Tips to Avoid Church Hurt and Burnout

Transcribed from the episode audio and lightly edited for readability. Speaker labels are automated and may occasionally be off.

Austin: Hey, everybody, Austin and Rachel Holt here, and welcome to the Conscious Christian Marriage Podcast. We're excited today for episode six, and we've been having a lot of fun recording these episodes, and we've had great conversations with many of you. Lots of great comments, lots of great fun, so thank you guys for participating and listening. And, today, we're gonna kick off our episodes like we always do, with some appreciations. So Rachel, what do you appreciate about me?

Rachel: I've been thinking about this. I appreciate your masculinity, your manliness, and specifically in your leadership in our church, how you're the head of security, and you really do take that seriously. And you lead with excellence because you put the security of everyone on your shoulders, and then help steward that really well to set up a team of other great people that feel the same calling in life. And I'm really proud that- I can say that you're my husband.

Austin: I appreciate that. Thank you. Rachel, one thing I really appreciate about you is that, just lately with when it comes to parenting, we have been, you have been specifically just really detailed with our evening routines and with, our tracking system on how we're helping the kids grow in different areas of their life and their faith, and also just their responsibilities. And just, like, the end-of-the-day reset, and I've noticed the kids are enjoying the end-of-the-day reset, which is where the kids clean up, and we all kind of do a little end-of-the-day stuff to just kind of reset the home. And yesterday or last night, they had so much fun doing it, they were even, like, singing a song while they were doing it. And I just and that's, that is fruit of your labor and just the seeds you've been planting with them. So I just really appreciate you, because it's a lot of work, and it's a lot of patience. And I just appreciate how much patience you have for them in doing that, so.

Rachel: And I app- I receive that. I receive that and appreciate that.receiVe. I said receiVe.

Austin: ReceiVe, yeah.

Rachel: And I would also add that it's paying off handsomely, so it's perceivably a lot of work, but it's actually benefiting me. And I think that has been the resistance in the past, where systems and even just teaching a kid how to do dishes it's like the input at first is a lot. It is, it is way easier just to put the dishes in the dishwasher or wash them yourself, and versus letting a kid make a mess, letting a kid clean a dish, and then later you, you know, say, "Oh, there's some stuff here. Let's fix this," or you put it away, and then the pantry's really disorganized because the kids are putting it away. But it does pay off in the long run, so thanks for that hit of dopamine.

Austin: You're we- Yeah, you're welcome.

Rachel: For the work.

Austin: You're welcome. Well, so today's topic is actually something, we get asked a lot. And so as we've been kind of figuring out our groove with these podcast episodes, one thing that we found that we love is just when people submit questions, and we answer these questions. And so one question that we get asked a lot, is something to the effect of, how do you prevent burnout as a couple at church? So I think if we were to dial this question in even more specifically, it'd be, how do you prevent burnout in serving okay, as a couple at church? And so, yeah, we have a lot of thoughts on this. Actually, it was just it was gonna be a part of a smaller episode, and then we decided we should do a full episode on it.

Rachel: Yeah, because this subject gets me excited. It gets us excited because we've literally, we've been serving in the church. We grew up in the church our entire relationship. So we've experienced a lot in the church, and we've learned a lot. And we've watched a lot of things happen in the church, and a lot of, we've witnessed personally a lot of burnout. And we would like to be able to equip you to avoid that, because it is very avoidable.

Austin: Yeah, and I think, what's important to say upfront in this is that we've discovered two really great things. One is how to help people who serve in the church serve well and how to see the heart of the church. You know, I think as we've navigated the years of, you know, ups and downs but generally ups in being involved in church, serving in church, leadership in church, I think we have really figured out how to help people regulate their commitments to serving in a way that supports their family, themselves, where God has them. And we've also learned to see, how to not throw the baby out with the bath bathwater you know, with church, with serving at church. Because really at the end of the day, one of the most powerful things we can do is assume the best in the church leadership, assume the best in, in ourselves, and we just find grace in the middle. And so I wanna kind of start this episode with that.

And so I think before we give our answer, I think we should share a little bit of our church history so people understand, like, what our serving background looks like, what we've done, what we haven't done, that kind of thing. So you wanna share kinda what's your story from maybe your earliest memory of just being really involved with church all the way up through how you're involved with serving at our church today?

Rachel: Yeah. yeah, I grew up, very involved in church. My parents were very involved in church. Since I can remember, probably since I was old enough to be serving, I was helping in children's church. I'll be honest, I was also paid by quite a few small groups to be the babysitter. That was a blast. but on Sunday mornings, very involved, loved, I grew up going to Blue Springs Christian Church as a family. We went there. loved Pastor Dave Furnau, and, they had a coffee shop and a donut shop. We moved into the new building back then, and so I loved helping with that. And, even cleaning the church. I think my mom cleaned the church some growing up. No, my mom did the gardening at our old building. And so I have memories of doing gardening with her at church, so very hands-on, and then riding bikes around the parking lot. But as I got older, Was always in my teen years, always serving generally in childcare. some, was in acting, in skits that we would do at a church that I was involved in.

Even interpretive worship dance. Yes. Did that for a while. Oh, yes. That was a blast. I loved that. I remember seeing you do that before we ever even dated. Mm-hmm. And I was like, "Woo, who's that chick with the flags?" Yeah, that was fun. and, you know, went on a missions trip, but served in the community as well. when I got to college, yeah, out of high school Actually, I was still in high school when I started going to Longview Community College, and I just found myself always creating Bible studies everywhere I went. Yeah. With whoever I was with, it's like- Yeah "Let's make a Bible study." And so we had one at Longview, and, you know, we would just try to bring whoever was in our class, invite whoever we met. we did that for quite a while. We, you know, would do things with the homeless. that was really fun. And then it grew, and we started having it in our homes and in other people's homes.

And yeah, I look back on that and I'm like, "Oh, bless my heart." It's like I know I was always leading from a good place, but I know I didn't know what I know now. Yeah. and there's- Of course grace for that, and there's been a lot of learning through that. but then, ooh, here's a highlight. When Trip Lee came into town- Yep to Abundant Life, I made him and his crew dinner, which means I popped some nuggets and french fries into the oven. Yep. And then someone else delivered them backstage. However- Yeah the Lord blessed the nuggets, and we had a great night. Through your hands. And you were there. We were just friends. I was there. I know. I was there at that concert. Juicy. so yeah. but then when you and I met, we started I feel like a lot of what I've learned has been since we've been leading together. Yeah. you know, like we mentioned in our first episode, we were really involved at our church.

