098: Ministry Exhaustion: How To Recognize Signs & Seasons Before It’s Too Late | with Shannon Carroll

098: Ministry Exhaustion: How To Recognize Signs & Seasons Before It’s Too Late | with Shannon Carroll


Laurie Graham 0:01
Hey, this is Laurie Graham. Welcome to the Small Church Ministry Podcast.

Laurie Graham 0:15
Hey, everybody, welcome back to another episode of the small church ministry podcast. We are all about joining God in what he’s doing exactly like right where you’re planted. We are also emphasized a lot about serving with joy and health as well as impact. We are just watching small churches change the planet everywhere. And we’re so happy to have you here. And I say we because we have a special special guests on the interview. I’m Shannon Carroll is going to be talking with us and really starting a conversation about ministry exhaustion, she has an amazing, just very dramatic story honestly, to tell out of her own personal experience, but she has so much wisdom to share. And by the end of this episode, you’re going to hear some really practical strategies, not just for yourself, but also for your church for the people you serve with to help support your pastor. And we’re just talking all about ministry exhaustion. So Shannon, why don’t you introduce yourself a little bit more and let people know who you are and what you do? And I don’t know. Do you even remember how we got connected?

Shannon Carroll 1:17
I think it was through a Facebook group. For ministry wives somehow.

Laurie Graham 1:23
Yeah. Well tell people about you.

Shannon Carroll 1:26
Thank you. I love your ministry, Laurie and have gleaned so much from it. So thanks for having me on. I am. We live in Southern Indiana where my husband has been the pastor of a small rural church for 18 years. So it’ll be 18 years in January. We actually started there when we were dating, and have literally grown up in this church. They are our family. They’ve been through thick and thin with us. We’ve seen all kinds of things. It’s been exciting. I have two boys still at home, and I homeschool them My background is as a registered nurse. But I have run my own home based wellness businesses for several years. And I play the piano at church. So I am that stereotypical piano player pastor’s wife.

Laurie Graham 2:20
And it sounds like you’re totally not busy at all though, since you’re, you know, a nurse and you have a home based business and you’re raising two boys and you homeschooled, you know, so it’s just good to see that, you know, you’ve just have so much free space in your life. So

Shannon Carroll 2:33
much I just get bored all the time thinking about what to do today.

Laurie Graham 2:39
Okay, so let’s jump into our topic. You know, now that we’re being sarcastic and having fun. Why are you excited to talk about ministry burnout, or ministry exhaustion? And what’s the difference between those two? Because I know you you use the word ministry exhaustion a bit. And you know, if you Google it, you come up with ministry burnout a lot do you is there a difference between those two,

Shannon Carroll 2:58
they definitely go hand in hand, I don’t know that I’ve ever really pieced them apart. Burnout. I think when I think of burnout, I think of approaching ministry with total disinterest, I now am so over it, that I even resent the ministry. Because I’m completely burned out. There’s nothing left inside of me to give. And maybe the root of that is exhaustion, just even on a cellular level, just being so stressed and our body stressed. And it has depleted everything that’s inside of us. And we don’t don’t know how to move forward, because we’re just so exhausted. And it leads to then the burnout and the resentment in ministry. And

Laurie Graham 3:48
this has become a big part of your message. And I know your ministry, as I hear you speak about it. And I know you’ve been at our conferences and spoken on related topics. Why is this so personal? And why are you so passionate about it?

