Tag: church (Page 17 of 29)

Just Too Much To Carry

November 16, 2023 / Derrick Hurst / 0 Comments

I almost dropped everything.

There are two kinds of people in the world. There are the ones who carry two bags of groceries in from the car, and then there’s me. I tend to load up the arms and carry as much in as I possibly can. Less trips and all. Plus it’s kind of a challenge sometimes.

But it’s not just with groceries. I do this pretty much every time I get out of the car to go into the office or when I get home. I load up with my backpack, gym bag, Yeti, water jug, and often a coat or something additional on the cold days. This doesn’t even account for finding a way to carry my lunch. And yeah you guessed it…I carry all of it at once.

Carrying these things isn’t really a huge issue. The problem arises when I try to open the door. If we had those cool automatically opening doors, this would be a breeze! But alas, I have to dig into my pocket to get my keys. Then turn the lock and open the door. All of this while my hands are loaded and everything is perfectly balance. My wife often jokes that I need a drink carrier to hold all of the beverages I carry around since there’s normally a protein shake and some pre workout somewhere in the mix as well.

When I get to the door I have two options. I can do the weird balancing act or I could put a few things down. Generally I do the funky balancing act, look like a fool and almost drop everything on the way in the door.

I think the church has done the same thing with people and how we teach salvation. For those that don’t know, salvation is that teaching in the Bible that our wrongs are covered and we’re set up for an eternal future with God in heaven. You see we load up all the extra stuff for people to carry before they truly understand salvation.

The Bible teaches that there’s only one way to heaven. His name is Jesus. Salvation comes through no one and nothing other than Jesus. That’s a very clear message we read on just about every page of the Bible. Yet I’m seeing so many churches talking about so many other things as if they are prerequisites for understanding Jesus.

It’s like we’re piling all the extra bags onto people’s backs making it hard to carry any of it. The Bible teaches that we shouldn’t make it hard for people to believe, but that’s exactly what we’re doing. We load up worship styles, version of the Bible, doctrines and teachings of our particular denomination, how we dress, how we talk, where we go and don’t go, should we make the sign of the cross or not. Man there’s a ton of baggage that we’ve attached to the whole Jesus is the only way to heaven truth.

I’m not saying that any of those conversations are bad. As a matter of fact many of those things are good in their own right. But we can’t treat them as if they are Jesus. We need to stop loading people up with all of this extra baggage before they even know Jesus.

I’m part of a church tradition that values its heritage and its position on many topics, what we call doctrines. And I’m seeing more and more pastors in my church body making people know all of these supporting truths with minimal focus on Jesus. Sure they teach that Jesus died and rose but there’s so much more to Jesus than that one piece of his life.

If you’re a follower of Jesus, perhaps it’s time to realize who Jesus really is. He was a person with some amazing characteristics. He was a man who really walked on the earth, who dealt with some pretty nasty stuff. There’s a lot we can learn from Jesus without heaping up all the extra baggage that we have come up with over time to differentiate us from the rest of the world.

When we load people up with all of these extra doctrines and focus on our churchy jargon it’s often at the expense of Jesus. It’s at the expense of people really learning to live like Jesus. Jesus teaches that his teaching is easy and his burden is light. He doesn’t load us up with all these theological terms and churchy ideas. The Bible gives us Jesus. That’s the one thing we need for heaven. If more followers of Jesus would worry as much about following Jesus as they do about their doctrines and confessional stance on everything, we just might realize that the world doesn’t have a problem with Jesus. They have a problem with how hard we make it to follow him.

Consider thinking through what bags you make people carry on their way into church. Rethink the loads you’re putting on the men and women who really want to know Jesus. If we’re not careful, they’re going to drop everything…including Jesus.

Context and Culture

November 2, 2023 / Derrick Hurst / 0 Comments

There’s something to be said about knowing your culture and context. Whether you’re in marketing, sales, public speaking, an author, a song writer, or even a pastor we need to know the culture and context into which we’re speaking.

For some these two words might seem the same but I see them as two sides of the same coin. Both are needed and both are important. Culture is who we are. It’s the systems and ideals with which we’ve been raised and that define our character and personhood. Context on the other hand is the lens through which everything we see is filtered. Our culture is more consistent than our context.

My family of origin and my current household structure are not likely to change a whole lot through the years (aside from the age of my children). But my context is all the other stuff like my neighborhood, financial status, job title, and all those things that can and often do change frequently.