When we started dating, we went to the same church together, got really involved there. That's when we started doing worship together. And you would've been 19. Yeah. And then we started our young adults ministry there, which was awesome. I really That was such a good season. Yeah. A really good church. It was kinda like we had the We just had, like, the keys and we could just go and- Yeah have the young adults ministry. And literally, I would go early and play Wii. Yeah, I remember that. With some of the girls. Yeah. it was a good season of life. But then it was really, tragic, honestly, what happened, when we showed up the week after our honeymoon and our pastor had left, which we love him and bless him on his journey, but then the cult that was trying to take over just took over. And- Yeah literally, this is what happened. We were on stage. Austin saw them come in, and he goes, "Go to the car.

Get down on the ground." Yeah. Like, 'cause he The guy had We had police officers there. The guy had come before with a gun, I think. Yeah. And so you were like, "Go to the car. Like, don't worry about grabbing anything." And we literally just left all of our stuff there. Like, whatever- Yeah equipment we had, I can't even remember. I think you grabbed an amp on your way out, I'm not sure. but I remember hiding in the car, down as far as I could, the first week after we got married. Yeah. And I didn't even think about how traumatic that was for us until recently as we were talking about, you know, the first episode on our podcast. It's like- Yeah that's actually legit church trauma. Yeah. Right, yeah. I was, like, scared for my life in the- Yeah parking lot. And, then we were meeting in houses. We're like, "Sorry, all our, you know, college-age friends. Just come to our tiny basement." And then- Yeah and then we did church in our basement. and then we've been in various churches since then, and we've really I know you can speak more to this.

You'll probably, you know- Sure, I'll share a little bit 'cause it's both of our story. Yeah. But you've been in leadership. We served together, and we've I think we've erred on burnout a lot. I think there were seasons where we really did get burned out, for sure. Yeah. Definitely post-kids- Yeah is when that started. It happened more after kids, and I think it was because we didn't really see Here's what happened. I was serving in children's, and I was due with our first, and I, I told the head of children's, I was like, "Hey, I'm due, you know, in August, so, you know, maybe just put me, take me off the schedule end of July and August, and then maybe put me on the schedule towards, like, the end of September. You know, maybe October." And she goes, I'll never forget this, she put her hand on my shoulder and she goes, "How about you just let me know when you wanna get back on the team?"

And that was the most loving thing. It really did release me because I had no idea- Yeah what parenthood would be like, and I have, I'll be honest, I have not actively served in kids since then. But it has not I've been open to that. I've asked God many times, but it has not We he's called us to other- Yeah forms of leadership. But I just love how she said that, and how naive I was to parenting at the time. And it did take a toll, 'cause we had our young adults- You could say naive, but you could also just say optimistic, too. Yes. Like, you were optimistic and hopeful. I, I was super optimistic about that. Yeah, yeah. And- And confident. Yeah, and it hit me like a ton of bricks. But, you know, I learned a lot that first year of parenthood. But we were leading our young adults group, and we were the only ones with a kid, and that was hard, 'cause nobody understood and things changed a lot.

Yeah, that's right. And so I think that was the year where we had the most burnout, 'cause we were leading at church, worship on Sunday mornings And then we were also leading our young adults group on Sunday nights.

Austin: Which was an entire church service.

Rachel: Yes. You were preaching. We were doing worship. You and I were leading worship. And we had a team, but, like, it was all on our shoulders. With a small baby. And we had Wednesday nights where we would do guys and girls. And/or all together. It would kinda switch. We'd have, like, meals, whatever it was. We were always, you know, really active in our community. And so that first year was, like, a lot. but yeah, since then, I don't know if there's much to report on my end as far as I mean, we've been involved.

Austin: Well, you've, you've led in sisterhood, which is the min the, the, ladies ministry at our church. You've led on worship. you've led marriage. You've taught the marriage classes at our church this year, so you've done a lot of great leadership.

Rachel: Yeah, I guess there's, there's more leadership, but I think we have worked out the kinks. I guess I'm looking back and reflecting on what was difficult. But, and what I learned through. But even since, we've been through, even in our current church, there have been times where people have left. We've seen a lot of people leave. And we love them, but we've learned through that and seen you know, how we can avoid burnout or how we can take responsibility for what we experience which we'll talk about more. and we learned a lot through our last church as well in leading. And even when we stopped doing the young adults ministry we led f we were there for probably maybe, like, another year. And then God just called us out of that, and we've been at Summit Park Church ever since. We love it, but we, we literally You, you're like, "We're burnt out. We just need to take a break and just attend a church for a while."

'Cause we are natural-born leaders. And we've led everywhere we go. And so we wanted to just be present and receive, which was good. But I was itching before you, actually, 'cause I got involved in a wives group, and that was amazing. And then I was like, "Babe, I wanna get going." And, and yeah, we probably three or four months in? Is that how long we lasted without serving?

Austin: Probably, yeah.

Rachel: But yeah, we've really been an active part of our church ever since, and it's a good relationship. We love it. And there have been some seasons where we're serving more than others, and we regulate that for ourselves, which we'll talk about more. Which is why it's so great, and that's why we're long-term servers in the church. Like, we have been an asset to our church. We have served consistent consistently in the sense that we never quit, and we're like, "Ah, I'm done with this," you know? Because of what we're gonna talk about today, because we've applied those things and regulated our own Yeah, we'll

Austin: Yeah, we'll talk about it

Rachel: We'll share about it soon, but yeah. But yeah, I'm really thankful for our journey, and I'm curious what you're gonna say.

Austin: Okay. Well, yeah, I appreciate you sharing all that. And, like, just, I love that you shared it from your angle first because it just, it's making me think about a whole lot of things I wasn't even maybe even gonna share or, or think about. Okay, so, little bit of my church leadership history, and like you pointed out, it's actually really cool. I mean, you were 19. I was 21 when we started serving together, you know? And I'm 34 now. So for, actually, the probably two-thirds of my leadership in the church has been with you which is, which is really cool. I, I grew up with parents who were also leaders in the church. But, when I was, like, I don't know, six, seven, eight years old, we were downstairs for Sunday school, and the teacher, for whatever reason, didn't show up. And so, I remember sitting there, and, she was the sweetest teacher. I s- I, I still know her. her name's Debbie. And for whatever reason, she, she wasn't there, or she was late or something.