Shannon Carroll 4:00
You know, there are certain things that we would never think would be our like banner that we would carry. I didn’t realize that I would be carrying the banner of helping to help ministry families get over and through ministry burnout and exhaustion and prevent it, but we’ve lived it, we have lived it. And then also it’s one of those things that is a little bit kind of under the table like you don’t talk about it. Don’t talk about how stressed you are in ministry or how burned out you’re getting. I mean, it’s supposed to be the Lord’s work. We’re supposed to approach it with joy and with excitement and enthusiasm all the time. And when you’re not feeling those things. There’s a little bit of a stigma about that. So I’m here to rip off the band aid and it’s because we’ve lived it. We my husband and I actually wrote a book about the whole story. But he in 2019 kind of collapsed one day I thought he was having a heart attack. And as it turns out, when we got to the emergency room, his heart was fine. Then his brain started It started acting weird. And they checked out his brain and it was fine. And when all the dust settled, he had amnesia. And he could not there have been no trauma. There had been no car accident, no blunt force trauma to the head. But he could not remember the last eight to 13 years of our life. And they checked him out in the hospital for several days and said you are healthy as a horse. We think from what the pieces we can put together that years of cumulative stress led to your brain just literally shutting down. And if we think about the timeline, we couldn’t remember eight to 13 years will we say eight years because our youngest was nine at the time and he still remembered him and but thought he was a baby. But the 13 years is the real kicker, because we had been at our church for 13 years. And he had no recollection of the church. He thought he was still working in information technology, as a career at the hospital. He did not know he was a pastor, he did not know the name of our church, he did not know the people in our church didn’t recognize his Bible, like it was totally foreign. It’d be like you waking up the next day and someone saying you’re an NFL football player, you’re like, there’s no way I can’t be. It was totally foreign. But that 13 year mark was the time we had been at the church. And somewhere sometimes in between the eight to 13 years, there were some memories that were still there. But for sure, he could not remember anything about the church. And so it told us, most likely burning the candle at all the ends, had worn him out. And he hadn’t listened to the warning signs. In addition to you know, in small church, a lot of the pastors or the the key leaders wear all the hats and many hats. And in addition to doing that the church was growing. He was also a worship leader at the time. And in the hospital, the first day, I was orienting him to life. And I’m like, You’re the senior pastor, and you’re also the worship leader. He goes, Why in the world did I do all of that? That’s too much. That was his perspective, the whole he had amnesia for 26 days before God brought it back, miraculously. But we had been doing too much on all the committees, leading everything dealing with some families who were walking through really tough things, and were carrying their burdens along with them and counseling and holding them, in addition to home based businesses and homeschooling, and we lived on a homestead with chickens and gardens and an orchard. And he as he looked at our life with this objective kind of outsider bird’s eye view, he kept saying this is too much. No wonder my brain crashed and said reset. If you don’t reset, I’m going to force you to reset it because there was too much we were literally living in burnout and exhaustion. We had known it for a while we had experienced the symptoms of it a while for a while, but we had ignored it because we felt trapped and like we didn’t have any way out or any decisions we can make to change life. And we learned the hard way that that is not the way God intends for us to live. And we’ve now made significant changes in our life and where we live and how we do ministry, to protect ourselves in our stress in our church and our congregation from a burned out exhausted pastor and pastor’s family. So all that whole bizarre story prompted us to write the book, one thing remains. And I just pray that the nightmare that we walked through, ended up being such a gift for us. And our goal is that it can help other people not even have to get to the place of ministry exhaustion and not lose their own minds in the process.

Laurie Graham 8:48
Wow, I read your book. I think before you and I really talked, I think I read your book before we spoke, you know, at least over the phone or on Zoom, or had you at a conference. And as you’re talking about it right now, I just have to tell everybody listening, you need to go get this book because it you know, as you’re talking right now just sounds like yeah, this is what we went through. And we handled it just fine. And it was really good. And it turned out really well. And he got his memory back in 26 days and but in your book as you’re talking like, I was like terrified for you like everyday like, you know, your husband didn’t remember the church. He didn’t remember your kids growing up your poor kids coming in at the ages, they were and having their dad think they were they were babies or toddlers and you know, like there was a lot of, of drama and trauma right in the midst of it. And I just don’t want anybody to kind of, I guess, brush that off and think, Oh, well, that’s an interesting story. Because, like it’s a wake up call for your family. But like, let’s let that be a wake up call for so many families. So let me ask a couple more questions. Was your husband you know, you were had been at the church for 13 years. Was he by vocational then or was he just a second? include pastor because you had mentioned his other career information tech at the hospital.

Shannon Carroll 10:03
He did both for a while, okay, as part time at the church and it at the hospital at this point, he was full time at a church. And when

Laurie Graham 10:13
you list all the things you’re involved in, I just want to say, many people are living like that right now. Like, I know, tons of ministry families, and not just pastoral families. When I talk about ministry families, especially in small churches, you and I both know, we’ve got those core families who serve as much, sometimes more in different seasons at the church as we do. They’re there all the time. They’re cleaning the kitchen when nobody’s looking. They’re doing the landscaping, they’re filling in preaching, they’re doing the Sunday school teaching. So as we’re talking ministry, families, for anybody listening, we’re talking about you, because you’re listening to the podcast, which means you’re invested in this church. So you were talking to you, but I know ministry, many ministry families who are, you know, running around for soccer and leading worship and doing this and teaching Sunday school and involved in scouts and running their own businesses and things like that. And so I think this is such, I just think this is so applicable for all of us to really take a good gut check. And how did it feel for you, Shannon, as your husband is saying, why did we do all that like this is crazy, like from an outside person, it’s almost like hiring an outside consultant. But it’s your husband, who should have remembered all this. But how did that feel for you, as he would say those things, it