If we don’t understand the culture and context of our audience, we’ll never speak in a way that they hear much less understand. I’m going to take this conversation to my context. I’m a pastor so this applies to me in a very specific way. I need to know how to contextualize the message I preach.

Now some out there will get all bent out of shape by hearing me say something about contextualizing the gospel. They likely think I’m talking about changing the gospel to meet the scenarios of the people around me. But they couldn’t be more wrong. As a matter of fact I don’t change the message, or in your case the product you sell. We do however need to change the way we communicate the value of that product or message.

Take my role again as an example. I need to be able to speak in a contextually applicable way. That is not making the gospel fit into the lives of my hearers by any means. The idea of contextualization of the gospel is about helping my hearers find the end of their current, and future, story in the gospel of Jesus. It’s about helping people see how their lives already are impacted by the message of the Bible.

If you’re in sales or marketing it’s the same thing. You’re not forcing your ideals, product or message onto someone else. Your goal is to help them see themselves and their problems being cared for by the message or product you provide. When I was in car sales I did this all the time. Someone would come with a problem. My car has a problem, doesn’t run, is old, needs replaced.

I didn’t have to convince them to buy the car. I just had to show them how the car I had on the lot actually was the answer to the problem they presented to me in the first place.

As pastors we tend to get stuck in a rut of Jesus loves me this I know, blah…blah…blah. Yes that message is really important and it’s very true! But it’s only part of the story. If we don’t contextualize the message in a culturally relevant way, then people aren’t going to be able to hear the message much less be impacted by it.

Take time to understand the culture around you and the context into which your message or product will be presented. You’ll be far more effective when you do.

The Gospel

November 1, 2023 / Derrick Hurst / 0 Comments

This week in the church I serve we talked about something called the reformation. Now the reformation is celebrated by some as an event in time, a day that happened over 500 years ago. Some consider it a work of a team of men who sought to reform the church to a more biblical time frame.

I’m not one of those guys. I don’t necessarily see the reformation as a day or period in history. Well not exactly. Sure it was a time in history and several guys were part of this movement that we now call the reformation. Yes it was about bringing the church back from the cliff of bad theology. But it was so much more. To relegate it to a historical period I think does it injustice.

In my mind, the reformation had a pretty singular focus. The Gospel. It was about re-understanding the wholeness of the gospel. It was about finding the heart of the gospel and what it meant for our lives here, now, today. The reformation wasn’t just a period in history. It was about a new way of living as followers of Jesus. It was intended to be a believe that would redefine how we live and who we are.

As I said above, at its core the reformation was about the Gospel. But what is the Gospel? Some narrow the message of the Gospel to some future hope to which we look. One day we’ll die and go be with Jesus forever in heaven. That’s a pretty nice idea. But the Gospel isn’t just about some nicety that one day will be true. At least that’s not how I see it!

The Gospel is about here, now, today. It’s about my life in 2023. It’s about how we see parenting, marriage, work, finance, health, fitness, the war in the Middle East. It’s about all of it – not just a future destination.

The people known as the reformers (aka guys who led the charge in making the reformation happen) were so sold out on this reality that they were willing to stake their reputations and even their lives on this new way of living. They wanted to get back to the basics of what the Bible was all about. The Gospel!

Sure the Gospel is about Jesus. It’s about dying and rising. It’s about grace and forgiveness and salvation and all those cool churchy words. But at its core, the gospel is really deeper than that. It’s about a transformed life. It’s about a fire in our soul that can’t be quenched with anything other than more of Jesus.

Yeah, yeah I know – the gospel in a nutshell (John 3:16) is all about Jesus dying and rising. What do we do with that? Well that’s part of it but not all of it. He died and rose. Yep. Not denying that one at all. But He didn’t die and rise only so I would have some future hope. If so then what’s the point now? He died and rose so that I can have a future hope and a totally different way of living today!

The Gospel at its core is about the difference that Jesus makes in every aspect of my life. The Gospel is just as relevant to my parenting and budgeting and healthcare as it is to my someday after I die future hope.

In short celebrate the reformation but don’t make it about a guy, a day, a time period, or even just about heaven. It’s way bigger than that! Happy Reformation friends!