And, I just decided to get up in front of the room and teach the whole Bible study. And so we I did, like, a little Bible lesson, and we played a game, and we collected tithes and offering. And my mom came downstairs. I didn't know it, and she was, like, down the hallway and turned the corner. She's like, "I recognize that voice," and watched me teach this class. And she's back there laughing. I'm collecting money from people, which I remitted to the church. I'm, I'm pretty sure. I mean, I'm pretty sure I remember that. And, but anyways, and so, like you said, really feel like God's always called us to be natural-born leaders. I was raised in the Nazarene Church. shout-out to all my fellow Naz, all my homies at, you know, District Breakaway and all those places. And, but yeah, I grew up in the Nazarene Church. And, when Rachel and I met, I was still attending a Nazarene church, and I helped lead the youth group there along with a couple other guys.

That's kinda where our romance began. and was on worship team there. And, we transitioned from that church to another church, that was a, United Methodist church actually, where we attended for I think five or six years. I was an associate pastor there at that church, have my minister's license there. And that's where we started our college and young adult ministry, which was incredible. it was called 2.0. we had tons of people that, that, came to the ministry. I, I remember, though, when we first launched it, I'll never forget, and I think this was God testing our faithfulness. I remember there were more people on worship team and in live production than there were in the crowd. So, you know, we had me and you, and, I think Cody was on bass. I can't remember who would've been on drums at that time. But, had a couple other people on stage, couple other people back in, in live pro. And, I think there were, like, two people in the crowd.

And I remember thinking Okay, like we can do this. I, I know God's calling us to this, and so we just, let's just stay faithful, you know? And so we, we, we grew the young adult ministry. And a little story on the cult takeover. I was gonna dedicate a lot more time to this, but really here's the skinny, was, at the time, the church we were at was an amazing church. And, it ha had actually been a really, really old church, and a younger pastor and a younger leadership team came in, and there just ended up being some just difference in how things were run. And so unfortunately there was a, a pretty disgruntled individual there, that felt like things weren't going the way they should have been going, and that because they had been giving money for many, many years to the church, he and a bunch of other people, they decided that, they didn't like the way things were happening. So cryptic letters and things were slipped under the door of the church at night and stuff like that, and, and, our pastor decided that God was not calling him to, to really tolerate that and deal with that.

And so he ended up going back home and taking a great job where he was from. We actually had a, a restraining order against this individual because he had shared with us he'd brought a gun to the church and all this stuff. And so, our pastor had just left to go back home, and, here we were on stage leading worship. And right as the first song began, he and about 15 of the cohort came in the back door and came into the sanctuary. And, being the protector in my nature I am, I said, "Rachel, go to the car, lock the door. I'll be right behind you." And, we had to literally walk off the stage. And, that was one of the harder moments I think I can remember in my, my faith walk. and so then basically from there we, transitioned to another church.

Rachel: I forgot this. Remember we decided to church hop every Sunday for a year?

Austin: Yeah. So we had this plan that we were gonna, we were gonna go visit a different church every Sunday for a year and then write a book about it. And we made it to, like, two or three churches and decided that, like, which is total testament to what scripture says and what we believe is that, you need roots and a, and a church home. And so that ended pretty quick. But it was fun. We visited some great churches and and I'll never, I'll never forget how much I appreciated, Blue Springs Church of the Resurrection, Penny Elwood, who was the campus pastor there at the time. my dad works, worked and works for Church of Resurrection. And, basically we said, "Hey, we had a really tragic thing happen in our church, and we've got a group of us and, like, 50 young adults that need a place to land a, a church service at." And they welcomed us and said, "Hey, you can do it here."

So we moved our whole ministry to their church and basically started a Sunday night, young adult service, which we did there for, like, five years. it was really cool. And so, yeah, we did, youth ministry, and then we did young adult ministry. and then, God called us to, just a different season in our ministry, and, we transitioned there to Summit Park Church, which is where we're at now. And, yeah, our, our whole thought was, you know, in between those two seasons of life, you know, there, there was definitely burnout, you know from leading a huge ministry, serving on Sunday mornings. And, and then having kids was just a lot for us to try to figure out, and navigating our marriage and everything. And so, we took a little season off from ministry, and then we really felt like God called us to, to Summit Park. And, and I remember we got to Summit Park, and of course I'd always played guitar and worship. I played guitar and worship teams since I was 12 years old.

My mom was a career worship leader. My dad's a, has worked in the church, served or worked in the church almost his whole life. And, and, yeah, I remember thinking, "Okay, like, we're not gonna serve for a while." And then we got, we got to church at Summit Park. We saw how just amazing the worship team was and different things. And, I think it was a good, I think it was a good three, four, five, six months, before we started serving. But pretty much as soon as we felt like God was saying go, we got involved with worship team. we got involved with, I got involved with the security team, prayer team, and

Rachel: Yeah, small groups

Austin: Yeah, and now, and small groups. And now to this day, we lead small groups for the church. I manage the entire security team, which is anywhere between 60 and 80 volunteers. Rachel and I are both on the worship team. We're both on prayer team. And,

Rachel: Hospitality

Austin: Hospitality. and we both, teach the marriage classes, at our church and, help with just different discipleship-type initiatives. And so, and, and again, we want to fill you guys in on our context so you just kinda understand that, we're not new to serving. We've served for a long time. We've been through ups and downs. and I think we've kinda cracked a little bit of a code that just helps people serve well in church, and just helps them find a groove and a pocket with how they wanna serve, so that they can navigate what God wants them to do, and also where sometimes it can be tempting to over-serve. It can be tempting to, expect someone else to kinda regulate your serving commitment for you, and how sometimes that can actually get people into trouble. but we get asked this question all the time, how do we prevent burnout okay, as a couple at church? So we've got a couple things we wanna go over with you guys on what we have learned over our combined, I don't know, at least 32, 34 years of, leadership in the church, so.

