, I'll try," he said.
"Do you want to practice with me?" I asked. He was willing, and so we dress rehearsed his
approach.
When he went in to make his presentation, he started by saying, "Now let me see if I first
understand what your objectives are, and what your concerns are about this presentation and my
recommendation."
He took the time to do it slowly, gradually. In the middle of his presentation, demonstrating his depth of understanding and respect for their point of view, a senior professor turned to another
professor, nodded, turned back to him and said, "You've got your money."
When you can present your own ideas clearly, specifically, visually, and most important,
contextually -- in the context of a deep understanding of their paradigms and concerns -- you
significantly increase the credibility of your ideas.
You're not wrapped up in your "own thing," delivering grandiose rhetoric from a soapbox. You really understand. What you're presenting may even be different from what you had originally
thought because in your effort to understand, you learned.
Habit 5 lifts you to greater accuracy, greater integrity, in your presentations. And people know
that. They know you're presenting the ideas which you genuinely believe, taking all known facts and
perceptions into consideration, that will benefit everyone.
One-on-One
Habit 5 is powerful because it is right in the middle of your Circle of Influence. Many factors in
interdependent situations are in your Circle of Concern -- problems, disagreements, circumstances,
other people's behavior. And if you focus your energies out there, you deplete them with little
positive results.
But you can always seek first to understand. That's something that's within your control. And as you do that, as you focus on your Circle of Influence, you really, deeply understand other people. You have accurate information to work with, you get to the heart of matters quickly, you build Emotional Bank Accounts, and you give people the psychological air they need so you can work together effectively.
It's the Inside-Out approach. And as you do it, watch what happens to your Circle of Influence. Because you really listen, you become influenceable. And being influenceable is the key to influencing others. Your circle begins to expand. You increase your ability to influence many of the things in your Circle of Concern.
And watch what happens to you. The more deeply you understand other people, the more you will appreciate them, the more reverent you will feel about them. To touch the soul of another human being is to walk on holy ground.
Habit 5 is something you can practice right now. The next time you communicate with anyone,
you can put aside your own autobiography and genuinely seek to understand. Even when people
don't want to open up about their problems, you can be empathic. You can sense their hearts, you can
sense the hurt, and you can respond, "You seem down today." They may say nothing. That's all right.
You've shown understanding and respect.
Don't push; be patient; be respectful. People don't have to open up verbally before you can
empathize. You can empathize all the time with their behavior. You can be discerning, sensitive, and
aware and you can live outside your autobiography when that is needed.
And if you're highly proactive, you can create opportunities to do preventive work. You don't
have to wait until your son or daughter has a problem with school or you have your next business
negotiation to seek first to understand.
Spend time with your children now, one-on-one. Listen to them; understand them. Look at your home, at school life, at the challenges and the problems they're facing, through their eyes. Build the Emotional Bank Account. Give them air.
Go out with your spouse on a regular basis. Have dinner or do something together you both enjoy. Listen to each other; seek to understand. See life through each other's eyes.
My daily time with Sandra is something I wouldn't trade for anything. As well as seeking to
understand each other, we often take time to actually practice empathic listening skills to help us in
communicating with our children.
We often share our different perceptions of the situation, and we role-play more effective
approaches to difficult interpersonal family problems.
I may act as if I am a son or daughter requesting a special privilege even though I haven't fulfilled a basic family responsibility, and Sandra plays herself
We interact back and forth and try to visualize the situation in a very real way so that we can train ourselves to be consistent in modeling and teaching correct principles to our children. Some of our most helpful role-plays come from redoing a past difficult or stressful scene in which one of us "blew it."
The time you invest to deeply understand the people you love brings tremendous dividends in open communication. Many of the problems that plague families and marriages simply don't have time to fester and develop. The communication becomes so open that potential problems can be nipped in the bud. And there are great reserves of trust in the Emotional Bank Account to handle the problems that do arise.
In business, you can set up one-on-one time with your employees. Listen to them, understand
them. Set up human resource accounting or Stakeholder Information Systems in your business to get
honest, accurate feedback at every level: from customers, suppliers, and employees. Make the
human element as important as the financial or the technical element. You save tremendous amounts
of time, energy, and money when you tap into the human resources of a business at every level. When you listen, you learn. And you also give the people who work for you and with you psychological air. You inspire loyalty that goes well beyond the eight-to-five physical demands of the job.
Seek first to understand. Before the problems come up, before you try to evaluate and prescribe, before you try to present your own ideas -- seek to understand. It's a powerful habit of effective interdependence.
When we really, deeply understand each other, we open the door to creative solutions and Third Alternatives. Our differences are no longer stumbling blocks to communication and progress.
Instead, they become the stepping stones to synergy.
Application Suggestions
1. Select a relationship in which you sense the Emotional Bank Account is in the red. Try to
understand and write down the situation from the other person's point of view. In your next
interaction, listen for understanding, comparing what you are hearing with what you wrote down.
How valid were your assumptions? Did you really understand that individual's perspective.
2. Share the concept of empathy with someone close to you. Tell him or her you want to work on
really listening to others and ask for feedback in a week. How did you do? How did it make that
person feel.
3. The next time you have an opportunity to watch people communicate, cover your ears for a few
minutes and just watch. What emotions are being communicated that may not come across in words
alone.
