Burnout In Church Ministry with Prof. Jeremiah Peck

Oh, yeah. MU Talks back in the studio.

I don't think we have actually launched.

One episode without laughing.

Yes.

Somebody mentioned this.

Like, what I love about this, that.

You guys always are happy we're an academic podcast.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But we are happy people.

We are extremely happy people.

You'd start an academic podcast.

Welcome to another episode of MU Talks. Ladies and gentlemen, we are very, very excited to have in our studio studios at Multoma University another special guest. And as always, Renee is going to bless us and do a great job just to introduce the guests. So, Renee, please.

Hello, everybody. Today on MU Talks, we welcome Multnomah University professor Jeremiah Peck. Jeremiah is a pastor, professional counselor, and professor of counseling here at Multnomah, and we are really looking forward to diving into a discussion that he's been researching and writing on. So really important for everyone in ministry right now, and that is the topic of burnout, especially for those who are in church ministry. So welcome, Jeremiah. Thank you for coming.

Yeah, very glad to be here. Thank you.

It's very, very rare to find somebody that is pastor and counselor, and I think that is just exceptional.

We're a pretty rare. Rare breed.

Yeah.

Rare breed. Yes. Well, Jeremiah, welcome. Welcome to Mutaki. Very excited to have you. And let's start with the general question. Why burnout? Why. Why is this a passion for you? And tell us a little doc.

Yeah, excellent. Thank you so much. You know, one of the. One of the things that might come to mind as we're talking about burnout right now is perhaps in response to, you know, Covid and pandemic and how difficult church ministry has been, particularly navigating the last couple of years. And I would actually suggest starting our conversation by taking the emphasis off of COVID and the pandemic, lest we sort of suggest that burnout is a new thing. You know, burnout is just. Has just been happening these last two years. The reality is there's. There's literature that goes back decades about ministry. Burnout, pastoral burnout. And it's getting some attention and some traction now. But it's been this underlying, really prevalent within the church dynamic that's. That's existed a long time for. For ministry folks. So as you ask, why. Why this topic? I've been in church ministry now for 17 years and experienced my, you know, myself some emotional exhaustion in ministry, some own thoughts of, you know, has God called me into this? You're wrestling with. With those seasons myself. And I've seen around me, you know, the. The statistics where people leave ministry Whether they're involuntary terminated, whether they leave and never go back into ministry, they change vocations entirely. Or the really tragic piece where because of burnout that they're not dealing with, that could even contribute to moral failings and apostasy. Yeah. And things that really just destroy ministries in that regard. So I'm passionate for the topic. I also recognize how heavy the topic is because I'm not just talking about this in an academic sense like, oh, here's the, here's the feature and here's what it feels like and here's what to do about it, but recognizing these are real people and real ministries behind these people that are impacted. Pastoral ministry is so high profile in the sense that, you know, you might not be a celebrity, but you know, you're, you're involved in so many people's lives that if you stumble, if you have difficulties, there's a wake of impact for your congregation, for the community. And I think the last thing I'll say, just by way of introduction to the topic, we find that that contributes significantly to the occurren of burnout because people in ministry experience that pressure that comes along with the stigma and the expectation to look and appear. Okay. So then the person in ministry not only is experiencing distress, but then they also have this pressure of I can't talk to anyone about this, I can't go anywhere. And that compounds that experience of distress. Wow.

So I'm curious, in your perspective, what does burnout look like? A definition of burnouts as you've seen it? I mean, you've looked and I think it's hard to coin. Right. But how do you actually diagnose that? How do we even start from the definition of what burnout is in your perspective?

Burnout isn't exclusively a ministry term. We see professional burnout in a variety of industries. Actually, the most common tool for measuring and assessing burnout, Christina Maslick's Burnout Inventory, which measures sort of views burnout as this tripartite experience of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and a diminished sense of your own self efficacy.

So can you define those? Those are great. Yeah, absolutely.

So emotional exhaustion is this loss of compassion. So oftentimes you might see the word compassion fatigue. Depersonalization can be viewing yourself as not deserving or not we're eating the same human benefits that other people would need.