Okay, so Rachel, what would you say is the first thing you'd say to someone when just talking about what does serving in church look like, just as a whole?

Rachel: Yeah. Well, the first thing to remember is that being a part of the body of Christ is being involved in the body of Christ. And so serving in the church is actively partaking in being Jesus's hands and feet. You know, the mission of the church is to, at least our mission at Summit Park Church, is to help others find and follow Jesus. And so you don't know who's coming in those doors and what they've experienced and what they're going through. And so we have an incredible hospitality team. Every single team at our church is amazing. And so it's about that. It's about loving people and being the joy and the light of Christ to them. And I am blessed by serving. And to remember that too is- Is, yes, it's for Christ, and it's for others, and it's to serve others, but we're made to serve others and we're made to love others. And it brings me so much joy loving others and serving others and being involved in the church.

You know, I think about all my closest friends, they're either in CCM or they're in church. You know? Like- And so because that's where I'm at. That's, that's my mis those are my mission fields, and there's a lot of good people there. Different plug for another day, but on having quality friendships, but serving in church is, yeah, a part of partaking in who Jesus is and what his mission is. and he wants us to be actively involved, but he also wants us to rest. So, you know, we all know this, right? If you're a Christian and you're listening, you probably know, you know, God rested on the seventh day. And while not all modern Christians observe, like, specifically a, like, on church you rest, which maybe you do, but we're serving on church, so we usually rest on Saturdays. But, he does call us to rest, so even in seasons, we do take seasons of rest. You know, we've taken seasons of rest. We're not serving every Sunday, although we serve a lot, and there are different serving capacities, right?

So for us to be on prayer team, it's like- 10 minutes at the end.

Austin: It hardly feels like serving.

Rachel: Versus compared to being on worship, we're giving hours of our time during the week, and we're giving a large por you know, we design our weekend around worship because we wanna have good sleep. We wanna have rest. You know, we wanna have e eaten well, rested, get up early. We have four kids. There's a lot that goes into serving on worship. And so we rest from that. And so it's not, Jesus isn't like, "Hey, you need to be serving all the time every time in order to be, to partake in

Austin: Yeah. Because, because

Rachel: In what I have."

Austin: Yeah, because I think Jesus is saying that when we are a part of the body of Christ, like, let's just call the body of Christ being at church. Let's just say that. Like, I think- Jesus wants being at church to be both a place of participation and a place of rest. So that we can participate in the Kingdom of God, building the Kingdom of God at church, we're also attendees. You know?

Rachel: And receivers.

Austin: Yeah, we're receivers too. And I think that's where a lot of Christians have a hard time is they go to church, and they don't ever just attend church. They don't ever sit in their chair and get to experience worship, get to listen to the message, and get their cup filled so then they can go be a part of the mission field. You know, is too oftentimes people get, you know, roped into over-serving, and they allow that to happen. And so I, I think what you're saying, and I really agree, is that, you know, being at church, being in the body of Christ is not just service, but it's also a place of rest, you know. And God rested on the seventh day. Jesus rested after being in ministry. After working with his disciples or the crowds, he would retreat, and he would rest. And so, and, you know, Jesus said, "My yoke is easy and my burden is light," you know, like those who are, are weary and need rest, you know.

And so I think our interactions with Jesus and the church are both meant for, for work and for rest. You know?

Rachel: Yeah. And it should be restful and joyful. If you notice yourself serving and it's become a chore, and it's not restful then you may need to assess what's going on.

Austin: Yeah. It's like when Paul talks about, you know, God loves a cheerful giver. You know? And, and the Greek word there with cheerful is literally, like, someone who's, like, laughing, hilarious you know, what they're giving. And so I think if it's anything other than that, we really wanna examine our heart and just make sure we're in the right place. And so, you know, there's a developmental consideration here, you know, where growing up, it was like we often got the most love, attention, affirmation, belonging, and safety and security when we were working hard, doing the right things, pleasing our parents. And, sometimes we can carry that developmental, that old developmental deficiency into church, you know, where, and we'll talk about this here in a little bit too, where it's just, it's kinda easy to get a lot of praise, you know? And so it can be like really addicting to over-serve at church because it's actually filling an emotional need that you didn't know maybe you had.

So yeah, I think you're right. I think Jesus wants us to be a part of our church, to both work for it to serve at it, but also it's a place of rest. You know, I love the Sundays where you and I just attend. Which isn't super often. It's, it's probably once a month for sure. and the joke is that every time I'm there just to rest there'll be some security team or medical team issue, and I gotta hop up out of my chair you know, and go, and go take care of it, but

Rachel: It didn't happen on Sunday, though.

Austin: It didn't. Yeah.

Rachel: Oh, but we were on prayer team.

Austin: Oh, yeah. Yeah, we were on prayer team. We weren't serving.

Rachel: It felt restful.

Austin: Yeah. We, we were serving. So yeah. I think that's, that's what I'd say.

Rachel: Yeah. Well, what about you? How would you answer that?

Austin: I think one thing we've really discovered over the years is the key to serving at church in a way that's gonna prevent you from being burnt out is to regulate your own burnout management, you know, is to regulate your own commitment. 'Cause I think a lot of times people want to assume the best in their leader and that their leader will spot in them that they're over-serving, or they're over-giving, or they're burning out. You know, and, and I actually think about, we have a good friend, his name is Zach, and, he was our worship leader for a long time. And I remember, he would routinely ask me, he would say, like, "Hey, man," like, "are you, are you serving too much?" Like, "Are you good?" Like, "Is it o is it okay if you play this Sunday again?" Like, "I wanna make sure you're good." And, that's rare. Like, that's just not very common. It's not very common that someone, that a, a leader is gonna be proactive and check in on you.

Rachel: And how many people are on worship? Like, at that time, it was, like, 80 something.

Austin: Yeah. We had

Rachel: And he probably wasn't even able to do that for everyone, but you, there's very few E1 players, so And you served a lot. But, like

Austin: But it

Rachel: 80 of those people, he physically I mean, he couldn't probably do that. You know?