4. Next time you catch yourself inappropriately using one of the autobiographical responses --
probing, evaluating, advising, or interpreting -- try to turn the situation into a deposit by
acknowledgment and apology. ("I'm sorry, I just realized I'm not really trying to understand. Could
we start again?")
5. Base your next presentation on empathy. Describe the other point of view as well as or better
than its proponents; then seek to have your point understood from their frame of reference.
It was a grey Canadian morning in April 1982. The children had gone to school, my wife to work, and I did something I'd never done before. I turned the phone down, put a note on the front door, and went back to bed. I was burned out - and within two months resigned my ministry there.
Meanwhile, back in Australia, four books about ministry had come off the presses. Note the titles: The Plight of the Australian Clergy, High Calling High Stress, Battle Guide for Christian Leaders - an Endangered Species, and Conflict and Decline.
(1) 'Stress now contributes to 90% of all diseases. Half of all visits to doctors are stress-related'. 'Anxiety reduction' may now be the largest single business in the Western world.
(2) 'Doctors, lawyers and clergy have the most problems with drug abuse, alcoholism and suicide.'
(3) 'Research 25 years ago showed clergy dealing with stress better than most professionals. Since 1980, studies in the U.S. describe an alarming spread of burnout in the profession. For example, Jerdon found three out of four parish ministers (sample: 11,500) reported severe stress causing 'anguish, worry, bewilderment, anger, depression, fear, and alienation'.
Why is pastoral ministry so stressful? The reasons may be as numerous and unique as there are pastors. However, recent research is unanimous in citing the following problem areas: the disparity between (somewhat idealistic) expectations and hard reality; lack of clearly defined boundaries - tasks are never done; workaholism ('bed-at-the-church' syndrome); the Peter Principle - feeling of incompetence in leading an army of volunteers; conflict in being a leader and servant at the same time ('line-support contamination'); intangibility - how do I know I'm getting somewhere?; confusion of role identity with self image - pastors derive too much self-esteem from what they do; time management problems (yet pastors have more 'discretionary time' than any other professional group); paucity of 'perks'; multiplicity of roles; inability to produce 'win-win' conflict resolutions; difficulty in managing interruptions; the 'little adult' syndrome (Dittes) - clergy are too serious, they have difficulty being spontaneous; preoccupation with 'playing it safe' to avoid enraging powerful parishioners; 'administration overload' - too much energy expended in areas of low reward; loneliness - the pastor is less likely to have a close friend than any other person in the community.
Stress and burnout are not the same. Hans Selye defines stress in terms of the response your body makes to any demand on it. There is 'good stress' (eustress) - associated with feelings of joy, fulfilment, achievement - and 'bad stress' (distress), which is prolonged or too-frequent stress.
It is not possible (without a frontal lobotomy) to live without stress. Originally the term came from physics: the application of sufficient force to an object to distort it. So stress comes from 'outside' the organism, causing your body to respond in either 'fight' (when angry) or 'flight' (fear). Actually, stress is the transaction that takes place between you and your environment. The outside event impinges on your belief system, your brain interprets what's happening, and tells your body how to respond. Adrenalin is pumped into your bloodstream; blood is diverted from various organs to brain and muscles; pupils dilate (making vision more acute); hands and feet perspire; breathing and heart-rate increase, etc. The body is on 'red alert', the alarm response.
Most of us are not subject to physical danger very often, but whenever you are 'driven' by a very tight program, or threatened by a demand or expectation you don't think you can meet, your body reacts in the same way. In fact, medical experts are now saying that 'Type A' people in particular may be suffering a kind of 'adrenalin addiction'. Dr. David McClelland, professor of psychology at Harvard, says stress addiction is similar to the state of physiological arousal some people derive from a dependency on alcohol, caffeine and nicotine. A recent book Management and the Brain (Soujanen and Bessinger) suggests that some professionals are actually 'hooked' on stress. They get a 'high' out of controlling people and making complex decisions. Dr. Paul Rosch, president of the American Institute of Stress, says the Type A male (50% of all pastors are Type A, according to Dr. Arch Hart) who is 'living in the fast lane... has become addicted to his own adrenalin and unconsciously seeks ways to get those little surges'.
These days more of us will die from a stress-related illness than from infection or old age. The only advantage of living stressfully : you'll get to meet your Lord earlier!
Your body is designed to give warning signals of stress overload, which may include insomnia or disturbed sleep, digestive problems, headaches, low energy, chronic tiredness, psychosomatic illnesses, muscle tension, teeth grinding, high blood pressure, etc. Arch Hart again: 'Stress is 'hurry sickness'. The symptoms are often seen by the victim as obstacles to performance and success that he or she merely wants to get rid of. Seldom does the disease of over-stress slow the victim down - not until the final blow is struck and the ulcer, stroke or heart attack occurs.'
Stressors come to Christian leaders in four categories.
(1) Bio-ecological factors related to poor diet (too much caffeine, refined white sugar, processed flour, salt etc.) and poor exercise habits. They also include noise and air pollution.
(2) Vocational factors include career uncertainty; role ambiguity (a lack of clearly defined and mutually-agreed ministry functions); role conflict (between church expectations and personal or family needs); role overload (too many real or imagined expectations); lack of opportunities to 'derole' and be yourself, for a change; loneliness (95% of Australian pastors do not have a spiritual director); time management frustrations - and many more.