Right.

So you view yourself as less than, you know, this, these people need that, but I don't need that. I don't count. I'm sort of the exceptional.

Right.

And then the diminished self Efficacy is this belief that I'm not, I'm not contributing, I'm not doing well. And then we start to have external measurements for how we measure that in ministry. It's, you know, church attendance and baptisms and conversions and do people like me, how is that sermon? All those, all those pieces. The little pushback there in literature though is Maslock's Burnout Inventory. And that tripartite experience was not developed specifically for people in ministry, specifically for people helpers, counselors, first responders. And a lot of literature argues that ministers have a unique relationship with the people they're serving. If you're a counselor, I'm working with my clients and we know it's a professional therapeutic relationship. And with that relationship there are certain boundaries, there are certain professional sort of limitations, and those things are still sort of there in ministry. But the overlap is so much more relational. So there's been emerging literature in the last 20 years or so that says this conceptualization with the three features actually doesn't really reflect the experience of burnout for folks in ministry. And it doesn't capture also the spiritual components. Maslick didn't reference the spiritual components of burnout. So Francis and, and several others have developed instead this theoretical framework which says you can have intensely emotionally exhausting experiences in ministry just so long as you also have intense satisfaction in ministry. So these two spectrums which exist, so instead of saying, you know, are you unhealthy or healthy? Is this one spectrum where you teeter back and forth. This balanced affect model suggests that you can, you can have intense experiences. In fact, in ministry, we would probably argue that you will have intense experiences as long as you also have intense satisfaction ministry. And it almost compensates for the extremes on the, on the other side, you.

Know, like people have no idea. And until you've been a pastor, I think for a few years, you have no idea the pressure and the, the difficulty of the job. Like in one hand you're like, well, you're not exactly lifting bricks around, so you're thinking, well, it can't be that hard. But then like, you have the, you have the on call nature of a, a doctor, you can be called at any time, or a firefighter. You have the, you have the stress of a counselor because you're carrying these burdens and you're hearing these things and people call you in the middle of the night, my parents just died. And you know, you have the pressure of a celebrity or politician because everybody's watching you. And if you get mad at your kids in the mall, someone saw it and it affects your job and it affects your view, you have expectations, you have the pressure of a public speaker teacher because you're up there regularly. It's goes on and on and I guess so I'm resonating so strongly, strongly with this. I remember when I was a pastor, the hardest time for me was when I was a worship pastor and I knew there was times where I'd be sitting there, you know, if it wasn't going real well for me, I wasn't a great worship pastor. And you know, I'd walk into your room, every stops talking and you're just like. And you know that if you lose that job, you got to move, you know, your wife's gonna lose her friends, your kids are going to lose their friends, you're going to lose your house. You know, there's all that pressure or at least for a lot of people, depending on if you believe that you shouldn't be taking another church closely, which I did. Or, or, or times where like I was just, I'd be sitting in my office and I knew there was people that were unhappy with me and so they were having a meeting right next door with the senior pastor talking about how much they didn't like me. And I remember one time just sitting there watching them go in going. And somehow I was, I was trying to do some, I was trying to like get my apologetics game going. So I was reading the Quran to just to understand it and I came to a passage that said if someone badmouths the local religious leader, you're supposed to stone them. And I was like dang, I wish I was Muslim. And then I'm like, what? What? Something's wrong here. So huge, huge topic. Really excited that you've done some studying on it. Super interesting so far.

Yeah, absolutely. And, and that pressure that you're, that you're talking about, you know the, you can read studies and research and statistics and stuff and you know, sometimes the statistics are sort of all over the place. But that piece that you referenced about the on call nature of pastoral ministry and that's not just like the senior pastor. I was a youth pastor for a number of years and you get that phone call from parents at 11 o' clock at night that says hey, this is what just happened with our kid or in our family. So that, that really happens regardless of your minist. But a lot of research shows that anywhere between 50 to about 70% of people go to their minister, their pastor as a point of first contact. So you really become effectively like this first responder. People are more likely to initiate contact with their pastor first than say a mental health counselor. So recognizing that dynamic. And counselors, you know, we, we do have a heavy role in coming alongside people also. But you're coming in as a minister and often that first responder context, which admittedly is really heavy.

