The Bane of Burnout

Burnout, unfortunately, is endemic in activism, nonprofit work, and justice ministry. One survey of nonprofit professionals found that about half of them had burned out or were on the verge of burning out. In another survey, almost a quarter of nonprofit employees said they planned to leave the sector altogether. And burnout is not a single occurrence: In a survey of around 200 activists that I conducted, nearly two-thirds had experienced burnout. Among those, over 90 percent had burned out multiple times. My burnout in China was only the most severe one in a long series of burnouts I had experienced.

It's perhaps understandable that those who yearn for justice and equity would work themselves into the ground. The world is burning. From war crimes and human trafficking to racial inequity and child abuse, the list of human suffering is immeasurable. To make any dent in ensuring that more image-bearers could live with health, dignity, and basic rights, we think we have to give everything. And we have to do it now.

And as a follower of Jesus, I interpreted God’s calls for justice and service expansively. In the book of Isaiah, God tells the prophet to loudly proclaim to the Israelites: “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them and not to hide yourself from your own kin?” (Isa. 58:6-7)

In the effort to “break every yoke,” surely nothing I did could be enough. And surely nothing else in my life could be as important.

The Litmus Test of Self-Sacrifice

In my pursuit of what I thought was the noblest, most self-giving of callings, I had become remarkably self-focused.

This is what I told myself as I worked in various nonprofits for nearly a decade. Passages like Isaiah 58 and Matthew 25 (the parable of the sheep and the goats) played like a drumbeat in my soul. If I was going to change oppressive systems or help underserved communities flourish, I had to give away my whole being.

No one told me otherwise. When I worked for a church, pastors and church members alike admired me for my drive and commitment. When I worked for secular nonprofits, the unforgiving pace of work was normal and expected.

In a growing body of research, scientists have found that social activism of all kinds—across countries and causes, both secular and faith-based—is marked by a pervasive culture of self-sacrifice and self-martyrdom. There is “a culture of suppressing concerns about activists’ well-being altogether,” going so far as to “police each other’s commitment to causes by belittling attempts at self-care,” according to researchers from George Mason University. [1]

How hard someone works is assumed to be a reflection of how much they care about a cause. Activists deride each other as “slacktivists” if they are seen as doing too little or not doing the “right” kind of activism. Rest is for the weak. Fun is for the heartless.

I heard these messages—from my mentors and peers, my supervisors and role models—and put my head down and worked. And never stopped. Eventually, my body buckled under the pressure.

After my panic attack in the security station, I could barely get out of bed for months. My mind and body refused to function, screaming for rest. As Pete and Geri Scazarro, who lead the ministry Emotionally Healthy Discipleship, explain, “The body is a major, not a minor prophet. . . . Our bodies often know before our minds the state of our souls.” I had regularly ignored signs of burnout and anxiety; heart palpitations, insomnia, and body tension became everyday realities. But each of these symptoms was communicating an important reality: my soul was suffering.

The Risk of Service

In my pursuit of what I thought was the noblest, most self-giving of callings, I had become remarkably self-focused. I had built my work and activism around what I could do, how many people I could help, what societal changes I could make. Helping commingled with achieving; serving became indistinguishable from proving my worth. I still dutifully prayed, but with the tacit assumption that God would probably need me to help answer those prayers.

God showed me that I could not fulfill his role. I was merely human: fallible and frail, imperfect and limited. Yet I was still beloved, and still had a meaningful calling.I had, in essence, dethroned Jesus and made myself into a savior. It was the height of human hubris. Yet I had no conscious awareness of what I was doing—in large part because I never paused, never reflected, never examined my motivations. I was far too busy doing.

From the pedestal I had climbed onto, the fall was long and the physical and emotional impact devastating. But God met me in those dark months, peeling away the many layers of pride and self-sufficiency, like Aslan tearing off layers of dragon scales from the boy Eustace in C.S. Lewis’s The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. God showed me that I could not fulfill his role. I was merely human: fallible and frail, imperfect and limited. Yet I was still beloved, and still had a meaningful calling—just in a more human-sized capacity.

I only learned these lessons because of the months I spent seeking answers to the questions of What is happening to me? and Why? My body stopped functioning so my soul could be replenished. I journaled constantly. I engaged with the Lord in lament and doubt. I met weekly with a spiritual director. I went on long walks. I processed regularly with a very wise friend. I rediscovered my love of nature, art, and beauty. Only much later did I learn that these could all be considered contemplative practices.

Over time, I found that my understanding of what it meant to faithfully follow Jesus had been missing an entire dimension. I had completely ignored the frequent mentions in the Gospels of Jesus resting, communing with God, and taking time away from ministry (Matt. 13:1, 14:13; Mark 1:35, 3:7; Luke 5:16, 9:18; John 7:10). When I studied Isaiah 58, I had always stopped before the last two verses of the chapter because they seemed irrelevant. But here’s what they say:

If you refrain from trampling the Sabbath, from pursuing your own interests on my holy day; if you call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, serving your own interests or pursuing your own affairs; then you shall take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride upon the heights of the earth; I will feed you with the heritage of your ancestor Jacob, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. (Isa. 58:13-14)

The calls to rest, to honor the Sabbath, to pray, to be silent and still are just as important as the call to break every yoke. Jesus does not want us to be workhorses, tethered to a cause—no matter how meaningful—without any chance to flourish ourselves. Instead, his desire is for us to thrive alongside those we serve and partner with—through rest, self-understanding, deep connection to him and others, and authentic joy and delight. He wants to open our eyes to what is right and good and beautiful alongside the brokenness, injustice, and oppression. He wants us to understand our strengths and limitations as humans, so that we can genuinely celebrate who we are and who he is.