Shannon Carroll 11:26
was really difficult because he was chronically critical of our life. He didn’t mean to be he was just being objective. I had never realized before. And we dive into this in the book, we also, as you alluded to dive into the definite trauma and drama and difficulty of how this works with life and what we walked through. And it was, it was really a nightmare. But we our memories are tied to our emotions. And so when we don’t have our memories, I learned I saw there was no emotion there. So for example, this is a little example. And then I’ll give a church example, he saw that our water heater had to take him on a tour of our house he had this was a house that we had been in for like five years. And so he didn’t remember the house didn’t know where he slept, didn’t know which toothbrush was his didn’t know the dog. It just reminds me of

Laurie Graham 12:20
that old movie 51st dates when every day she’d wake up and he’d have to tell her, you know what her life was? I can’t.

Shannon Carroll 12:27
Okay, so he sees the water heater. And he’s like, Hey, um, your water heater is leaking. And you need to call your plumber. So there’s total emotional disconnect. And I’m like, Well, that is our water heater. And our plumbers number is in your phone. But because he didn’t, it wasn’t his water heater. He had never seen it in his life before. According to him, there was this emotional disconnect. Well, it happened with the church too, because he didn’t remember the church. He was not emotionally attached to the church. And yet the church was carrying me on my side, they there they are my family, they were bringing us meals, they were serving us. They were loving us. And he was like, Ooh, nice people he met, quote, unquote, met a few people from the church during that time that he had married or baptized or buried their grandfather, and it was like introducing themselves for the first time. So he was so weird. And he this bird’s eye view caused him to be very critical of our life. You know, why do we have? Why are we trying to do so much why are you on your phone all the time? Why are our kids going to spoiled in this area? Why, why why? And it wasn’t really until we both wrote the book because we wrote it together. He wrote some parts from his perspective, I wrote it from my perspective, we were able to really unpack what each other was going through, we walked through the same thing, but from completely different perspectives. But it made me feel like we have like messed up as a family. And we’re a failure. I was constantly defending, well, we did this because you chose this or you wanted this or we decided together. This is what we wanted. But it was exhausting to have to review all that.

Laurie Graham 14:09
Wow. Well, then I imagine even as you’re talking about the different choices, like so many times we get on autopilot with our life. And we add things without looking at the whole because I bet any of those decisions would have been great. Oh, yeah, we want to homeschool. Absolutely. Oh, yeah, we want to have chickens, but we’re not thinking about the homeschooling. Oh, yeah. We want to, like I think about how many times we make individual decisions, and I certainly did with my kids and different activities without really taking the time or the space to step back and go Hmm, what’s really going on here, especially in our churches, too.

Shannon Carroll 14:42
I was gonna say this is a really big thing I see in ministry and people who are involved in ministry now is that we agree we say yes to XYZ ministry in this season. And then it’s like you wear that hat until the day you die. Yeah, but I don’t believe I believe that God works with us in seasons, yeah. And what his best for us and the way he wanted us to serve, and this season might not be how he wants us to serve in 10 years from now. Yeah. And I want to encourage ministry, families to evaluate life, in each season, get really good at evaluating and not just continuing to add on add on add on until you get to the place where you’re trapped and overwhelmed and exhausted. Because there are a lot of really good things we can always be doing. But what is God’s best for me and my family in this season? Well, if you have little kids at home, then you can’t be doing maybe XYZ all the time. I’m when my kids are out of the home and a few years, well, my season will look different. And I don’t want people to just keep adding, adding, adding, but really take a critical eye and try to objectively evaluate each season as it comes and where God wants us to serve.

Laurie Graham 16:01
And I’m hearing people gasp as they’re listening, saying, but but you don’t know my church, my church needs this. And there’s no one else.