Signs Of A Real Church

October 23, 2023 / Derrick Hurst / 0 Comments

I spend a lot of time with many people talking about church stuff. From pastors discussing how they do worship and lead programs to church members about getting involved in serving or studying the Bible to people who want nothing to do with church, I see them all. And each of them come with their own set of benefits and challenges.

Recently I talked about a book of the Bible, 1 Thessalonians. Ok I know weird name but we have some doozies in states around the country as well!

Thessalonians is a letter that was written to a very young church in parts of Europe around the year 50 AD. The church was just getting started after a man named Paul came and started sharing what he believed about Jesus and the whole death and resurrection bit. He talked about how lives should look different if we actually believed this all to be true.

Well his stay in this bustling town didn’t last very long because some people were threatened by a message that wasn’t theirs. So they ran him off. Fleeing to a neighboring city he wrote a letter to those that remained as part of this fledgling church. His letter is packed with encouragement and thankfulness. But woven into the first few verses are three things Paul highlights that I believe are marks of a true, real, authentic and spirit filled church.

Work of Faith

The first thing Paul mentions is this idea of a work of faith. Now we have to make sure to get this right. This is not a work that leads to faith or earns some favor with God. This is a work done because of faith. You believe something so deeply that it changes who you are and how you live.

There’s another verse in the bible that says faith without works is dead. This means a person can’t say they believe and then have nothing in their lives change! If you really believe it then it has to shape who you are and how you live. This little church start known as Thessalonians had just that – a powerful faith in Jesus that led them to live a totally different kind of life. Turns out that these new Christians didn’t just say they believed in Jesus, but they actually let it change how they lived as husbands and wives, parents and children, masters and slaves. Just about every aspect of their lives was lived out in faithful obedience to God’s word. Pretty cool huh!

Labor of Love

The idea of something being a labor means it’s work, often hard work that’s not all that pleasant at the time. When you have to labor through something it often means pain, or at least discomfort. It means some bit of self sacrifice to make this happen.

Paul tells this little church that their love for people (people like them and not like them) was something to take note of! They loved their neighbors, even their enemies and it was obvious to just about everyone. The Bible tells us that the world will know that we are followers of Jesus, not by how we lead our worship services or what hymns we sing. Nope they’ll know we are Christians by our love.

This group of new followers of Jesus got the love part down cold. Not some roses and candy kind of love either. This was a love that was able to welcome the person no one wanted to be around. It was going out of their way to help widows and orphans. It was serving the poor at their own expense. This love was strong, powerful and super evident to the world around them.

Steadfastness of Hope

The idea of being steadfast is to endure or stand the test. The third mark of the true church that Paul here highlights is about hope that can withstand some pretty crappy stuff. This church was started under duress. Paul was there only for a few weeks preaching and teaching. Then he was run out of own by people who didn’t want anything to do with him.

It was under these conditions that this church came into existence. It was under these conditions that this little group of followers was forged in character of hope. If you can have hope in the power of Christ through these types of scenarios, then hope has become part of your DNA.

So there are probably more things that we could say about marks of the church. The whole preaching of the gospel and rightly administering the sacraments are hugely important. But here in 1 Thessalonians, Paul doesn’t use those as examples. He does however say he knows they are real followers of God because of their working faith, laboring love, and enduring hope.

This is what we should all attain to as Christians. Just imagine how different life would be if we had these three markers in all we do.

Leaders Ride ATVs

October 17, 2023 / Derrick Hurst / 0 Comments

It might seem weird to put the ideas of leadership and ATVs in the same line. For those of you who have no idea (not sure how but I’m sure you exist) ATVs are those cool all terrain vehicles. I have one myself actually. I love my 4-wheeler! Tons of fun to go cruising through the field. Not to mention it’s super helpful to haul things around the property! Oh and don’t forget it’s how I plow my driveway. But that’s not really the ATV to which I’m referring.

I think leaders need a different kind of ATV in their lives. In a leader’s life, ATV stands for Authentic, Transparent, and Vulnerable. These are hyper critical elements that every leader needs to be effective and grow in her or his leadership capabilities.

Authentic

We start with authenticity. Authenticity is one of those hot button kind of words. More commonly we use words like genuine and real. Have you ever met someone who was just fake? I don’t mean they were a cartoon figure but they just didn’t live out who they said they were. Authenticity is the trait of being in real life who you say you are. When a person’s actions match their confession then they are authentic, genuine, real.