Austin: But it was, it was just rare that someone would think to proactively make sure that we weren't burning out. And, and to assume the best in leadership, when leaders work with other leaders, I think there's an assumption that those leaders are self-regulating really well. I think that that assumption is incorrect. 'Cause I think most leaders don't regulate well. That's why we even see C-suite level people in the consulting world all over the place burning out, quitting, losing their jobs, horizontal jumps to other companies, lateral jumps to other companies because they're getting burned out, you know? And we see that in church all the time, you know, and every church has it, you know? I'm sure there's a few exceptions. But so, but at the end of the day, there is the rare case where you might have a leader that is going to actively make sure you're not being burnt out, but the default responsibility that we claim is that we are responsible for our own burnout management.

And so, you know, I've even, I've told people that I serve under, I, I'm like, "Hey, I will be very honest with you where I'm at, how I'm doing, how I'm feeling." "And, you know, don't ever take it personally if I share that with you because it's, it would be better if I tell you this now versus me getting too frustrated and then leaving later."

Rachel: Yeah. And I think this stems from a chronic problem with people, people-pleasing and having a hard time saying no. Because the church will send requests. If you say yes every time, they're gonna keep sending you requests. 'Cause the church always needs You know, we're growing.

Austin: Yeah. The church is always

Rachel: You know

Austin: Growing. It always needs more volunteers.

Rachel: There's always something to do at church. There's always a way to serve, so you're alway, you know, quote, unquote, "always going to get requests" because if you're, if you say yes every time it's like, "Oh, great, this person loves serving." And for some people, they really might, you know, everybody has different burnout levels, and some people might be going through a season or just be the type of people that's like, "Heck yeah- I'm gonna be there every single Sunday," and that fuels them, and they never get burnt out. And there might be those kinds of people.

Austin: Yeah. And we can't, and we can't leave it up to the church's responsibility to play that guessing game of what season anyone's in. Because like you said, someone might be like, yeah, in a season where, man, they wanna be at church every day. And someone might be in a season where marriage is heavy. Work is heavy. Kids are heavy. Health is heavy. Finances are heavy. And it's just, you know, they wanna serve twice a month, and that's it. But, you know, if you got a church staff of 20 but you've got 2,000, you know, people that go to the church and, you know, 400 volunteers, I think we've got, like, 400 volunteers or something in our church. That's a lot of people to try to every single day give them a call and say, "Hey, how are you doing on your serving commitment?"

Rachel: Well, and here's the thing. The church isn't responsible for that. 'Cause, like, we as a couple and individuals take 100% responsibility for everything we experience in life. And that applies to every area. And it's very true in church. We are 100% responsible for our own burnout. It's on us. It's not on the church.

Austin: Yeah. And, and someone could sit here and say, "Well, they could do a better job." And yeah, sure, let's just pretend the church could always do a better job. But at the end of the day, like you said earlier, you know, we're the gatekeepers. We decide what we allow in. We decide what we do. We, we're supposed to be mindful of the Spirit of God guiding us at all times. And so it's more of a victim mentality to believe that someone else is kind of controlling or affecting us versus us just being willing to claim responsibility, and, and regulate our own serving commitments. You know, which, which leads me to another thought which we talked about a couple episodes ago, just agreements versus expectations. You know? I encourage everyone that if you're serving at your church, ask yourself, is there an agreement? Is there an agreement in place, or is there an expectation in place? 'Cause the expectation's not gonna work. An, an agreement is an expectation that two people say out loud and agree to, you know?

And so y you may not know the agreement, okay, 'cause there may not even be one. And you've gotta have an agreement. If you wanna serve in a healthy way, it's like, hey, here's the agreement. Okay, like, for example, for, like, rehearsal 'cause, 'cause we're on worship team now. And so it's really, it's really hard for me to get home past 8:30 when I'm on rehearsal. It just is. We have four young kids. I don't want you to have to put them to bed by yourself. That's a really, really high, important value to me. And so when years and years ago when I agreed to serving, I said, "Hey, rehearsal goes till 8:00. I understand sometimes it has to go late, but I have to walk off the stage at 8:00. I ha- I have to be done at 8:00." Now, there could be a special circumstance where I don't need to be, but my agreements and my commitments to my spouse is that I will leave at 8:00, 'cause we live about 30 minutes, almost 30 minutes from the church.

I wanna be able to get home to help with the kids. And so I leave at 8:00, and that's never been a problem because I made an agreement. I made an agreement that that's what I would do. So, what else, Rachel? Like, what's, what's the next thought you would have when, when helping a couple prevent feeling burned out serving at church?

Rachel: I think also auditing dopamine. Like, where You know, what can happen a lot of times is at church, which is not a bad thing, we can get appreciation and praise, and it's such a positive environment. at least for us, we love our church. And they do a great job appreciating all the volunteers, and, that is wonderful. But sometimes if there is no appreciation or praise at home or there is a deficit or even someone who, you know, didn't have that growing up or just has this extra desire for that or a motivator to get praise from people, it can lead to an imbalance of w being motivated and almost, like, valuing more time at church and neglecting that time at home. When really, if there is no dopamine at home and that's suffering, the focus does need to go on there to repair. And so it's a tricky situation, and it's one that some couples do fall in. Even couples together serving together, it's like, "We're great.

Oh, my gosh, things are awesome. We're serving together." And then they get in the car, and it's like, "Oh, we have these problems." You know?

Austin: Yeah. Well, it's so true. It's like if, if you're not getting a lot of praise, appreciation, love at home, it's easy just to turn to the quickest environment that's gonna lift you up the most, you know? And, and we do believe in appreciating volunteers. I mean, we have an en entire events. And we send emails and text messages and give gifts and, and appreciate volunteers routinely. That's, that's part of our, our thing. We also, as ministry heads, wanna make sure that our people are healthy and that things at home are good. And so we're routinely encouraging people to be healthy in all areas of their life. Because if their marriage is not doing well at home, or, you know, if they're not get again, if they're not getting a lot of that praise at home, but they're getting tons of praise at church, it, it could make it too easy to just not wanna be home, and to just wanna be at church the most.

And then that chasm will grow. And so, you know, one thing that is really, really important is that we do regulate that dopamine, you know? And so because we, we really believe that your marriage is your first ministry, period. It's the ministry that all other ministries flow from. And I think any healthy pastor on the planet would tell you the exact same thing. Is that your marriage has to be healthy. I, I, I would actually argue that anyone in pastoral leadership should have a fully audited marriage at any given point in time. Even when you and I led the young adult service at our church we had someone that was the pastor accountability partner, a person we put in place to be asking us questions to make sure we were healthy. And I believe that any pastor, and you, anyone could quote me on this, I believe any pastor that's leading, anyone in a serious leadership position that's married, they should have someone peering into their marriage.