Shannon Carroll 16:10
I have felt that I’ve been in counseling over that very statement. And I remember saying to the counselor, she’s like you’re doing too much at church, you’re wearing too many of the hats, like, but if I don’t do it, it won’t happen. And she said something that stepped on my toes. And so this might step on someone’s toes, I’ll just give her a warning. She said, This is not your church, Shannon, this is God’s Church. And God doesn’t desire that you wear yourself out in ministry, do not grow weary in doing good is that verse and she said, if it is God’s will, for a certain ministry to take place, he will provide the people and the volunteers, if it is not his will, for this minute. If volunteers are not showing up, there’s no one else to take this, then maybe it’s something you have to let go. And after amnesia, we we completely changed our lives. And we changed our ministry. Instead, I took myself off of several committees I you know, and how are they going to survive without my gifts and my talents. And without Shannon, the church is going to dissolve, you know, church has been there for 170 years. And but I took myself off of all of it. And I struggled with that decision. But I knew I could not keep doing everything. And as a church, we realized if we don’t have volunteers for a certain ministry, then it just doesn’t happen. The important things as our church, what we believe is preaching the Word and loving each other. Everything else is really secondary. You know, if we don’t have volunteers to handle children’s church through age, you know, fifth grade, then we don’t have volunteers for that. And they can sit with their family and church, if we don’t have volunteers to run all in a big outreach ministry right now. Then we don’t run that ministry right now. And people they do they question, why are we doing this? Why aren’t we doing that like, Well, if God raises somebody up who wants to do it, and that’s the unified direction of the church, we will, but ultimately, as long as his word is being preached, and we’re loving on each other, taking care of each other as the church, everything else is just icing on the cake. And we had to let some things go. And there’s freedom, there’s freedom and that our church is growing now, to the point where we might have to add on. And we don’t have perfect systems, we don’t have great state of the art, things that I see in other churches, and I’ve got church envy for how they run their things. But we preach the Word and we love each other. And God is adding to our number daily, those who are being saved. So it’s God’s Church, if he wants it to happen, he will bring the people that needs to but I think a lot of times we’re doing we’re just doing, doing doing doing so many good things. They’re not the best thing for our church in that season.

Laurie Graham 19:13
Yeah, and you totally hit on the fear that so many people have have that if we don’t have a nursery, we’ll lose our young families. If we don’t have this program, we’ll lose this and we’re going to lose numbers and and I am totally with you that honestly if we’re serving healthier, people want to be around us like if you’re serving exhausted and you’re crabby and you’re staffing and nursery with people who don’t want to be in there, like there’s almost a spirit that is like, Who would want to be there like and so I really believe as we’re serving healthier. And Shannon, I know that you know how we feel about numbers which we’re so grateful that God is adding to your numbers and sometimes he doesn’t add to our numbers, but he’s adding to the numbers in the church, in the community in his church like we’re satellites and his church out there but how how much different is to serve healthy So before we get to strategic practical steps, because I want you to give people practical things, because sometimes we talk about oh, like, what would I really do? Or I want to eliminate this, but I don’t know how. So we’re gonna get some practical things. But before we get there, could you maybe highlight what are some signs or symptoms to watch out for? Because I have to be honest, most people don’t know they’re burning out or exhausted until they’re hitting a wall. And I think we can be better at hitting it off earlier. Or how do you notice, you know, maybe I’m serving really healthy, but maybe I see things in my pastor’s family or in my core volunteers or in my ministry team. What are some signs that you would say, Hey, this is a little bit of a red flag or a yellow flag, like we’re getting close? What should we watch for when it’s getting a little unhealthy?

Shannon Carroll 20:51
I love this question. Because I would so much rather see people prevent the crash and burn like we had, then walk through the crash and burn and have to take time to heal and recover. So prevention is so important. So some signs and symptoms of ministry exhaustion, for yourself, or that you’re noticing and others one is just physical tiredness and an increased need for sleep. David would come home from a day at the church and I had little kids at the time, we had little kids at home, and all kinds of demands at home and he would want to go to bed. And I would think, well, he’s just being lazy and just trying to escape life. But it was his brain saying I actually do need to escape. I need time to process all the input I need to sleep. And I feel really bad that I nagged him to death about his needs for sleeping. It was his brain saying hello, hello. Take a timeout. So even just physical tiredness and increased need for sleep is one of those frequent irritability with your spouse and your family and others. We’ve noticed when we start up the kind of nitpicking at each other, it’s probably the root cause of stress, and being more irritable. This is a feeling of heaviness or pressure when you think about the church, Dread, feeling like you’re trapped that thought and I’ve heard it, I understand it. I’ve said it is I can’t make any other choice. I have to serve in this ministry, I have to keep doing XYZ, we all absolutely have a choice. We didn’t think we had a choice pre amnesia. And so we stayed trapped. And after amnesia, we’ve made major changes. We did major surgery, and life still goes on. So that feeling of being trapped the heaviness. This is a big one, thinking about if you find yourself thinking about non ministry families and being like, Oh, I’d like their life. You know, the grass is always greener. You know, they just work nine to five, and they come home. And they can just go to their kids games or scroll Netflix, their weekends, they get to do whatever they want on their weekends. I remember

