RESET
Living a grace-paced life in a burnout culture
By David Murray
Crossway. 206 pages. £10.74
ISBN 978 1 433 555 183
Many worrying statistics are floating about concerning pastors dropping out of the ministry. There can be various causes for drop-out, but one of the most frequent is exhaustion.
This is a serious issue primarily for the men themselves, but also for the churches. Good leaders are a gift of Christ to a church (Ephesians 4.11) and if those gifts are not lasting, then churches will be seriously impoverished. We can’t afford to lose them.
Wounded author
David Murray is a Professor at Puritan Reformed Seminary in Grand Rapids and is highly regarded for his pastoral insight. He himself has suffered from breakdown through overwork in the ministry and it is out of this experience that he writes this very helpful book for pastors. He uses the metaphor of a car in need of repair and each chapter represents a different repair bay in the workshop which must be visited in order to get the vehicle happily back on the road. These bays include things like reviewing our schedule, rethinking the way we see ourselves, and refuelling our lives. It is all extremely practical and for some men will be enormously helpful. However, my one worry is that it is so ‘practical’ – diet, medications, physical exercise, relationships in the home, relationships in the church – that somehow the Lord does not get much of a mention. There is not much Bible in the book. I wanted a little more along the lines of ‘those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength’ (Isaiah 40.31), etc.
But maybe the ultra-practical approach is what some exhausted pastors need. Why not buy it for your pastor as a present?