There are tons of examples of people who are just not authentic. We see it in many politicians and movie stars. They are people we look up to on the big screen. Then we get a glimpse into their personal lives and realize they might not be someone we want to look up to after all.

Leaders need to be people who are real or those who follow them won’t know who they are following. An authentic leader is one who is tested against their own words. When a leader is authentic, they can be trusted. A leader who is not authentic isn’t trustworthy or follow-worthy for that matter.

Transparent

This one is a bit more complicated for some leaders. There’s a fine line between being transparent and oversharing. This doesn’t mean that every leader has to air all of their dirty laundry in public. There are some things that no one really needs to know! So keep some of those behind closed door moments, behind the closed door of silence.

Being transparent is really about letting people see the real you. Between authenticity and transparency a leader is walking with the people he/she is leading. Transparency is the ability to say what’s going on and let people see inside. There are some emotional parts of our lives that we need to let people see into. Transparency is about admitting faults and asking for forgiveness when you’ve done wrong. Which leads us to the last part of this…

Vulnerable

Vulnerability is a tricky one. Leaders don’t like to be vulnerable. I’ll be honest this is one the harder ones for me as well. Letting people in means we have to trust them not to use what they see against us. Some people will take your authenticity and transparency to highlight your vulnerabilities and blast you with it. Those people are not people with whom you need to surround yourself.

Being vulnerable is really about lowering your guard enough to not just let people see inside but to have access to your weaknesses. And yes it takes trust – immense trust! But leadership requires trust as well. A good leader needs to be able to trust the people she is leading. The leader has to demonstrate that he isn’t above everyone else. When our authenticity and transparency give way to a level of vulnerability we become even more real and more relatable to those around us.

So in short, every good leader needs to have an ATV. We need to be real and authentic. We need to open ourselves up and show the real us even when we’re in charge. And we must do the hard work of letting our guard down and letting people in so we can expose some of those soft spots in our character.

Just like my ATV lets me ride over some pretty intense terrain, when as a leader you are willing to expose your true self through authenticity, transparency and vulnerably you will go places you could never go otherwise!

It’s time to ride friends!

I’ve Never Had A Job

October 13, 2023 / Derrick Hurst / 0 Comments

Some of you are going to call me a liar here but I have never had a job. You’re probably thinking yeah right! I know you have a job because you tell us all the time that you’re a pastor. But just because I have a place where I go and thing that I do for a living doesn’t make it a job.

You might not agree but that’s ok. One of us is right and the other one is reading this right now. In all seriousness, to me a job is something that’s burdensome and a task that we all too often dislike. I’ve never had a job in that sense. I’ve worked at so many places that I can’t even list them all. From bartending to line cook to landscape to helping on the farm to building and selling cars I’ve done a lot of different things in life! But they all have one thing in common.

I really enjoyed each of them. They weren’t a job for me. They were work. They took an investment of my time, energy and effort but they weren’t a job. I didn’t dread them. Even when I worked at 3 different places at once, it wasn’t a job because I could find value in each of those places.

Enjoying your work is one thing but really thriving in it is a totally different thing. In my current occupation as a pastor I really feel like this is what I’ve been built to do. I’m not perfect at it but it’s something I’m passionate about and that is fulfilling. I love what I do!

Honestly though it causes me some trouble from time to time loving this so much. There are regular conferences and gatherings where I get to sit with other pastors sharing insights and stories and getting training to make me better. The biggest challenge to loving this so much is when I sit with other guys who do the same thing that I get to do and they talk about it like it’s the worst thing in the world.

I mean seriously as a pastor we get to do some pretty cool things. If you can’t find value and meaning in that, then you probably should do something else!

This is pastor appreciation month. I don’t say that so that anyone will recognize me. Actually I say that so that pastors can start to appreciate what they do! Do you know what your work means? Do you know what you’re called to do? It’s not a job! Your obligation is not to fill your church with people. It’s not to preserve rituals or traditions of how we’ve done it. It’s not to lead engaging worship or do great outreach gigs. It’s not to have great praise teams or strong pipe organ music.

None of these are wrong but they are not the point! They are all good and right in their own way, but they are not why you’re here.

You are to be a shepherd of the people. What do shepherds do?