(3) Psychological factors relate principally to the great life-change stressors - from the most stressful (such as the loss of a spouse), through divorce, death of a close family member, personal injury or illness, all the way to getting ready for Christmas or being handed a speeding fine!
(4) Spiritual causes of stress may include temptations of all kinds (sexual, despair if your church isn't growing, jealousy of the success of others, anxiety over financial problems, anger - 'close to a professional vice in the contemporary ministry' says Henri Nouwen - and any other way the devil can get at us). Even prayer can be stressful according to one study!
Burnout is emotional exhaustion, 'compassion fatigue' (Hart). So even less-competitive Type B Christians can suffer burnout. And the most conscientious people-helpers are most vulnerable. Researchers like Maslach, Freudenberger and others from 1977 onwards gave the name 'burn-out' to the special stressors associated with social and interpersonal pressures.
Dr. Arch Hart says burnout symptoms may include demoralization (belief you are not longer effective as a pastor); depersonalization (treating yourself and others in an impersonal way); detachment (withdrawing from responsibilities); distancing (avoidance of social and interpersonal contacts); and defeatism (a feeling of being 'beaten').
Christina Maslach, who described burnout as 'a state of physical, emotional and mental exhaustion marked by physical depletion and chronic fatigue, feelings of helplessness and hopelessness, and by development of a negative self-concept and negative attitudes towards work, life and other people', offers the following signs:
(1) Decreased energy -'keeping up the speed' becomes increasingly
difficult;
(2) feeling of failure in vocation;
(3) reduced sense of reward in return for pouring so much of self into the job
or project;
(4) a sense of helplessness and inability to see a way out of problems; and
(5) cynicism and negativism about self, others, work and the world generally.
Personality and attitudinal factors may increase the propensity to burnout eg.: the pressure to succeed; an authoritarian personality which may come across insensitively (or a too-sensitive person who can feel with others' hurts but who is vulnerable to criticism); inner-directed rage; underassertiveness - feeling victimized; carrying too much guilt about our humanness (an occupational hazard for clergy, so we develop facades for various occasions); inflexibility; and many more.
The essence of the problem, however, is the clash between expectations and reality. Clergy are often put on a pedestal - by others, and by themselves. Many of these expectations just can't be met. We try to please, but may either become too goal-oriented for our people, or else too accommodating to their spiritual 'slackness'. 'Strongly goal-oriented ministers will almost inevitably experience more frustration than process-oriented ones' (Hart). We are working with volunteers, many of whom aren't there when the work is unrewarding. And we're stuck with each other - pastors have not hired most of the lay people they work with.
And so if we're not careful, depending on our personality-type, we may become perfectionistic, over-conscientious, develop one side of our ministry disproportionately, or maybe identify so closely with our calling that if it falls apart, we do too.
People-helpers have another hazard: in our counselling we're exposed almost exclusively to the negative sides of people's lives. So the pastoral leader ought to spend as much time with the strong as with the weak - for his own sake (they give him strength and support), for the leaders' sakes (they can be trained for ministry), and for the spiritual and emotional health of the whole church (there are more ministering persons available to help). Wasn't it A.B. Bruce who suggested Jesus spent more time with the disciples than with the crowds?
Again, the people studying this phenomenon are becoming unanimous in their suggestions to Christian people-helpers:
1. Find fresh spiritual disciplines. A conference in California has the theme 'One Hundred Ways to Pray'. Well, find about three or four, and 'shut the door' as Jesus said (i.e. put in a telephone answering-machine), and learn the art of relaxing, contemplative prayer. Then, as the New Testament suggests, don't be surprised when trials come your way. Jesus promised us trouble! So, as psychotherapist M. Scott Peck points out in his brilliant book The Road Less Traveled, when you expect life to be difficult, it is much less difficult.
2. Take regular time off. You aren't called to work harder than your Creator. Develop a way of being 'through for the day' (at least most days). Take your full four weeks' annual leave in one stretch (and make alternative arrangements for weddings, etc.). Encourage your denomination to include two weeks' extra, all-expenses-paid study leave each year. On your day/s off, do something very different from what you do the other days. (Wednesday or Thursday is best for preachers - away from the adrenalin-arousing Sundays). Listen to Spurgeon: 'Repose is as needful to the mind as sleep to the body... If we do not rest, we shall break down. Even the earth must lie fallow and have her Sabbaths, and so must we'. Jesus said, 'Come apart and rest awhile'. (If you don't rest awhile, you'll soon come apart!).
3. Get proper exercise and sleep. Exercise fairly vigorously 3-4 times a week. Walk, swim, play tennis; perspire and regularly breathe deeply. Allow adequate time for sleep. Dr. Hart again: 'Adrenal arousal reduces our need for sleep - but this is a trap; we ultimately pay the penalty. Most adults probably need 8-9 hours' a night!'
4. Relax. The relaxation response is the opposite of the fight/flight response. Just 20 minutes a day when we're free from the tyranny of 'things present' is enough to counteract the harmful effects of stress. Two ways to relax: tighten each set of muscles from your feet to your face, counting to five before relaxing them; or begin meditation by repeating a one-word or one-phrase prayer ('Maranatha', 'Lord have mercy'), repeat it slowly over and over and enjoy the 'other side of silence'.