Laurie Graham 23:03
driving to church once and I saw somebody mowing their lawn. This is when I was in the Midwest and there was grass because I’m in Tucson now we don’t I saw somebody mowing their lawn. I thought that’s what people do, who don’t go to church like they get to mow their lawn on a Sunday. I just remember like, as you’re talking, I’m like, Oh, I’ve so been there.

Shannon Carroll 23:19
Yes, we have. So that’s a signal that oh, I’m I’m kind of wishing I had a little bit more relaxation, dreaming of getting away from it all is a sign health problems, headaches, gut issues, David was having some chest pain for several months in advance. And we didn’t pay attention to that autoimmune flare ups anxiety, resenting the church. I mean, those are all some signs and symptoms, some are yellow flags, some are red flags, that something here is it’s too much that God did not intend for us to live such a stressed out life or feel like we had to be the Savior for our church.

Laurie Graham 24:00
Okay, we got to talk about church culture, because as you’re talking about tired or edgy or feeling heavy, or, you know, anxiety, the typical thing that I’ve seen happen in small churches, if somebody is on a ministry team, and they are feeling this, what do we say to them? Yeah, that’s what it is. That’s what it is to serve the Lord. And yeah, I’m tired too. I’m glad you’re here. And yeah, that’s gonna like I I would just cherish the day when I actually could hear somebody saying, you know, a volunteer comes up and says, I’m tired. I need to take a break and somebody saying, good for you, a ministry leader or a pastor saying Good for you. I just really applaud that you are taking care of yourself that are you are recognizing the signs because we’re adults, we’re supposed to take care of ourselves. And yet, in many, many churches, big, small, medium size. There is a culture it’s almost a badge of honor to serve till we drop. Like have you seen that and what do you think we can do about that? You

Shannon Carroll 24:59
So I’ve seen it, we’ve lived it. And it comes from the top, a lot of it does the culture does. So pre amnesia. That’s how we felt about ourselves. And so we did expect that of everyone else. Well, you know, good for you, you still get to go home, you know, thinking about other people, you get to go home after church on Sunday and prop your feet up and watch football, and we’re dealing with people that we have to counsel. So we didn’t have much compassion for those who were saying, Whoa, too much in my life too much. Because we didn’t have that for ourselves. Also, post amnesia. So our church walked through amnesia with us. They we in fact, we dedicated the book in part to them, because they had to suffer along with realizing their pastor didn’t know who they were, and maybe some of the pressures and taking advantage of him and adding to his stress levels, sent him over the edge. You know, we don’t blame them. But everybody kind of took responsibility. So yes, the church culture, it at one point, David wasn’t even sure he could go back to the church. And before his memories came back, there’s this whole tug of war. So we went back, but we changed how we did things. And now we say in our new member orientation, we do not want WARM BODIES, and spots, do not want warm bodies. So you take a spiritual gifts assessment, you figure out where you are gifted and called to serve. And if you need a season of healing, and a season of receiving, you take that season, now that we don’t expect for that season to last forever, you’re not in church to take forever, you’re there at some point to give. But we recognize there are seasons where you do need to step out and just sit and receive. And we we I think are little more hypersensitive to people in our church who might be experiencing burnout, for example, it seems like the person who coordinates the nursery schedule is a pretty big turnover spot in volunteer ministry, because it’s hard. And coordinating that as a volunteer is a really big ministry. And so when someone comes to me and says, I want to be the nursery coordinator, I sit down and like, Do you realize what this could entail? And what boundaries are you going to put in place, and when you start feeling burned out, and resenting this or like, you can’t even come to church and worship yourself, then before you even get to that spot, we need to talk again, because that’s not healthy. And that’s not what we want. But it took a pretty severe wake up call for us to get there as a church. But I do want to see churches being more healthy and giving their people permission to live lives. And giving permission is a church to cut away excess things that are just draining. And I would love to see ministry teams and leadership teams evaluating maybe each year, what is working, where is God moving? Where does it seem? It’s easy to get volunteers, where do we see the fruit, that’s where we need to join God. And right now, this ministry that we’ve held on to for 50 years that we can’t ever find volunteers for and it’s a drag, and it’s draining and causing stress, that’s a sign that it’s time to let that go. We need to do better about that as a small church ministry, and it is an entire culture. Because we are sensitive to it. I want our people to be sensitive to that as well. Wow.