Make sure the sheep have good food. Lay out a good variety of healthy options for them to engage in for spiritual maturity. Show them how to use their bible. Teach from it. Connect some of the dots between passages. Teach on different levels from generalities to specific details. Give them a good diet to choose from.
They keep the wolves away. Those who seek to harm and kill the sheep. We do this by exposing teachings and thoughts that are against scripture (not against our preference).
Challenge them to be in new places. If a shepherd kept the sheep in one place, the grass would be bare and nothing would be left. So often the shepherd needs to lead the sheep to new pastures. This doesn’t mean to use different things than the Bible. It means to find new ways to teach similar content. It means understanding the needs of the people you serve. It means different teaching styles and showing how the Bible actually is still relevant to our current culture.
Equip them. It’s odd that the Bible never tells us to spoon feed the people in our churches but to equip them with utensils and wisdom to know what is good food to eat and what is not. A good shepherd will make sure the sheep know what plants are against scripture and keep them away from the people at all costs. But this isn’t about preference it’s about the Bible.

Really those are the pieces we are called to do. If you can’t find joy in helping someone dig into the Bible or giving them tools to be able to understand what’s been written or fighting off a wolf or two then I think you might want to work at Build a Bear and stuff a heart into a ball of cotton. If you’d rather fight with people than show the truths of the Bible then join the military.

If you don’t like it. If you aren’t fed by doing it. If you aren’t passionate about the calling of being a pastor. If it’s just a job to you, then maybe it’s not right for you.

My goal is to never have a job. I’ll work my backside off everyday of my life, but I never want to have a job. And I don’t think you should either.

Character > Competency

October 4, 2023 / Derrick Hurst / 0 Comments

Imagine that you have a job that really needs done. I mean really needs done. You have a deadline that is rapidly approaching. And your back is against the wall to get this thing completed. These are the scenarios when we are more likely to make a really bad decision, so here’s your caution.

The greater the emergency we face the more likely we are to choose someone for what they can do, not for who they are. Let that sink in for a second. It’s super easy to choose someone for their competency and capacity and ignore their character and integrity.

Character trumps competency any day of the week!

There’s a saying in leadership that goes something along the lines of you can never out lead your character. Man is that true or what! Have you ever seen this? Someone has all the right stuff to get the job done, but they’re a real selfish jerk. You do know that won’t end well right?

I remember when I was a car salesman. We had a great team, for the most part. There was that one sales person however that was really good at what they did, but they had some spots on their character that were pretty questionable. Now questionable character isn’t about being a good vs bad person. It’s about being immoral and selfish vs a kind team player. No matter how many cars this person sold, no one wanted to be around them. And they had fewer repeat and referral customers because this person was obviously in it for themselves and thought waaaay too much of themselves!

Character trumps competency any day of the week.

So when it comes to hiring or staffing for the next job or bringing on volunteers to help with that thing your nonprofit is doing, take a few extra minutes to look beyond a person’s capacity. Ask a few character questions to make sure they don’t burn the organization to the ground while they’re getting the job done.

Here are some of the quick character questions I use.

How well do I really know this person?
What do their friends/family say about them?
What are they really good at doing?
What are they really bad at doing?
Ask the person when’s the last time they failed, and how they reacted. This is less about competency and achievement. The purpose here is to determine if they are willing to admit mistakes and how well they recover from those mistakes. These are character issues.
What one word do others use to describe this person?

There are a ton more questions you can ask. I’d love to hear what character questions you find helpful in this process. By the way, these questions are good questions to use on yourself as well. Your character matters too!

The Same Team

October 3, 2023 / Derrick Hurst / 0 Comments

I’m a pretty big sports fan. I love college football. As a matter of fact I will do just about everything in my power to rearrange my life for 14 Saturdays a year just so I can watch what in my opinion is the best sport around. Now you don’t have to agree with me. But it’s not going to change my mind.

I really think we can learn a little from the sport of football. Life lessons. Business approaches. Relationship learnings. And I really think the church can take a lesson or two from the game of football as well.

It really hit me the other day when I was looking at the sideline. Why was the coach on the sidelines wearing that bright green shirt? Then another coach for the same team was wearing a bright blue one. These are not their colors. What’s the deal? Why not wear apparel for the team you’re coaching?!?! It seemed really absurd to me. Until I realized who they were and what role they had. Then it started to make a lot more sense!

You see one of the coaches on the sideline was one of the defensive coaches. He was letting the defense know how they should be lining up based on what the offense was showing. The one in blue? Yeah he had a different function. Not defense but his position on the team related to the offense.