5. Join a small support/prayer group. Ministry peers will better understand your needs; a cross-denominational group will enhance trust and provide other spiritualities. Then there's the classical discipline of 'spiritual direction' (or spiritual friendships). Who is Paul to your Timothy? Who teaches you to pray aright, as John the Baptist and Jesus taught their disciples? To whom do you confess your sins (James 5:16)? Luther said every priest ought to have such a 'father in God'. Congregations can help their pastor by praying more than they criticize him or her; having open communications re goals and expectations; recognizing that the pastor is human and will make mistakes like all of us; being as generous as possible financially (e.g. encouraging study leave); and protecting the privacy of the pastor's family life.
6. Cognitive restructuring (i.e. changing one's thinking). Take a personal audit. Reassess your goals; like your clothes, change them sometimes. Improve your self-attitudes. Learn a healthy assertiveness (e.g. by using the middle two letters of the alphabet - NO - sometimes, without apology). Know your gifts, and your limits. Face your fears; don't avoid them by pretence, or bury them in an addiction. Above all, avoid states of helplessness: take time to develop coping strategies for difficult situations. Learn not to make catastrophes out of ordinary events (increasing paranoia - 'they're out to get me' - is a sign of burnout). Be a growing person: if God has yet more light and truth to break forth from his Word, what new understandings have you experienced recently? Freudenberger suggests: 'Discard outmoded notions. Don't wear points of view just because you used to! Like old-fashioned clothes, they may become ill-fitting and ridiculous as time goes on'.
7. Have fun! To belong to the kingdom you have to be like little children. They aren't bothered about piles of correspondence or running the world. They get absorbed in things, even forgetting to run their own lives! So develop a few 'interesting interests': buy a bird-book and identify 100 native birds; collect stamps; play indoor cricket; take your spouse to an ethnic restaurant; give each of your kids an hour a week, where you do together what they suggest; build something ; audit a course. But do something! And laugh sometimes! Did you know your body will not let you laugh and develop an ulcer at the same time? Remember, with humourist Kin Hubbard: 'Do not take life too seriously; you will never get out of it alive!'
1. Dr. Kenneth Greenspan, director of the Centre of Stress
Related Disorders at New York's Presbyterian Hospital.
2. From the Report of Adult Dependence Treatment Unit, St. Mary's Hospital,
Minneapolis, 1980.
3. Quoted in S. Daniel and M. Rogers' 'Burn-out and the Pastorate...', Journal
of Psychology and Theology, Fall 1981, 9 (3) 232-249.
Christian:
Ross Kingham & Robin Pryor, Out of Darkness - Out of Fire: A Work-book for
Christian Leaders under Pressure (JBCE 1988);
Ed. Bratcher, The Walk-on-Water Syndrome: Dealing with Professional Hazards in
the Ministry (Word, 1984);
Kent and Barbara Hughes, Liberating Ministry from the Success Syndrome (Tyndale,
1988),
Robin Pryor, High Calling High Stress, & At Cross Purposes: Stress and Support
in the ministry of the wounded healer (Uniting Church, Victoria, 1982, 1986);
John Sanford, Ministry Burnout (Paulist, 1982);
Archibald Hart, Coping with Depression in the Ministry and Other Helping
Professions (Word, 1984), and The Success Factor (Revell, 1984);
David Augsburger and John Faul, Beyond Assertiveness (Word, 1980);
Brooks R. Faulkner, Burnout in Ministry (Broadman);
Keith W. Sehnert, Stress/Unstress (Augsburg);
Charles Rassieur, Stress Management for Ministers (Westminster, 1982);
Leadership (Christianity Today, Summer 1984. Theme: Roles and Expectations);
Robert Banks, The Tyranny of Time (Lancer, 1983)
Secular:
Herbert Freudenberger, Burnout: How to Beat the High Cost of Success (Bantam,
1980);
Christina Maslach, Burnout - The Cost of Caring (Prentice-Hall, 1982);
Robert Alberti and Michael Emmons, Your Perfect Right (Impact, Calif., 1978);
Karl Albrecht and Hans Selye, Stress and the Manager (Prentice-Hall, 1979).
On contemplative prayer:
Anthony de Mello, Sadhana (St. Louis, 1978);
Mark Link, You, and Breakaway (Argus);
Morton Kelsey, The Other Side of Silence - A Guide to Christian Meditation (Paulist,
1976);
Simon Tugwell, Prayer (Vols 1 & 2) (Veritas, Dublin, 1984).
by
Dr. Arch Hart
* Burnout is a defense characterized by disengagement.
* Stress is characterized by overengagement.
* In Burnout the emotions become blunted.
* In Stress the emotions become over-reactive.
* In Burnout the emotional damage is primary.
* In Stress the physical damage is primary.
* The exhaustion of Burnout affects motivation and drive.
* The exhaustion of Stress affects physical energy.
* Burnout produces demoralization.
* Stress produces disintegration.
* Burnout can best be understood as a loss of ideals and hope.
* Stress can best be understood as a loss of fuel and energy.
* The depression of Burnout is caused by the grief engendered by the loss of
ideals and hope.
* The depression of Stress is produced by the body's need to protect itself and
conserve energy.
* Burnout produces a sense of helplessness and hopelessness.
* Stress produces a sense of urgency and hyperactivity.
* Burnout produces paranoia, depersonalization and detachment.
* Stress produces panic, phobic, and anxiety-type disorders.
* Burnout may never kill you but your long life may not seem worth living.
* Stress may kill you prematurely, and you won't have enough time to finish what
you started.