Laurie Graham 28:27
Okay, so you already gave two really good sound practical, awesome steps and tips already. And we’ll get into some more in a minute. But I just want to make sure people didn’t miss it. Somebody says I want to do that job. And you said, Hang on, instead of just saying yay, here’s the folder go to it. You like literally step back and said, I just want you know what this is going to cost how much and that’s so biblical counting the cost. And you’ve seen this. And the other thing. So one is not just jumping when somebody says yes, but you know, letting them understand what the position really entails. And the second thing I love that you did is you literally talked about when it’s time to quit or when you need a break. And that’s one of those things that I teach so strongly now is when people join a team, there needs to be a way for them to quit. Because when there’s not a way for people to quit, that’s when we end up hurting relationships, people leaving the church, because they don’t know how to quit, they they feel awkward. They feel like they’re, they’re leaving something with you. So if you can actually give practical steps on when it’s time for you to quit or if you need a break. Here’s who you talk to. If you’re sick one week, and you can’t make it here’s where you can get a replacement or here’s what we do. We close the nursery like that there’s a step because none of us are robots. We’re going to have seasons we’re going to have weeks we’re going to have times when we do literally need to exit and how do we set people up to do that? I love that you just shared that.

Shannon Carroll 29:50
Thank you it’s it’s God’s grace in ministry that we’ve learned these things but giving people permission to be real and real it realizing they’re not rope Lots, they are serving, extra, you know, outside of their family and their career obligations they’re serving, this is an extra thing for them. We have set up a lot of our ministry teams to be three year rotations. And we’ll tell people up front, you this is a three year commitment. If you need to get off of it before that you just tell someone, that’s fine. But at the end of three years, you can rotate off and reevaluate, then what does God want you to do in this next season. A church that is full of burnt out people is not an effective church. And in this day and age, we need a strong church. And to be a strong church. That doesn’t mean numbers. It doesn’t mean doing all the things. It means healthy in mind, body and spirit. It means being in the Word. And that is one of the practical tips. Get in God’s word first yourself, you know, we can be so busy doing God’s work that we forget our first love, and His word and the time with Him alone, provides that rest provides that respite and gives us clarity for how we’re supposed to serve him.

Laurie Graham 31:08
You know, as you talk about getting God’s word is one of the practical steps. i It did not escaped me how you use the verse earlier, don’t grow weary in doing good. And many people use that verse as condemnation. Like oh, we’re not supposed to grow weary, we’re supposed to keep going, we’re supposed to, you know, like, that is our call to keep going. And you used it very differently. You know, sometimes I think in the Word of God we are, we’re kind of using it as a as a battering stick for us, you know, like, get get in shape. And you when you talk about falling in love with God and your first love again. And how do you suggest people approach the Bible in this because honestly, I think many of us are used to using it as a whipping tool for ourselves,
and others, I suppose. And

Shannon Carroll 31:53
that’s so sad, to me that what should be so life giving and the foundation of everything becomes a source of condemnation. What we saw in David’s amnesia was that even though he had forgotten music and movies and birthdays and Christmases, our home or dog or church, the one thing that he didn’t forget was God’s word. And when he talked, so a lot of times when he was in conversation, he was like, 10 ish years regressed. And yet when he talked about God’s word, and when he prayed, or when he quoted Scripture, he was present day, David. It was wild to see as someone who’s grown up in the church all my life, and I’ve known the Bible is living and active. I’ve known up here, it’s the foundation, but I literally saw that it resides in a place in us that is deeper than our memory itself. It’s Supernatural. It lodges in our heart and our soul and it’s alive. It’s the foundation and that’s part of our passion with our ministry, post amnesia is help the church to fall in love with God’s word again, because it it remains what everything else goes. It remains and it is the lifeblood, and it is enough for us as