They had to stand out so the men on the field could see them easily enough in the moment. They were on the same team, but they had different methods for achieving the same goal. They both wanted the team to win. They both wanted their team to score more points than the other team. One dealt with a really strong offensive strategy. For them it was all about scoring points. The defense however wasn’t as focused on scoring points. They just didn’t want the other team to score. While their tactics were different their end goal was the same.

Then it hit me. It’s the same way in the church. It’s not about offense and defense but different approaches to accomplish the same goal. What’s the goal of the church? According to the Bible the goal of the church should be to equip the saints for works of ministry and to disciple people through relationships built around God’s promises (baptism) and His commands (obedience).

Nothing in that tells us what color shirt to wear. As a matter of fact there is a ton of flexibility in developing relationships leading to discipleship. And just as much freedom in equipping the saints. As long as the end goal is the same – eternal life in Jesus. It’s about believing and living out the belief that Jesus is the only way to heaven.

He doesn’t tell us to wear special clothes when we preach or teach. He doesn’t tell us what songs are better than others. He doesn’t have a preferred musical styling. It’s almost like Jesus knew that one day we’d have a full team standing ready on the sidelines. It’s almost like Jesus had some kind of knowledge that helped him realize we don’t all learn the same way.

As big of a football fan as I am, I am a much larger fan of Jesus and the way he describes his church in the Bible. I’m not really a huge fan of how the church functions in the world all of the time today however. I’ve been on the receiving end of comments saying you’re not a real pastor because you don’t wear a robe. Or others have told me you’re not really teaching the Bible if your church is growing that fast. You mean that teaching the Bible is a deterrent for growing the local church?! Yikes! Pretty sure someone needs to read the bible a bit!

Look, I know that one size doesn’t fit all. And that’s the beauty of the church. Some of us are wearing the blue shirts of the offensive line coach. While others feel more comfortable in the stylings of the defending the ways we’ve done it approach. Both offense and defense are necessary for a football game! What’s it going to take for us to get this through our thick skulls?

It’s like this – Jesus is the only way to heaven. But my blue shirt or your green shirt are not the only way to Jesus. We’re on the same team, so for the sake of everything holy let’s act like it!

The Necessity Of The Hunter

September 7, 2023 / Derrick Hurst / 1 Comment

Yellowstone National Park is a beautiful place. My family took our last long vacation out to Yellowstone and the surrounding area. We absolutely loved everything about it. The scenery was amazing. There was wildlife everywhere. The trees were huge and fields filled with green grasses and other natural elements. The rivers were beautifully bubbling streams of sparkling water. But it didn’t always used to be that way.

In the early 1990s things in the park didn’t look quite like this. The elk had nearly overpopulated the park. The grass was more sparse. The trees were stripped of bark. The rivers and streams weren’t as clean. All of it because there were too many elk populating the park. But why were there so many elk? Good question! I’m glad you asked.

It all started in the late 1800s and early 1900s when it was open season on the gray wolf. By the end of the 1920s the gray wolf was eradicated from the park altogether. Some thought this was going to be helpful. From not having to worry about visitors to the park region being attacked by a wolf to giving some freedom for the elk to run free, getting rid of the wolf seemed the right thing to do at the time. But little did they know at the time, removing the hunter from the park would have drastic effects on the entire ecosystem of Yellowstone.

Then in 1995 a truck carrying eight gray wolves came into the park and released a controlled population back into the system. What followed could only be hoped for…the park returned to a thriving ecosystem. It turns out hunter are necessary for a thriving system. Predators, while doing bad things in the eyes of some, are necessary to create an atmosphere where all can thrive.

This truth transfers beyond wolves in a national park. As a matter of fact, I think in our lives in general we need predators. We need those people who contradict us and challenge us. Those who seemingly are out to get us because they keep us on our toes.

Just like bringing the wolves back to Yellowstone balanced the ecosystem and brought the elk population back in check which made the rivers run cleaner – so also having some of these challenges in our lives brings our lives back on track as well.

We like to eliminate the problems and run from adversity, but perhaps we should embrace some of the challenges in life a little more intentionally. Perhaps we should give thanks for the circumstances in our lives that make us more alert. Paul tells us to rejoice in all things and to even have joy in our trials. This is very likely the reason why.