And we'd love to do that for you. But they should have someone peering into their marriage, someone to make sure, because too many times it just happens way too often. There's not that level of accountability. There's not that level of transparency. And it happens to the people you least expect it. There ends up being a moral failure. There ends up being a gray situation. There ends up, X, Y, and Z happens. But I believe to lead well, not just to serve well in the church, but to lead well in the church you have to have a Christ-centered, healthy marriage. And I believe you should, and I'll use the word should, I don't love the word should, but I'll use the word should submit to a level of accountability where someone can peer in and get a real view of what's happening in your marriage. Even, even when, you know, Paul, in his letters, is talking in, in the New Testament about qualifications to be leaders and deacons in the church marriage is a big one there.

You know? And so because it's just too easy to, to serve at church, and everyone's so thankful for you, and, "Oh, you're amazing," and it's like sometimes I feel like a volunteer can never make a mistake. 'Cause a lotta times, in it as being a leader of a lot of volunteers sometimes there is fear in criticizing or giving feedback, you know, to a volunteer 'cause you don't want 'em to quit- 'cause you really need their help. But you gotta love them enough and have enough relationship with them to be able to have an honest conversation about what's going on. But anyways, it's so easy to just, like, feel like as a volunteer you can never make a mistake, but at home, you know, sometimes it, it feels like you're making 100 mistakes a day. So it's like, "Why am I at home getting nitpicked to death when I could just be serving the church where everyone loves me, and there's free coffee?"

Rachel: Yeah. The same thing happens with work. But this is a reminder for wives and for husbands. This is why we start every episode with appreciations.

Austin: With appreciations.

Rachel: Because it is so important. It is so important to be creative, and unique, and expressive with our love and our appreciation and our ad admiration.

Austin: 'Cause I, 'cause I don't want, I don't want you to have to fill your cup anywhere other than in our marriage. I want, I want your cup being filled by God and by me. And if I stop filling your cup and you naturally find it somewhere else, I, I would feel responsible for that. Even though, yes, that would be on you as well, but I would, I'd be like, "Well, I, I let her down." Like, I, I, I stopped supporting her and loving her the way that God called me to. And so naturally, I mean, that, that's part of our human nature is that we will go where appreciation and love flow. And so if you neglect your spouse but they're not being neglected at work, at church, by any of these other places, don't be surprised when they gravitate that way. You know? And so we, one thing we always

Rachel: It's hardwired.

Austin: Yeah, it's

Rachel: We need it for survival.

Austin: Yeah. And one thing we always say is that, you know, Rachel and I really, we believe, we don't believe in 50/50 marriage. We don't believe in that model whatsoever. we believe in 100/100 marriage. You know, where instead of this marriage that looks like this, where if I fall, she falls, we believe in this. We stand back to back. We both show up at 100% with God at the center of who we are. And so we believe in this idea that I'm gonna be a powerful, Christ-centered, high integrity man, whether you are or not, as a female. And you are gonna be a powerful, Christ-centered, high integrity woman, whether I am or not. And, and we're gonna honor the vows we made to each other, whether either of us is batting 100 or a nu or not. However, we also want to make it easy on each other. We wanna make loving each other, serving each other f being in a great marriage together, we wanna make it easy.

We wanna make that easy on each other. So we do everything we can to set each other up for success. Okay? That's why we, we do, we d all the way to taking care of our bodies, and, auditing what we eat, and auditing what we drink, and, and who we spend time with and what we watch, and all these things, so that we're making it as easy as possible on each other to honor each other and love each other. Yeah. And so, we really believe that our ministry, our marriage is the first ministry, and when it's healthy, it's way healthier. It's way easier to serve at church. But we gotta, we gotta audit where all that dopamine's coming from. Because if you're avoiding going home because you're loved at church and things aren't good at home, home needs your attention in this season, not the church. And once things at home are solid, you'll be more effective at church anyways. You'll be more effective in the kingdom of God.

Because we've talked about this, I think, before, but if you've got stuff going on, every relationship you have will be the mirror to your stuff till you figure it out. You know, if you're feeling insecure, you're gonna take it out on someone. If you're angry, you're gonna take it out on someone. If you're judging your spouse or yourself, you're gonna judge someone else. And if you're not willing to, to heal what's broken, okay, then that, the, you know, how you're bleeding over here will just get on everybody else.

Rachel: Yeah. Okay, one last point. How can couples avoid burnout at church?

Austin: How can they avoid burnout at church? was this

Rachel: Well, it's one last point. Hero, victim, villain.

Austin: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. thank you for reminding me. So, we, we, yeah, we could've talked about this earlier, too. So one concept we teach a lot, and we'll just do the paraphrased version today, it's called hero, victim, villain. and it stems from the Karpman triangle, back from I think the 1950s. And essentially what it means is when we are in situations, if we create situations, allow ourself to go into situations that are not a real win-win- Okay? Then that's called heroing. Okay, where we come in and we're like, "Oh, I know I'm gonna suffer a little bit, but, like, oh, it's for the mission, so I'm gonna do it, and I'm gonna create this lose." But they'll win. And for a lot of Christians, the church gets the win and they get the, the lose. Okay? Overserving, burning out, is you creating a lose and so that the church can win. And if you hero long enough, okay And maybe you guys can think about your own situations in your own life where you have set up something where you're like, "Man, like, it's really hurting our family that I'm serving, you know, every night at 8:00, but, like, I'm just gonna do it because, like, yeah, kingdom of God."

Okay? The it's great for the church 'cause they get you serving every night. Okay? But if you keep up that win-lose long enough, you'll go from hero to victim. Which is when you catch yourself saying that. Like, "Ugh, they just expect me to be there every night of the week. Ugh, they just expect me to give up my social life to serve. Ugh, they just expect me to, to just, you know, roll over and, and die so that they can benefit."

Rachel: Mm-hmm. Or, "I have to do this."