Laurie Graham 33:00
well and don’t grow weary in doing good isn’t a call for more condemnation. It’s it’s a call to take care of yourself, because Jesus modeled it. Okay, what else would you say? Okay. Another

Shannon Carroll 33:12
one, besides getting God’s word is praying that God reveals the areas that you’re currently involved in, that might not be his will for you in this season. Like, just because you wear the hat of whatever for five years doesn’t mean you have to know so pray, ask God, if you’re willing, ask God, what are the hats that you want me to wear in this season, wear the hats that you need me to take out. And then step out of roles that are burdensome wearing and exhausting, you will live and your church will go on because it’s God’s church. It’s not yours. A big one is to take all of your vacation time. lesson for us as we were not taking all of our vacation time because if we left church, then how was church going to function and they needed us. That’s that’s the wrong mentality. So we we max out our vacation time that we are given it is important for us. We sleep more is another big thing. That’s a very practical thing. We make ourselves go to bed early. And get up early. We take naps when we need to return the to do list over when our body is worn out. because sleep is when the brain resets itself. And then another one is have a life outside of the church. It can become so all encompassing and then you lose the joy for life abundant that God’s given us. And so for us, it’s gardening or walking or going out to eat as a family. You cannot just pour out continually there have to be some things to pour back in. Another big one for us has been connecting with people outside of the church to help offer support and friendship and a sounding board to remind us that there is life outside of the church. And then another part of our ministry we won’t get into today but we talk about some in the book is helping to train your congregation to take care of the emotional and physical needs of their pastor in their family. And there’s some very practical things that a congregation can do for their pastor. It goes, it goes both ways. But there are steps that you can take towards peace in ministry versus concept burnout and exhaustion.

Laurie Graham 35:16
Well, and I love your story, because it’s not just a story of this dramatic thing that happened to you. But it’s a story of hope, because your church changed. And I think a lot of times when people find us they’re like, this is what it is, this is how it goes. This is. And it’s not like we see story after story after story of healthier churches who aren’t doing all the things who are making an incredible impact, who are making choices and who are modeling healthier ministry. Because if you think about it, if you’re burnt out and crazy making and your church is running on burnout, or a lot of people are, what are you inviting people into? It’s like, hey, come join our dysfunctional family. And you can be as stressed out and burnt out, as we all are, instead of becoming a healthy family and inviting people into joy and grace. And I just think it’s so much more Jesus like,

Shannon Carroll 36:06
yes, it is. And there’s so much more joy in the journey when it’s like that. And it is a family. And it is it can be very dysfunctional. And I know that I’ve lived that I’ve talked with so many ministry families that are living in dysfunctional churches, and it breaks my heart. But I do want them to hear the message of hope. And there are small things that can be changed now that that will change the trajectory of your church and bring life back to it. And often it’s doing less and not doing

Laurie Graham 36:36
if you can even take a little scenario with me because one of the steps you mentioned is stepping out of things. And many of the people listening to this podcast, we’ve all but in situations where the culture around us might not be matching where we feel God is leading us. So if somebody is listening right now, and they know they want to step out of nursery or Kidman or outreach, or the prayer team, or visitation, or whatever they are doing. And they really feel like God’s telling me to do this, but they know it’s not going to be received. What advice or what steps would you tell them? How would you help them process that?

Shannon Carroll 37:15
The thing that comes to my mind is this is where faith comes in, where God often tells us very clearly what the next step is that he wants from us. But he doesn’t reveal what the outcome is going to be after that. And so we stay, we stay stuck in this decision, because we’re scared about the unknown. We don’t know how the other person’s going to respond, we feel like the ministry is going to fall apart, someone’s going to think that we’re lazy or whatever. And so we’re worried about the outcome. So we don’t take the step in faith. When often God asks us do it, I do what I nudging you to do. My grandmother used to say, you know, it’s the Holy Spirit when you notice that you notice. And if you’re noticing that you notice, God is saying it’s time the season is over, then we have to trust him with what the outcome is going to be. And not everyone is going to understand. But you know what, after we’ve walked, what we’ve walked through, we get to the point where I’m sorry, it’s not your life. It’s my life. I’m responsible before God and my family, for my own health and sanity. He takes care of the rest. So there is and I think the enemy also uses that to keep us in bondage based out of fear of the unknown. And God is asking step out in faith, trust that it’s his church, and he’s got his church.