In the church we like to complain when things don’t go right, when the government oversteps a line, when we feel like being a Christian is hard. But living a life without challenges is a lot like Yellowstone without wolves. We become complacent and think the world owes us something. We dry up and start caring less about the world around us. Eventually the streams of life get all muddy with troubles of the world and we forget what’s most important.

I’ve heard so many lately say that it’s getting harder and harder to be a pastor in the world. Oddly enough Jesus never told us it would be easy. As a matter of fact if it is easy, I tend to believe that we’re probably not doing something right. Jesus told us that we’ll have struggles in this life. He said the world will try to do to his followers what they did to him. Sure sounds like we should be expecting trouble of some sort doesn’t it?

Look. I know it’s no fun being pursued by wolves. I’ve been in my fair share of situations where someone has thought I was prey. But when we have friendships where people turn on us, jobs where coworkers don’t like us, scenarios where we’re not fully embraced – those moments shape us into who we’re supposed to be.

My advice. Don’t necessarily pray for wolves to surround you. But I would thank God for the times when you are pursued by a predator because predators aren’t always evil. Sometimes predators are necessary to help you live a more alert, focused, and dynamic life.

Is This Burnout?

August 18, 2023 / Derrick Hurst / 0 Comments

There is a huge epidemic floating around the world right now that has people burning out in their jobs and lives. But is burn out really burn out? Or is it something else?

I recently listened to a man who is very much in tune with the mental well being of people today. And he draws an interesting distinction between burn out and something he calls stress out. To be honest, I’ve never heard of stress out before but his explanation got me thinking a bit.

Burn out for most people is when they just feel tired and unable to push through something. It’s like everything in life has them down. But burnout is actually deeper than that. Burnout squashes a person’s soul. It makes them stoic. Emotionless. They don’t have the capacity for caring anymore. They are carrying a weight that has them buckling at the knees constantly.

Please note it’s not that a person in burnout doesn’t care. It’s that they are unable to care. They do not have the ability to care. They might want to care but they just simply can’t. Their heart has grown numb. Their mental and emotional self has been so burned by the stresses of life that they just can’t feel anymore.

Burnout is the constant feeling of failure which has broken a person’s ability to engage emotionally in the tasks in front of them. Burnout is very real and it can be very dangerous. The best way to handle a situation where burnout is likely is to have very clear expectations. Remember, burnout has to do with feeling like a failure at nearly everything. Clarifying expectations makes burnout a less likely outcome. If you’re in a scenario where there are not clear expectations, do yourself a favor and find a way to clarify what’s expected of you to keep you from burning out. Burnout leads someone to feel not like they failed at something but like they are a failure.

But there’s another side to this. Not everyone who feels pulled in too many directions, like a failure and just plain exhausted is actually in burnout. This speaker called it stress out. The idea of carrying too much stress is that you can’t keep up. You’re running too many things at the same time. Your role exceeds your character. Living with too much stress is dangerous.

Stress in and of itself is not a bad thing. Actually there is level of stress that can be healthy. Healthy stress forces us to be and do things we otherwise would never be and do. But too much stress for too long can be dangerous. As a matter of fact, too much stress carried for too long leads a person to lead a frenzied life that never slows down. The longer we carry high levels of stress the higher the levels of cortisol in our body. Extremely elevated levels of cortisol can lead to major health concerns. Everything from blood sugar problems to heart trouble to weight gain to massive agitation and mood swings are all a result of elevated levels of cortisol in the body.

Stress can be a dangerous animal when it comes to our overall health and well being. But severe stress is not the same as burnout. While burnout makes us unable to care, elevated stress for long periods of time can cause us to care too much about things we normally wouldn’t think matter. Stress out tends to trigger snap reactions in life.

A person living in a stress filled environment will be unable to manage change or handle simple questions. Changes, no matter how small, are seen as another weight added to their life. While questions are seen as complete challenges to their authority.

If you’re struggling with burnout or stress, it’s critically important to find someone to help. Find someone to talk to. Talk to a friend or colleague. See a therapist. Seek help from a counselor. These are not signs of weakness! They are the most important things you can do to protect your mental, emotional, relational and spiritual well being. (It can even protect your physical well being too!)

We all have different capacities for what we can handle, so please don’t compare yourself to someone else. Both of these are real. Both are dangerous if left unattended or unaddressed.

Tag: church (Page 17 of 29)

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