Coping With Stress and Burnout
in Youth Ministry
A conversation with Carmen Renee Berry
We can ignore long-term stress, we can spiritualize it, we can overlook what our bodies are telling us. But before long, unless we begin by acknowledging to ourselves that we're living an addictive lifestyle, we'll hit burnout. And something will die.
Carmen Renee Berry has lived on both sides of stress. While a social worker specializing in child sexual-abuse prevention and treatment, she carried several other helping loads—and before long, gradually but inexorably, stress and burnout became a life-and-death situation for her.
The former director of the National Association of Christian Recovery, she is currently a speaker and vice president of Christian Recovery International. In these capacities she has helped hundreds of people who grapple with this distinctively American trauma.
As a mental-health professional, Berry has studied the effects of stress and burnout in our lives and developed the "messiah trap" concept. She teaches about healthy living—psychologically and physiologically—in workshops and through her books (The Messiah Trap, Loving Yourself as Your Neighbor, When Helping You Is Hurting Me, Your Body Never Lies).
Youth worker-writer Jeanette Gardner recently talked with Berry about how stress affects you—and what you can do to get help before the stress burns you out.
Youthworker: How does stress affect our lives?
Carmen Renee Berry: Stress is not intrinsically bad. We need a certain amount of stress because it's a challenge to our physiological system and motivates us to live our lives.
Good stress is a challenge. It helps us complete anything that is hard to do, that requires effort, but can be done—like getting up in the morning. So if you wake up every morning and you've got a challenge and you're excited about it, you run hard and you play hard and you win or get close to winning. Then at night you can relax and let that go and sleep.
Good stress becomes bad stress, however, when it affects us physically and emotionally. For instance, stress becomes negative when a goal is impossible to reach and you keep trying to achieve it. Stress also becomes bad when you're being challenged at an extremely high level for a long period of time.
When stress hits, your nervous system shifts to a fight-or-flight mode. It triggers your adrenal glands and a number of other hormones in your system. That function is meant for one-time shots—bursts of energy to move your body fast and cause quick action. The adrenalin produced by stress can see you through a crisis.
Unfortunately, a lot of people live in that state. Because of stress, their adrenalin is pumping regularly if not continually. That deteriorates our bodies physiologically. The adrenal glands themselves can just fry.
Youthworker: Sounds ominous. Anything else relentless stress does to us physically?
Carmen Renee Berry: It weakens your immune system. It can open the way for heart attacks and even for cancer. Of course, we have the cancer potential in us all the time; our immune system usually fights it. But with prolonged stress, our immunity can decrease.
Studies by physicians show that maybe two years after a major loss or major depression, cancer can appear. They're beginning to link a time of loss or serious stress with a drop in the immune system, and it takes two years for the cancer to become visible.
That doesn't mean everyone who experiences a loss or stress gets cancer, but the two are definitely related. When your immune system drops, you're more susceptible to whatever is going around—whether it's a simple cold or a fatal cancer.
Youthworker: What noticeable symptoms can tell us that stress is getting out of hand?
Carmen Renee Berry: One big indicator is extreme weight loss or gain. If you have a tendency toward any eating disorder, stress exacerbates this problem. I lose weight easily, so I'm more anorexic. I could drop 10 pounds a week.
On the other hand, if you perceive food as a nurturance or a way of taking care of yourself, you'll naturally eat more when you're stressed. Then your body suffers from overeating, and the problem is only intensified.
Depression and irritability are other biggies. So is a circular thought process, which is when you just can't figure out the solution to problems and questions that would have been simple to you before.
Or you may feel dissatisfied with the people in your life, or feel you're constantly giving without getting anything back.
Youthworker: You distinguish stress from burnout. How are the two related?
Carmen Renee Berry: If you live in an overly stressful environment, eventually your system will burn out on every level—physically, emotionally, spiritually. Burnout is the result of mismanaged stress.
Just being challenged and excited does not cause burnout. What burns you out is when you feel frustrated and can't achieve your goal—because your goal is an impossible one to reach, or because there's some craziness in the system, so you're disempowered and just can't get where you feel you need to go. The frustration builds.
When you're really about to burn out, you usually feel very angry. Or you feel you're late, or that you're never enough. You're just fried to a crisp. So if you're driving somewhere, even if no one is waiting for you, you still drive like a maniac to get there because you just feel late.
At that stage, you know you're burning out.
When you're burning out, you move from trying to seek your worth in other people to being more connected to them and needing their approval. The closer you get to burnout, the more driven you get. You try to increase your productivity—and if you don't succeed, the more guilty you feel until you give out. You get more driven, more rigid, less compassionate. Definitely less fun at parties.
I feel that God speaks through our bodies. They usually give us signals that stress has built and burnout is inevitable. My burnout began with headaches and upset stomach. Instead of doing something about the cause, I just treated the symptoms by taking aspirin and Maalox. I didn't pay attention to it. The symptoms got worse and I started getting migraines and waking up with panic attacks. It kept getting worse until I finally collapsed physically and emotionally.
So we can ignore long-term stress, we can spiritualize it, we can ignore our bodies. But before long we'll hit burnout.
Youthworker: How long does it take for stress to cause burnout?
Carmen Renee Berry: In child protective services, the saying was you'll either burn out in two years or last the rest of your life. Actually, that's pretty accurate. Although it's different for each person, most people burn out in two years or stay numb for the rest of their lives. It took me four years to burn out—probably because I was fairly healthy and sturdy.
