I Had to Fall Apart Before I Could Pastor Well

In 2020, I thought I had life figured out. My wife, Hannah, and I were both finishing our doctoral dissertations, I was transitioning out of a role as a college pastor at my church, we were expecting our second son, and I had just stepped into a significant administrative role at a university in her hometown. On paper, everything looked promising. But behind the scenes, I was quietly coming apart.

Then COVID-19 hit, and whatever margin I had left evaporated.

Balancing the demands of university administration, a growing family, a degree to finish, and a global pandemic pushed me to a place I didn’t see coming, and my body started sending signals I couldn’t ignore. Bumpy hands, eye twitches, a persistently sore back, sleepless nights, and a low hum of dread that followed me everywhere. I kept pushing through, convinced that if I just worked harder and managed my time better, I could outrun the exhaustion. I couldn’t.

My doctor’s assessment was clear and unceremonious: “Ben, there’s nothing medically wrong with you. You’re severely stressed. You need healthier rhythms.”

That was the moment everything slowly cracked open. I sat with those words and began to see clearly, perhaps for the first time, that I had made my ambitions and achievements into idols. To be real, I wasn’t just burned out—I had a worship problem.

And while I didn’t know it then, God was using that painful season to prepare me for leading a local church once again. The lessons I learned about self-care during that breaking point in university administration have proven to be among the most important tools in my pastoral ministry.

Here’s what I’ve discovered. The pressures of university administration were intense—perform, produce, lead, grow, never show weakness. But pastoral ministry carries all those same pressures and layers something even weightier on top of them: Your people are watching not just your leadership but your soul. They’re not just following your strategy—they’re following your faith. That raises the stakes enormously! And it makes self-care not just a personal issue but a pastoral one.

What Jesus Actually Did

Of course, we talk about Jesus constantly in the church, but we rarely slow down to examine how he actually lived. And the way he lived is deeply instructive for anyone in ministry leadership. Jesus retreated to solitary places to pray. He slept in boats during storms. He attended meals and celebrations. He drew clear boundaries around his time and energy, even when crowds pressed in with desperate and legitimate needs. He was fully God—yet as fully human, he stewarded his body, mind, and soul with deliberate care.

If the Son of God built rhythms of rest and renewal into his earthly ministry, what does that say to the pastor running on caffeine, guilt, and a packed Sunday schedule? It says this: You are not more devoted than Jesus by refusing to rest. You are simply more depleted.

Following Christ’s example means

• coming before God not just as a minister preparing to lead others but as a person who genuinely needs him;
• protecting time for prayer and Scripture that nourishes your soul, not just your next sermon series;
• taking seriously what your body and emotions are trying to tell you;
• pushing back against the pace that growing church culture can quietly demand; and
• honestly reassessing what faithfulness looks like in this specific season of life and ministry.

What I’ve Learned Leading a Growing Church

Shepherding a growing congregation is one of the greatest privileges of my life. It is also one of the most demanding. The needs multiply as the church grows. So do the expectations—from your board or elders, your staff, your congregation, and honestly, from yourself.

I know what it’s like to feel the pull to be everything to everyone. To answer every email, take every meeting, and show up fully for every person who needs you. And I know what it costs when you try.

What I’ve learned is that a depleted pastor cannot shepherd well. You can perform for a season. You can preach through exhaustion, counsel through numbness, and lead through emptiness for longer than you’d think. But eventually the gap between who you’re projecting yourself to be and who you actually are becomes simply unsustainable.

The church doesn’t need your performance; it needs your presence. And presence requires that you actually have something to give.

The Cost of Neglect

The pastoral burnout crisis in the American church is real, and it is serious. Too many gifted leaders have quietly walked away from ministry. Too many moral failures trace their roots back not to a single moment of weakness but to years of slow spiritual and emotional erosion and fatigue. Too many congregations have been led by shepherds who were hollow on the inside long before anyone on the outside knew it.

If you’re already sensing the warning signs—chronic exhaustion, a prayer life that feels cold and mechanical, resentment creeping into your heart toward the people you’re supposed to love and serve, emotional numbness that you’ve learned to hide—please hear this clearly: There is still time to change course.

Here’s where I’d encourage you to start:

• Return to God as his child, not his employee. Come to him stripped of your pastoral position. Come weary, honest, dependent, and empty. That’s exactly the posture he works with.
• Do a full and honest health audit. Physical, emotional, relational, spiritual. Where are you genuinely depleted? Where have you been lying to yourself?
• Protect the Sabbath like your ministry depends on it—because it does! God wired rest into creation long before he called you to preach.
• Get honest about your season. Young children at home? A church in a critical growth phase? You cannot carry everything. Faithful leadership means making wise, intentional choices about where your energy goes.
• Build relationships outside your congregation. Find a peer pastor, a spiritual director, or a mentor who has no stake in your ministry’s success and will speak truth to you plainly.

The Journey Continues

I didn’t learn the value of self-care in a moment of spiritual triumph. I learned it on the floor of a difficult season, in a doctor’s office, in the quiet aftermath of realizing I had been running on fumes and calling it faithfulness. That season was hard. But I’m grateful for it. Because the pastor I am today was forged in that crucible.

I still drift toward overwork. The demands of a growing church are real, and the temptation to meet every one of them is constant. But I serve a God who is patient with my progress, generous with his grace, and fully capable of doing far more with my rested, surrendered obedience than he ever would with my burned-out striving.

The church you shepherd needs you whole—not just productive, not just present, but genuinely whole.

Take care of yourself, pastor. Trust God with the rest.