Jesus does not want us to be workhorses, tethered to a cause—no matter how meaningful—without any chance to flourish ourselves.
Only then can we contribute to the work of justice out of a place of love, joy, and humility. Only then can our soul, along with our bodies, truly see what God is doing in our suffering world.

I do not work as I used to. I physically and emotionally no longer can. But I know grace as I have never known it before. I know joy and rest and friendship. And, out of this abundance, do I offer what I can to loving, serving, and contributing to the coming kingdom of God.

1. Cher Weixia Chen and Paul C. Gorski. “Burnout in Social Justice and Human Rights Activists: Symptoms, Causes and Implications,” Journal of Human Rights Practice, Vol. 0 Number 0, 2015, 1-25.

Recognizing Communal Identity

While in seminary, I was introduced to writers and theologians who challenged me to think about how my identity in Christ is nurtured through engaging with humanity. Relationships are sacred because we all bear God’s image, and how we see ourselves connects to how we see others.

I was drawn to these new perspectives of community and the sacred nature of human connection. Initially, I dug into the writings of theologians Henri Nouwen, C.S Lewis, and Richard Foster. Later, I was influenced by other writers like Kaitlyn Curtice, Lauren Winner, and Cole Arthur Riley.  

Nouwen, in his book Compassion, says, “Action with and for those who suffer is the concrete expression of the compassionate life and the final criterion of being a Christian.” Being shaped in Jesus’s likeness involves contemplative practices as well as entering into the holy space of relationship.

Being shaped in Jesus’s likeness involves contemplative practices as well as entering into the holy space of relationship.Embracing that new perspective prompted me to immerse myself in experiences out of my comfort zones. In doing so, I witnessed the reality of others’ marginalization. I served as a youth pastor, leading and participating in groups that sought to show love tangibly. We provided food to the homeless and interacted with families at a women’s shelter. These actions met immediate needs but also exposed a new truth to me: there were imbalances in systemic power. I did not see this before because I had never been in a position of marginalization. I did not encounter the obstacles to paths of empowerment that others did.

Acknowledging Collective Sin

An impromptu trip to an Evangelicals for Social Action conference reinforced the consequences of oppressive power. It was a defining moment in my life. I learned about collective sin and complicity. Spirited discussions about social justice affirmed that discipleship involves activism. We wrestled with how the church should respond to corrupt systems that hoard rather than share and empower.

Leaning into the voices of civil rights activist John Perkins, author Tom Sine, and theologian Ronald Sider helped me frame the church’s mission in a new way. It challenged my rather passive approach to injustice and brokenness on earth. Previously, I thought activists embraced an extreme understanding of Christianity. I saw activism as a choice rather than a necessary practice of discipleship. But my theology and my practices had been decisively challenged.

Seeking Active Postures of Prayer

There is much to be said for prayer and meditation that root me in our Creator. Such practices create intimate space to connect with God. The contemplative practices of prayer opened my eyes to its variety of postures: praying with others, learning to listen to God during intentional moments of vigil, and developing new literal postures. All these breathed new life into a practice that sometimes seemed stagnant.

Active prayer leads me to listen and respond with my whole being. I become an extension of God’s hand at work.Yet I learned there are other prayer postures that involve movement. Abolitionist Frederick Douglass once wrote, “I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.” Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who participated in the Civil Rights Movement, writes in The Insecurity of Freedom: Essays on Human Existence, “There is no specialized art of prayer. All of life must be a training to pray. We pray the way we live.”

Active prayer leads me to listen and respond with my whole being. I become an extension of God’s hand at work.

How Contemplative Practices Lead to Activism

Jesus modeled the necessity of taking time away to listen and be present with God. However, it was also a means of discerning next steps. Contemplation offers the opportunity to listen, reflect, and respond. Jesus’s words in John 15:5 remind me of the importance of rooting myself in him first: “I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.” The fruit Jesus refers to is manifested through our relationships, as recorded in verses 12-13: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

There is a time to practice solitude to listen for the blessings God is speaking over my life, and to seek areas that need confession and reorienting. It is vital to listen for the Holy Spirit’s prompting in my life. However, the Christian life cannot be formed in isolation. Community offers opportunities to be God’s voice to others and reminds us of our collective kingdom calling. Sometimes we practice communal prayers of lament, confess to one another, and discern scriptural nuances together.

Contemplative practices should always bear fruit through engagement with our neighbors. To the best of my ability, I use my voice, time, skills, and resources to liberate others. Sometimes, I dig into both scriptural narratives and everyday moments to raise awareness of equity issues on social media and in my writing. Other times, I write letters and make phone calls to political leaders in hopes that change happens. Addressing systemic brokenness often involves standing in solidarity in the trenches—whether at a local governing board meeting or through community action.

I remember my passion for restoration is rooted in Jesus. It’s always about him. Otherwise, I would lose sense of my mission and center my own concerns.My passion and hope grow from the vision cast by Jesus in his prayer in Matthew 6:10 to make “earth as it is in Heaven.” Living into that vision requires sharing what I am tempted to control and reserve for myself. In a culture rooted in individualized ideology, fighting for equity is challenging. Activism usually requires changes to lifestyle, theology, friendships, and social perceptions. Jesus never promised following him would be a safe endeavor.

I need both contemplative practices and activism in my desire to be a “representative of Christ” (2 Cor. 5:20).  Being confronted with knee-jerk reactions from others when I’m trying to address injustices is frustrating. However, I remember my passion for restoration is rooted in Jesus. It’s always about him. Otherwise, I would lose sense of my mission and center my own concerns.

Instead, I continue to seek him and to keep walking, embracing the opportunity to be part of the unfolding answer to his prayer.