Youthworker: Is stress and burnout more prevalent for those in ministry?
Carmen Renee Berry: I think it's very prevalent because so many people in the ministry fall into what I call the "messiah trap," a syndrome common in our culture but especially endemic in the Christian world.
A person falling into the messiah trap tends to believe two lies. The first lie is "If I don't do it, it won't get done." Which is an excessive sense of responsibility. We feel that we're really important and that God needs us. This happens especially when people are trained to be very responsible. A lot of people who end up in ministry—including youth ministry—are good people whose identity is based on being a good and helpful person.
The second lie is "Everyone else's needs take priority over mine," a combination of grandiosity and low self-esteem.
Messiahs are perched on life as if they are on top of a pyramid. One leg of the pyramid is the victims—those who need the messiah's help. In youth work, that's usually the teenagers. The other leg is the offenders—anyone who can harm the victims or the messiah's effectiveness in helping the victims; in youth work, this could be society, gangs, whatever.
The messiahs have no problems, no needs; they are the controllers of the bad people and the helpers of the good people.
This is a dangerous hook, because when you're feeling good and confident, you'll take on more than you should. But when you're feeling badly about yourself, you feel you're not worthy enough to take time for. "I can't cut back, the kids need me," you tell yourself. "So much is going on in church right now. I know I should take a couple of days off, but I have too much going on."
And it becomes an addictive lifestyle. To complicate matters, churches often reinforce it. For the most part, churches underpay and overwork their employees. A church staff member gets one day off, but is generally on call 24 hours a day. The idea of a six-day workweek is unheard of in most other professions, but not in churches. Even if you're giving residential treatment, you get two or three days off a week. Because the ministry has such an unrealistic demand and pays so poorly, it sets you up for stress with a double whammy.
Usually that stress is mismanaged and ends up resulting in burnout, because little support is built into the system.
Youthworker: Then is the image of youth ministry as an exciting, progressive, energizing career deceptive?
Carmen Renee Berry: There's not a lot of acknowledgment of how hard it is to work with kids and parents and to be held responsible for everything that every happens to and in the youth group.
Add to that other people's expectations of a youth minister, who are often the kind of people who find identity in pleasing others. They therefore develop a finely tuned intuitive ability to scan a room and discern what everybody wants.
You've got the parents, the kids, the church, the senior pastor—this whole complex of expectations. Add to the situation the fact that people in this kind of work are very sensitive, very aware. They usually have a conscious or unconscious sense of "I must do this well. These kids are counting on me, and so are their parents." As a result, they're highly sensitized to succeeding in the eyes of teens and parents and senior pastors—and this only intensifies the stress.
Because of the volume of stress, burnout is very prevalent in youth ministry. In many youth ministry cases, the burnout is hidden. It will often come up in ways that don't look like burnout—a youth worker bursts out in an argument with the senior pastor and gets fired. Or he or she may act out sexually with someone. Or perhaps the person will just become dissatisfied and angry.
Youthworker: What's going on under the surface of a ministry and family of a youth worker under excessive stress?
Carmen Renee Berry: As we've mentioned, stress is an addictive lifestyle. So the youth minister ends up modeling this addiction for the kids.
You wrap it up in Scripture and convince kids that this is good. And the kids get the message that if you're a really good person, you're overachieving. Really good Christians are involved in every activity. Really good Christians are there whenever the church is open. Really good Christians do nothing for themselves, but are always involved in ministry programs. A youth minister living in the addictive lifestyle of stress emphasizes in his or her teaching how to take care of other people while ignoring the signals God has given you about yourself.
So we model this addictive lifestyle for kids. As if that's not bad enough, neither do we give them anything of substance. After all, we can't give what we don't have and can't receive. Messiahs are usually so busy trying to meet others' needs that they haven't learned how to receive love and help. So their supply is low.
Youthworker: Certainly youth-working messiahs have some idea of what's happening inside them, that something isn't quite right.
Carmen Renee Berry: That's why they try to compensate in other ways. Burnout can begin by feeling like a failure. You feel guilty, you feel angry, you do more to try to compensate and work to gain approval. You blame everybody: it's all their fault, it's all my fault, it's all God's fault. You become irrational.
To top it off, family problems become apparent. Usually the family of a messiah plays second fiddle to the youth ministry, so the marriage suffers. If you're really burning out, the family relationships are very dissatisfying. People are getting angry and sick. Or maybe there's an affair or something else that blows up.
It's difficult for messiahs to admit to themselves and to others that the burden of stress is getting too heavy. If they could admit it, they wouldn't be burning out. As it is, those caught in the messiah trap really feel they are worthless and that self-denying, sacrificial service is how to earn their salvation or self-worth. It's a way of surviving.
Remember the image of those caught in the messiah trap, perched atop a pyramid? Usually they're surrounded only by victims and offenders. They don't have others to balance their lives. So when burnout strikes and life crumbles—and you don't have a support system—the only way to go is down. Messiahs slide down their own pyramid, either on the victim side or the offender side.
Youthworker: Which side did you fall down?
Carmen Renee Berry: The victim side. I got depressed. I missed meetings because I couldn't function. I got befuddled. People said, "Carmen tries harder because she's not a very strong person." They felt sorry for me. I lost my status. They didn't perceive me as a messiah anymore—but they were kinder to me and took care of me.