Austin: Yes. "I have to do this," or- And so now you know you're in the victim spot. Well, worst-case scenario, that's already bad, but worst-case scenario is you go to the, the villain spot, which is like, "You know what? Forget this. I'm not serving anymore. I served for all these years and no one thanked me. No one appreciated me. I was never called up on stage. I never got a trophy. There's no plaque with my name on it. There's no brick on the walkway with my name on it." "No bench with my name on it," whatever. "And I'm just done. I'm done."

Rachel: Or, "I didn't get to, you know, lead whatever." "And I wanted to do this one thing, but they never asked me."

Austin: But they never asked me. Right. And so serving is not the problem. Okay? Serving is not inherently a lose. Ser we want serving to be a win. And we believe God made us creative enough, just like in our marriage, to create win-wins everywhere we go. So if someone asks you at church to serve, "Hey, we would love for you to, you know, serve, watching the, the, the kids every night of the week," you know, my question for you would be how do you make that a win? And you only agree to what actually feels like a win because, like Paul said, God loves a cheerful giver. God does not want you to begrudgingly give to him. He wants you to give out of the best parts of your heart. He wants you to give out of love. He wants you to give out of service, and he wants you to, you, you, to give out of dedication to the kingdom of God. Not out of guilt, not out of shame, not on, on, on guilt or fear.

Rachel: Yeah, out of fear. Yeah. Mm.

Austin: Because that's a lot of what it is. Like, "If I don't serve enough, then I'm not gonna look good. If I don't serve enough, God's gonna be upset with me. And if I don't serve enough, my pastor's gonna be upset with me. If I don't serve enough, you know, other people are not, are, are gonna shame me or whatever." We believe in serving. We've done it our whole life. and we're gonna continue to.

Rachel: And

Austin: We just have to be responsible for creating a real win-win because win-wins are sustainable. That's the long-term serve.

Rachel: Right, because what I was gonna say is villain, the biggest villain mode, is leaving the church.

Austin: Is leaving the church. Yeah.

Rachel: And we have seen it year after year after year after year, this same cycle of overserving then becoming a victim, and then someone just leaves the church entirely.

Austin: And they just, yeah, they just peace out.

Rachel: I've, I mean, it's been our entire

Austin: Our, our, our entire life we've seen it.

Rachel: And it's sad because it's so avoidable. And, and we've reaped the beautiful reward of staying with it and regulating that and having a good relationship serving, and it's, it's been so deeply fulfilling and fruitful.

Austin: Well, and so, you know, to anyone listening today, again, I would tell you it may be time, to revisit how you engage serving at your church, how you, how you actually serve. And w and we'll give a little action item here at the end about that. But what you don't wanna do is you don't wanna create a win-lose. You don't wanna create a situation that you can't sustain, that actually isn't what God's calling you to do. 'Cause we believe if God's calling you to do what he really wants you to do and you do it, there is joy. There's joy in that. And that doesn't mean that serving isn't difficult. That doesn't mean that serving doesn't make you tired sometimes. It doesn't mean that serving can You know, sure, there's some mornings where I would love to not get up at 5:30 AM to get you and the kids, and, I mean, you get them, you and I get them ready. I don't get you ready.

But, but for us to get the kids ready.

Rachel: Me, me, baby.

Austin: Yeah. And get all the, the gear packed up and get in the car and drive to church and have rehearsal. And there, yeah, there's some Sundays I would love to just stay at home, you know? and so but I love it. And, and I feel like it's our calling. And so that's not a lose for me. It's a win because I know I'm investing in the kingdom of God. So if you can serve in a way that you know you're investing in the, in the kingdom of God and it feels right in you, it feels where God wants you to be and you can do it with joy, you're in a good place. But if you're resenting serving, if you're fearing serving, if you're fearing not serving enough okay, there's something else at play. And it just needs to be brought to light. And so, and I think that that conversation is just full of love and just assuming the best. You know? So it's just, it's going to whoever, you know, you serve under or serve with and just saying, "Hey, I've been, I've been thinking, I've been praying, and, I'd really like to modify how I serve here, and here's what that would look like."

And more than likely they're gonna respond really well to you. You know? Now, if they respond in a way that's shaming, guilting, et cetera, then, I, I would voice your concern with that. And if that keeps going, I would go to the next pastor, you know, and try to figure that out because, I don't believe that it's, it's right to to guilt people or to overpressure people or really pressure at all people into serving, where it's maybe not best for them. You know? So, but, we wanna avoid heroing. Okay, you don't need to swoop in and save the day. You don't need to swoop in and clutch. Okay? You know, the, there's, there's been times where, sure, someone's called me and said, "The guitar player backed out. Can you be here in an hour?" And if, and if I could do it and it didn't stress out my family or stre or, or make me break any commitments or agreements I had you know what?

I've showed up on stage, you know, and you've had to bring me, you know, pants 'cause I had shorts on, you know? Or I had my fish flops on and I needed, you know, closed-toe shoes.

Rachel: Fish flops.

Austin: 'Cause no one wants to see my toes on stage, you know? And so, it's fun to be clutch. It's fun to be, like, that rockstar person that serves at church, but your church wants you to serve long-term. Your church wants you for the long haul. Your church wants you for the, for the long run, and, and God wants you for the long, long haul the long run. And it, it's realizing that- Ultimately, you're serving God, and God loves you unconditionally. And that's the number one thing you need to remember, is that you're serving the Lord, and He loves you. And He loves you whether you serve or not. But when you serve, you honor Him. And when you serve Him, I believe He blesses us. Okay, everyone's like anti-prosperity gospel, okay? And I don't believe that, that, that, if you serve, in the church you're necessarily, you know, gonna get a Lamborghini in the mail the next day. But here's what I do believe. I do believe that when we faithfully serve the church, and when we faithfully give of our time, talents money, energy, emotion, everything to the church in a healthy, honoring, loving way, God will absolutely bless you for that.

Rachel: Yeah, you know He says, "Judge a man by his fruit." Well, how do you get fruit? By doing the good things. So God gives you fruit. Right? We bear the fruit of what we put in.

Austin: Yeah. And it's the fruit of the Holy Spirit being in us. You know? And so, I 100% believe that when we are faithful to the resources, which is our ti not just your money, but your time, your talents. When we give those things to the church, God will absolutely bless you. It may not be a Lamborghini in the mail, okay? That's, that's like, that's like level nine, okay? You gotta get there. But, I do believe that the more you will serve the church and serve God, and serve Christ as the head of the church, I do believe that our good Father in Heaven will bless you. So, and we've seen it in our life time and time and time again.

