What Causes Pastors to Burnout?

Carol Howard Merritt writes, “Pastors have a fifty percent burnout rate. In the first couple of years of ministry, half of them will drop out. I expect this from nursing and teaching, but I didn’t know that the rate would be quite so high for the pastorate. Do our churches realize what we’re doing to our professionals? What about our denominations? When we put so much time and energy into preparing pastors for the ministry, isn’t it disconcerting to watch half of them leave within a couple of years? I have often seen people shrug off the burnout. They figure that the ones who were not tough enough left. We question their call into ministry, or find another way to blame the pastors for the failure.” [Read More Here]