Men, however, tend to go down as offenders. They get mad, have an affair, tell off the boss, write a letter to the board, blow up and smack someone.
A lot of ministers who have affairs end up as offenders and get kicked out of church. If they had gone down as victims, they could have stayed in the church, but without status—in which case the likelihood is good that they would have gotten well and returned to their same positions. But usually they change denominations or move out of state or something because they've burned bridges.
Here, by the way, is my practical advice if you're going to burn out: at least go down as a victim. Look pathetic, cry a lot, don't tell anybody off. You want to work after you get through this, don't you?
Anyway, say a youth pastor is going through all this in the course of burning out. The church, especially if it's a dysfunctional organization, tends to blame the person burning out and replace him or her. "We thought he was moral," they say, "but he's really just a weak character—and his affair proves it." Or "He's twice as bad as we thought, because he deceived us." Or "She never was very strong...always depressed and complaining."
People who fall are typically people with integrity. They don't just wake up in the morning and tell themselves, "I'm going to cheat on my wife" or "I will betray everyone who loves me." She is usually an individual in enormous pain who finds a listening, caring man who gives her a little comfort or whatever—and then makes a really bad decision. Then we kick her out.
Youthworker: How can we keep from getting to that stage? When youth pastors feel stress rise, what should they do?
Carmen Renee Berry: You have to take a hard look at your life and honestly decide if this is a situational stress—something that is infrequent and like everybody has to deal with—or if you're into a lifestyle of stress or a set of expectations that are impossible to meet. If you've agreed to a lifestyle that's impossible, you'll need to get help.
Messiahs not only feel no one could do a better job than they can. They also feel that no one would love them if it were known how bad or lazy or selfish or sinful the messiahs really were. They aren't nearly as wonderful as they put out, they feel, so they develop a severe sense of alienation.
But messiahs have to come out of that mode. They need to acknowledge the problem and get help through a support group, a therapist, or a bodyworker—or through some combination of these three.
Messiahs have usually arranged their lives so that everyone looks to them for answers. So if you, a messiah, start to change that, your family and friends won't like it at all. They may love you, but they'll feel deprived. Consequently, when you start to get help, you'll probably have to go outside your circle of friends and family. You need to get support outside your system.
If you're a youth minister and the church is the primary stress, you need a support group that has nothing to do with the church, that doesn't care if you stay or go, that wants nothing from you. You need a place where you can just go and complain and talk.
If your stress is primarily with family, you need a support group that's outside your family, where you can get help and maybe some counseling.
It's important that you have a regularly structured program to go to—some place or organization where people know you, where they hold you accountable, where they will call you on your actions when you try to rationalize it.
If you're burning out, you need to tell someone and get help—but it must be the right someone. Otherwise you'll get creamed. You aren't neurotic if you sit in your room, afraid that people will come after you if they discover you're burning out. Some people really will come after you. It's tragic, but it's real.
Youthworker: You mentioned "bodywork" as a form of relieving stress. What's that-aerobic exercise or something?
Carmen Renee Berry: Not exactly. The evangelical church has traditionally suspected the body as a source of sin. They've misinterpreted Scripture, especially concerning the word flesh. A couple years ago I learned about two Greek words, both of which have traditionally been translated into English as "flesh." One of the words refers to the physical body. But the other refers to—and should be translated as—our sinful nature. Just as they are two distinct words, they are two separate concepts in the New Testament.
I was not taught that. Like most people, I was taught that the body is unmentionable. If you get too connected to your body, it's probably a sexual thing—and you don't want that. So I'm developing an approach to conservative Christian spirituality that is body based. In my workshop I talk about the different ways the body remembers and how God communicates to us through our bodies. I feel massage and bodywork is one way to interact with that.
I get massages or bodywork almost every week. It's a way for me to be still to hear God's voice, a way to connect to myself, a way to take care of myself.
In terms of stress management, massage is fabulous because the body actually carries the stress—and massage can release it. Massage moves the fluid and the blood through the system. It detoxifies the muscle tissue, it relaxes the skeletal system, soothes your anatomic system, and it helps you physically combat the effects of stress. If you go further and use it as a prayerful approach, then I believe there can be emotional healing because the body remembers past struggles and can come to terms with it.
Youthworker: So what happens if we don't want to risk getting help? Say we avoid support groups, therapists, and bodywork—and just keep trying to deal with the stress and burnout problem alone, on a nonprofessional level?
Carmen Renee Berry: The good news and the bad news is that all addictions lead to a premature death of some sort. What dies may be your health or your marriage or your job. But something will die.
If you don't acknowledge the stress and get into recovery, you plummet—and that's the moment God has a chance of getting your attention and letting you know your own efforts just aren't working.
So when you hit bottom, you have a chance to get into recovery or go through the cycle and hit bottom again—and again, and again, until you either die or you get the clue. Most who go into recovery—whether it's for addiction to a stressful lifestyle, or any other addiction—say, "I went into recovery because it was either that or death." Alcoholics go into recovery because they realize that if they don't stop drinking, they will die. It's a very serious life choice.
That's how I have felt about my recovery from stress and burnout. It was very clear to me that if I did not get into a stress recovery process, I would die prematurely—I think I probably would have been dead by now. It was a life or death choice to me. I could fear those who criticized me for getting help, or I could die. It really wasn't a difficult choice.