Rachel: Yeah, because the, the biggest tragedy of people leaving is actually the community that they've spent building for those years that they were there. And there's, I can talk more about what they're creating by starting over and kinda keeping those shallow friendships. But the depth of being in a church long term, there's nothing like it. It's so beautiful, and there's, like we said, there's so much fruit there that there's, there's just so much good that comes from that. And I'm very thankful.

Austin: Yeah, and

Rachel: And huge shout-out. If anybody's in KC or near KC or flying through KC come visit Summit Park Church.

Austin: Come, come hang out with us, yeah. And, and another thing I wanna say, too, I meant to say this earlier, was, you know, we're not in any way on the, and I, I, I'm, I hope that we would never even sound like this, but, you know, we don't, we don't condone any type of, you know, abuse in the church. We don't, we don't cont condone any type of shame, any type of that at all. And so when we talk about that you need to regulate your own commitment that's a statement of how to claim responsibility, how to claim your own power. It's actually the opposite of falling to someone else's authority over you to an unhealthy degree. And so when we encourage you guys, like, some of you might have gone through some serious abuse in the church, and that is wrong. And we love you and we pray for you, and we're, we're here to help you heal. And we wanna empower you to step back into the autonomy and the authority- God's given you into regulating your own responsibility, okay?

Your a your ability to respond to how you serve and how you engage at your church. So if, if you've been through a tough season where you were, you felt burned out and where things got out of control and, and the regulation stopped, that's hard, that's sad. We've been there. We've done that, where we, we kinda let our guard down and, and we got burnt out, you know? But we take responsibility for that so that we can create a better future for us in how we serve in the church. So we're gonna pause and go over our nonprofit shout-out for today's episode before we give you the big, juicy takeaway that's gonna just radically change your life.

Rachel: Summary recap, yep. All right. So our nonprofit shout-out is re hope KC, formerly known as Restoration House KC. If you wanna go to their website, is re it is rehope.org, R-E-H-O-P-E.org. We'll put a link in the podcast description. They are an incredible resource, for human trafficking survivors. They have a farm where they have, they race goats, they make goat soap. We love their goat soap, goat's milk soap. and they have homes for the traffic for the survivors where they can have long-term housing. They, help them with trauma care. They help them, with jobs. So they make a lot of things you can purchase on their website. so there's in-house jobs that they provide for them that they're doing. and then they help them, reintegrate. So, a really incredible nonprofit that we love, and they're here in Kansas City. So if you go to their website, you can donate, which we

Austin: Pause this episode go to their website

Rachel: Go and do that

Austin: Even five bucks. Five bucks or 5,000, whatever you're feeling. Flip a

Rachel: And/or

Austin: Flip a coin

Rachel: You can also shop some of their stuff online and, and purchase things from, things that are made from, some of the survivors, which is really, really special. We have some mugs from them that we love.

Austin: Yeah. It's, it's amazing to think how God restores the most broken aspect of humanity ever. you know, the, with trafficking. And where God can take someone who was trafficked, save them, heal them, and then now they make beautiful things to give to the world. Like that's, if that's not a picture of like, you know, redemption in Christ, I don't know what is, you know? So it's amazing. So- So, Rachel, what's the big takeaway for today? What's the, you know, if, if everyone had one kinda big action item that might just really help steer them away from ever facing burnout as a couple in the church, what would that be?

Rachel: It would be to make or update agreements with who you report to in your church. So- I would say first discuss as a couple. if you listen to this solo, either have your spouse listen to it or discuss it with them. but then really come to a good agreement in your marriage. Like, what do we want to experience? What is a good win for us in how we serve, how we show up? And that can be reassessed quarter to quarter. We reassess things every single quarter because there's different things that happen in life. There's seasonal sports, there's seasonal holidays, there's school, there's not school. And so find out, you know, reassess and reevaluate, and then go to whoever you report to at church and say, "Hey, this is how I wanna show up." And I'm doing this to regulate my own wellbeing to, so that I can serve to the best of my abilities. And when I show up, I am showing up with a full cup.

Austin: Yeah, that's right. And it's, and, and part of that, too, is to help them understand, like, "Hey, I love this church so much, and I love serving here so much that I want to avoid over-serving, because then I might turn into this thing called the victim, and then turn into this thing called the villain." "And, because I love serving here so much, and I've just been noticing lately, I've felt a little maybe just frustrated and tired at how much I've been serving. And so here's what would look better for me and for my family. And so that's what I'd like to, to shift to." And more than likely, okay, we're just gonna assume the best. More than likely, your pastor or your ministry, you know, head or, or department head, whoever, is gonna be like, "Wow, I really appreciate you sharing that with me, because I would hate for you to get upset." "I would hate for you to be hurt, and I would hate for you to leave."

Okay, I know that if and if, if I went to who I report to at our church, and said that thing, that's exactly what he would tell me. He'd be like- "I appreciate you sharing that with me. How can I resource you? How can I help you? How can I, how can I bring more people beside you to help, you know, you and the ministries you lead?" And, and that's very comforting to know, you know? And I feel like we've come a long way, and which is one reason why we love the church that we're at so much. So, so yeah. That's, that's how we're gonna wrap this up today. So,

Rachel: We would like you to subscribe if you have not. If you're on Spotify, hit the five-star. Give us

Austin: Please

Rachel: A five-star rating. If this blessed you, if it benefited you, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you podcast. Five-star, write a review if you can. I know Spotify doesn't actually let you.

Austin: And, and if you wanna, if you wanna pay us for this podcast episode, go to, rehope.org. And, you can pay us there.

Rachel: It's like, where's this going? But yeah. Like, comment, subscribe. We would love to hear from you, and submit your questions, 'cause you know

Austin: Yeah, your question could be aired

Rachel: It might be one of the next episodes, so.

Austin: Yeah. Or, you know, submit your very real-life, you know, stories about you and your marriage, along with your names and photos. And, we'll talk about them here. Just kidding. But yeah.

Rachel: All right.

Austin: Submit your questions, submit your thoughts, and we love you all. Thanks for watching or listening, and, we'll see you for the next episode.