Laurie Graham 38:40
So what do we say? Do we just say, hey, pastor, I’m ditching this ministry area, or hey, ministry leader, good luck. I’m out, like, how would you approach it like, specifically,

Shannon Carroll 38:52
with a lot of prayer, because we want our own hearts to be right in the middle of it. We want to have God’s heart for our church. And we want to be able to see from the other person’s perspective and address that and our response. So a lot of prayer, not just a flippant, I’m burned out, I’m done. I’m over you, kind of walking away and burning bridges. But the way people have approached it with us is, hey, I’ve got this going on in my family right now. And this is taking my time and attention. And it’s where I need to shift my priorities. And so I need to step out of this ministry, how can we work together to transition to someone else or transition to not having the ministry? What do we need to do, like have a heart that not only is concerned about your own life, but also is feeling the need of the church? That goes a long way. I mean, I want to work with someone who says I really need to shift priorities, but I also recognize I have this responsibility. So how can What did that what does that transition look like? I

Laurie Graham 39:58
love that because it’s a real hard hard thing to step back from something that you care deeply about. And I know everyone listening, this podcast cares deeply about their church, because once again, you want to be listening to this podcast, you know. And so it’s a really hard thing. But I think we also, you know, as you’re even talking, we’re modeling. Like, I think when I’ve quit things in ways, like it almost gives other people permission, oh, I’m allowed to do that. Like, and I’m sure you gave that to your church as well as they process this with you. So awesome. I could talk to you forever, Shannon. Like I love talking with you, you’ll speak at more of our conferences, right? I would love Okay, cool, because we would love to have you back, you’re like one of the favorites. At the last conference you spoke at, like, I just kept getting comments about how much they enjoyed hearing from you, your heart, but also the wisdom. It’s not just, you know, preaching something theoretical, but like practical things that we can do to make some changes, not just throwing some Jesus icing on it, you know, just real practical things that make sense that make a difference and, and just increase our love of Jesus at the same time. So so, so good. You all before we hear how to get in touch with Shannon, because I want to make sure you can, you know, share that information, Shannon for people want to get in touch with you and how to find your book, I just want to mention that this is a great conversation that you got to be a part of, and we really pray that you would share this conversation, like our prayer is that you would continue this conversation with your family and friends. Don’t just take it to heart for you. But say, hey, Pastor, listen to this podcast episode. Hey, friend, hey, family member, hey, ministry team, let’s listen to it together, or come back and discuss this and ask questions like this. Don’t just let it sit there ask questions like this, what stood out to you? How could this apply to our ministry team, to our family, to our church to me personally, and then choose one step. So many times we get so much information these days, and we don’t take the one step to start making a change. Because if we want to be different, we do have to do different. And doing different means making a plan. So what’s one step you could take? So let’s do better church, like serving should not be grinding everyone to the ground? And then we wonder why we have a hard time getting volunteers. Alright, so before we run out of time, Shannon, how can people get in touch with you? What’s the best way to find you? Awesome.

Shannon Carroll 42:14
So I do have a website. It is Shannon l carroll.com. And I’m sure that’ll be in the show notes. Our you can get information about our book there. I’m excited to be co leading a retreat ministry with another gal for Christian women that’s been really fun to see God birth that our book is on Amazon, one thing remains or you can find it through the website. I’ve just written a Companion Bible study, to go along with one thing remains and taught at my church this past fall, it should be published after the first of the year. And it’s a great gift to give ministry leaders within your church because it does give practical steps, but how to reevaluate ministry, how to learn to bless those who are in ministry leadership. So I pray that it is beneficial and has fruit in your church that would make what we went through. Definitely worth it. Wow,

Laurie Graham 43:12
Shannon, thank you so much for taking the time to be with us all today. It’s always fun, like, just just knowing there’s people all over the world like listening to us. They’re on the treadmill, they’re driving in their car, they’re supposed to be working and they’ve got their earbuds in. And so it’s so fun that you were able to be with us today. For those of you who are listening, and we’ll be here again next week. I’m not Shannon next time, but we’ll be here like with new guests and new tips and new strategies for small churches. We have a brand new episode that’s released every Tuesday, early morning. And if you don’t want to miss out on episodes, make sure to subscribe, because then you’ll get those notifications and just know what’s there. So I guess we’ll talk to you all next week. And until then, the light