Burnout & Work-Life Balance

Back in the 1990s, when I was preparing for a career in cross-cultural mission, I was taught -- mostly implicitly -- that the main enemy of the missionary was not spiritual warfare, or typhoid, or angry natives. Instead, the primary destroyer of God's plan for the evangelization of the nations was missionaries' work schedules; our real opponent was burnout.

"We're pacing ourselves."

Don't get me wrong: burnout is a real thing, and I've seen it cause real distress in people's lives. (If you need help, click here for resources on burnout.) I'm just not convinced that it is the major problem contributing to missionary attrition or lack of effectiveness. If truth be told, I witnessed a lot of under-work in the field -- 20-hour work weeks and frequent, extended breaks that amounted to weeks-long vacations -- in the name of "personal care."

We were taught to carve out lots of downtime, preserving ourselves for the long haul; our trainers urged habits like quitting work at a certain hour each day, taking regular days off, and going on frequent vacations. This isn't bad advice in itself, but it aims to solve the wrong problem. After more than a decade of mission experience, I have come to think that the main issue around burnout is not about how many hours one puts in at work. Rather, it has to do with a sense of connection one has with that work (and especially relationships with co-workers). In other words, working 60 hours a week will not necessarily lead you to burn out, and limiting yourself to 4-hour days may not prevent it.

It's not only missionaries who talk about limiting work as the answer to burnout. Our society at large makes the same claim when we use the phrase "work-life balance." I find this to be an inherently unhelpful formulation, one I try to never use. I'm not enough of a fundamentalist to disdain concepts simply because they "are not in the Bible." However, "balance" is a value in Star Wars, not Christianity. Jesus Christ did not come in flesh, die on the cross, and overcome death out of some desire by God to restore balance. Rather, Christ's work is to gather up all things and bring them together in healing and reconciliation. (Check out Colossians 1:15-23.) Talk of balancing our schedules -- making sure we spend just enough time on everything -- is simply a capitulation to the broken time that we inhabit in this fallen era that is on a stop-watch driven, ticking-away march toward death. God has something better in store -- a different kind of time that is, at least partially, revealed to us in the scriptures as an expectancy-laden, life-giving, pulsing-with-light reality that will go on without end in the heavenly reign of Christ.

God isn't interested in balancing your life. God wants to overwhelm it -- wrapping up and ruling over your relationships, your work, your money, your family...everything. I'm not saying that missionaries shouldn't take breaks, or that pastors should work harder. My prayer is simply that all who labor will find their rest in Christ's overwhelming, bundling-up, gathering-together love.