But if it isn't a life and death choice for you yet, the decision to recover may be hard.
Youthworker: If they realize that stress is a life-and-death matter and get into recovery, what are the odds that youth workers can have a satisfying professional life or personal life again?
Carmen Renee Berry: The odds are very good. I could not imagine that there could be life for me after burnout. I was a failure, that's all. I'd failed God, I'd failed myself, I'd failed all the kids I was working with. But I learned that when you start recovery and begin dealing with the underlying issues, life is not only as good as before, but even better.
This is the core of Christianity to me. Spiritual growth is the continual death and resurrection of the spirit. If you're in an addictive process, you just keep dying and dying and dying—and eventually you die completely.
But with spiritual growth, you die and you're resurrected and you die and you're resurrected and you die and you're resurrected. That's life. Eventually, we will die physically and be resurrected. Similarly, I need to die to the dysfunction that's in me now—the dysfunction of stress. It won't be pleasant and I won't like it. But God will follow it up with resurrection and bring something new.
I used to be in an addictive lifestyle, but dressed up with spiritual, Christian clothes. But the way I live now is much safer. It's not scary at all. It's more being led by the Holy Spirit. It's painful, but it's good. It's a beginning, not an end.
© 1999 Youth Specialties
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Holy Burnout
The dynamics of a church along with
the ungodly spiritual forces that can operate in church settings, create an
environment that leaves pastors particularly vulnerable to burnout.
When Rev. Harold Scott took his car to the mechanic for repair, the mechanic analyzed the problem and said to Scott, "Your starter is burned out. You need a new one."
"It's a totally different dynamic than the workplace, and this makes church situations prone to create burnout."
When the mechanic explained how a burned-out starter burns out slowly over time, he immediately recognized the parallels with his own life. Scott had recently resigned from planting a church because he realized he was burned out (see related article Beyond Burnout). "I had to remove myself from the crucible of ministry," said Scott.
At the front lines of the care giving business are pastors who are experiencing burnout in record numbers, says Archibald Hart, who has spent the better part of his career ministering to and teaching pastors. Each month he meets with a group of pastors somewhere in Canada or the United States to address issues of stress, burnout and personal care.
"The church vocations have the highest people intensity, and are unique because they're made up of volunteers," says Hart. "It's a totally different dynamic than the workplace, and this makes church situations prone to create burnout."
Churches contribute to clergy burnout in four ways, says Hart:
"There isn't a commitment to support the pastor unconditionally," said Hart. "This alarms me."
In his book Holy Burnout, Steve Roll, a pastor, uses his personal experience with burnout to identify six "unholy spirits" in the church that contribute to burnout: The "spirit of rebellion" among people who resist spiritual authority; the "spirit of offence" among people who are easily offended and willing to believe the worst about the pastor and others in the church; the "spirit of criticism"; the "spirit of bitterness"; and, most problematic, the "spirit of control."
"Pastors are being forced out of churches because of ill-defined concepts such as 'administrative differences' and 'leadership styles,' " said Roll. "Actually these are all smoke screens and cover-ups for political power plays."
Pastors also contribute to their own burnout, adds Hart, by taking responsibility for things they shouldn't, for example. They also lack training in dealing with conflict.
Lyle Larson, former University of Alberta sociologist and author of the report Clergy Families in Canada, prepared for the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, adds that there are unique factors to clergy life that contribute to burnout. "Ministry is a demanding life; finances are minimal and expectations are high: God expects a lot of them, their churches expect a lot of them, and they expect a lot of themselves. It makes burnout a more likely occasion."
Wounded and weary pastors often bail out of ministry or are forced out by their churches with alarming frequency. Hart claims that the average pastor has tenure of one year and ten months. Who else changes jobs that often? he asks.
Most burnout could be avoided by addressing several issues, argues Hart. "We need a healthier theology of compassion where pastors should minister out of sympathy, not empathy. They can't bear that much hurt.
"We need a healthier theology of success and failure. Sometimes failure is God's plan; some would even say there is no such thing as failure, only forced growth.
"And we need a theology of self-care and support. Most clergy feel guilty taking time off, and they don't have an adequate support system. When pastors have a support group, the likelihood of burnout is dramatically decreased."
"Ministry engulfs pastors. They need to set boundaries and be who they really are."
A strong support system of fellow pastors and friends who will make the pastor accountable is of vital importance. Pastors are encouraged to develop hobbies and outside interests that allow for personal time, space and creativity. Pastors must also set boundaries on family time, recreation time and vacation time. And they need to insist on clear, mutually agreed-upon job descriptions with realistic expectations.
"A major part of it is the failure to detach from the ministry assignment and to enjoy lifelike a normal person," said Scott. "Ministry engulfs pastors. They need to set boundaries and be who they really are."
Scott has recently returned to minister at a Free Methodist church in Calgary and has made a number of changes to avoid a recurrence of burnout.
"I feel the challenge and call to ministry, but I don't take myself so seriously anymore," said Scott. "There's a lack of intensity. I realize God's kingdom will be built with or without me. I make decisions differently, conscious of the issue of balance. I want to enjoy life."
Richelle Wiseman is a writer in Calgary, AB.
Originally published in
Faith Today,
May/June 1998.
www.faithtoday.ca
Used with permission. Copyright © 2003 Christianity.ca.