Have you ever planned an event and it wasn’t the success you thought it would be? Or maybe you are feeling overwhelmed by your to-do list even though it’s work that God has called you to? Beth has five strategies to share that just might help if you are in a season of being bummed out or burned out. She will provide words of encouragement and some practical steps to get you back on track and, hopefully, in a healthy and productive place.
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Hey friends! I’m Beth Golik, one of your co-hosts for Key Ministry: The Podcast and I’m thankful you’ve tuned in today. If you are listening the week this episode is released, then you know we are in the middle of Advent. It’s a time of great hope as we prepare our hearts for the birth of Jesus.
But, December can also be a huge time of stress for people like us, whether you are a ministry leader, a parent, or part of a church or ministry-oriented organization.
Maybe you planned an event and it wasn’t the success you thought it would be. Or you are feeling overwhelmed by your to-do list. Or maybe All The Things are so overwhelming that you can’t even take the time to capture them into a to-do list format! My dear fellow disability ministry leaders, I have five strategies to share that just might help if you are in a season of being bummed out or burned out with the work God has called you to. I want to help you with some words of encouragement and some practical steps to get you back on track and, hopefully, in a healthy and productive place.
One of the easiest ways to get burned out is to be accessible and accountable to everyone, all the time. I’m going to hazard a guess that you are in ministry because you love the Lord and you care about His people. At least I hope that is the case. But responding to texts from His people 24/7 is an easy way to get burned out. I encourage you to establish healthy boundaries so that you can prioritize relationships with the families and staff you serve with, while maintaining a balance between your work and personal life. This might look like setting up “out of office” notifications in your email settings or silencing text notifications when you are home with your family. It might mean kindly letting a person know that you will respond to their phone call, text, or email the next day if it isn’t an actual emergency. Prioritizing your quiet time, whether it’s a morning Bible study or daily prayer time, is important, too. Establishing boundaries is strategy number one for avoiding burnout.
Have you every planned an event and it was a complete flop? Maybe very few people attended or it just didn’t have the impact you imagined? Full confession: I planned a game night at my church this past year that literally no one attended. Not a one. Talk about being bummed out! When something like that happens, my best advice to you is to give yourself grace. Of course, you’re also going to want to perform a bit of a post-mortem to determine what exactly went wrong, whether it was timing, location, weather, confusion in messaging, poor marketing, conflict with similar events, etc. Some things are within our control and some aren’t, but in either case, give yourself some grace. You can’t win them all, so learn what you can from the experience but don’t sulk in it. Strategy number two is give yourself grace. Besides, you have no idea how God might use that prep work that you did! Some of the coolest “only God” connections I’ve experienced have come from what I would have considered less-than-stellar events.
My next strategy is to invite others in to the work you are doing. I have three practical pieces of advice for this particular strategy to share with you, some of which I’m summarizing from a Disability Ministry Video Roundtable we had back in August that included input from my colleagues including Barb Stanley of Wonderful Works Ministry, Ryan Faulk from Joni & Friends, Alison Kelisek from Willowdale Chapel, and Tom & Julie Meekins from Champions4Parents. I’ve linked that roundtable in the show notes that you can find at keyministry.org/podcast. I encourage you to give it a listen if you are feeling alone or discouraged in disability ministry.
Back to inviting others in; three ways to tackle this strategy are: creating an advisory board, inviting people to pray specifically, and asking for help by category or skill. Let’s address that last one first. In the Disability Ministry Video Roundtable I just mentioned, Ryan Faulk shared an exercise that is extremely helpful. Make a list of All The Things that are part of your ministry and the work you are doing. Everything. Write down the tasks that are easy for you and the ones that are hard, the ones you enjoy doing and the tasks that loom over your head. Then have a friend or colleague help you categorize each task by the skill that is needed to perform it. Ryan suggested using colored highlighters which is right up my alley. Group the tasks by skill. Are there tasks that are better suited to someone else’s skill set? The next time someone says, “How may I help?” you can actually answer them instead of brushing off their offer. For instance, if creating marketing images aren’t your thing, invite someone to help you instead of putting it off or causing yourself undue stress.
Another way to invite others in is by reaching out to those who are successful in what it is that you are wanting to do. Barb Stanley does an amazing job of speaking into how and why to do this. Seeking input from experts, who may be outside of the field of disability ministry, is like creating your own advisory board. They can provide a fresh perspective on the work you are doing and their input and support can help boost you up and bolster your efforts.
Please do not forget or forego the importance of inviting other in by asking for prayer. People appreciate the opportunity to pray for specific articulated needs in the work you are doing and there is so much power in praying specifically for the big and the little things.
So strategy three is to invite others in, and we can do this by asking for help by category or skill, creating an advisory board, and providing people with specific prayer points.
The fourth strategy I want to recommend to you today is to raise up leaders. Too often we feel like we are the only ones who can do the work we are doing. We feel like it is easier to handle All The Things ourselves instead of collaborating or delegating. Instead, let’s aim to work with other ministries within the church to build relationships and promote a churchwide disability ministry mindset instead of a niche or silo ministry. Pour into your volunteers – and learn from their expertise as well – so that you are empowering them to take appropriate actions and make decisions when needed. We don’t have to be the one doing All The Things; as a matter of fact, we can’t. By raising up leaders we are not only preparing for the future, but we are also, appropriately, putting our own importance in perspective.
The last strategy to try when you are bummed out or burned out is this: give encouragement. It may seem counterintuitive, but you can actually feel encouraged as you bless others with words of encouragement. Disability ministry leaders, I want to invite you to two specific resources to join where you can be part of a community that uplifts one another. On the first Monday of each month, Key Ministry hosts a Zoom called Idea Share. It’s open to all and each month we have our regulars as well as new faces. Visit keyministry.org/events to sign up and visit the shownotes for this episode to get a link to watch a past Idea Share on Vimeo. The second resource I encourage you to check out is affectionately called SNAD. SNAD stands for the Special Needs and Disability Leaders Forum which is a closed Facebook group of over 2,800 ministry leaders. You can request to join from the link in the shownotes for this episode. SNAD is a great place to get help and encouragement and connect with other disability ministry leaders.
Friends, thanks for joining me today to learn about five strategies to try when you are in a season of being bummed out or burned out. I do have one last thing to share. I invite you to join me and the rest of the Key Ministry team at the Disability & The Church conference that will be in Orlando May 1-3, 2024. No matter what type of season you are in as a ministry leader, you will benefit from the connections you’ll make and the innovative programming you’ll experience. Visit keyministry.org/datc to sign up for conference news and updates and be sure to register when early bird registration goes live in January.