Yeah.

Do you think there's an element of. You also feel responsible if somebody shares something with a counselor? Like you're also, you're trained to do that. There's, there's that aspect of training, you know, what to do with what they're saying and all this, and work and work them through it. But as a pastor, if you don't have necessarily training, you would take that upon yourself. 1 and 2. Do you feel responsible in any way? Do you, do you talk with pastors that that feels their responsibility, that those people are not happy, they're not content, that they need to be better if they're part of their community, that somehow they're their responsibility. Curious how that.

And that goes back to the spiritual component. You know, as a counselor, you can have some compartmentalization. You can work with your clients and have sincere care for them and work with them to the best of your ability. And at the end of the day, you recognize that someone's growth, someone's healing, someone's processing of their trauma is largely based in their own, their own journey, their own process. But when you're also not just someone's, you know, lay counselor, pastoral counselor, but really you're their shepherd, you feel a sense of responsibility over their spiritual condition. You know, that God has charged you. You have this sort of intrinsic sense of calling that God has charged you to shepherd this person. So the stakes are much higher in that regard.

Yeah. I was teaching a seminary class a few years back. Super interesting. It was a church ministry, something, maybe it was human growth and development, actually, I don't know, some kind of thing like that. And had one guy that was particularly bright, he's actually in the Oregon legislature now, or really smart guy. And he wanted to do a study on why guys leave ministry, why pastors leave ministry. And he came up with an idea that I thought was fascinating. I'm interested to get your response to it. And I think it was him. Maybe it was me, I'm not sure. But as I was reading the thing he read, people would say an honest private survey to maybe 40 pastors, kind of a semi qualitative study or whatever you want to call it. And basically he came out with by far, the number, number one reason people left ministry was, was conflict. And one of the side points he had really caught my attention. He said that sometimes burnout is a euphemism for conflict. Like, is there a connection between the two? What do you think? Like, is burnout you're just working too hard? Or is, is conflict related sometimes?

Oh, and I think it's so great that you brought that up. Often the misconception about burnout is just that it's oversimplified. You know, I. I'm not taking enough days off, I'm working too hard. Or the other side of that is I just need to do more self care. I just need to do more wellness practices. Well, I think the reality for most folks is you can check all those boxes and still feel burned out, right. This piece about conflict, namely, you know, inner church conflict, whether that's between people or when the conflict comes to you and someone doesn't like you, that's so personal, pretty normal, you know, in. Recognize that in some denominational context, you know, how pastors are hired and fired is a little different. But generally, you know, pastor has the pressure of not only shepherding folks, but also that these people, if they're unhappy with you, they can contribute to you losing your job, your ministry, your livelihood, 100%. It's so much more personal in that regard. You know, as we're talking about, you know, schools and training and such, whether it's about conflict resolution or conflict management or basic counseling skills, most pastors that go to different seminaries don't get extensive training in their seminary program on conflict mediation or conflict management. And usually if there is, there's maybe, you know, one or two courses or an elective or something of that nature. But it's such a big dynamic in churches. Some would argue, you know, you preach one or two times a week and then you deal with conflict and relational things the other eight days a week.

Right. Yeah. Right.

Good. Before we. Sorry, before we actually get to solutions, because I would love. I mean, we're almost at half the time of this. Can you believe this? We're almost half the time of our podcast, but. So we have plenty of questions before we get to thinking through burnout. Thinking of self assessment and thinking. If you're listening to this and you, you know, something is hard for you, but you never, like, really thought that you're burned out as a minister or somebody in ministry, have you seen an increase in burnout in recent days? And you can actually tackle the pandemic leading through a Pandemic, which is difficult, but really not just that. I mean right now there are many, many hills that you can die on. It was not just one hill. Like right now there's many tensions in the church. Before we only had one worship. Pastors.

Right?

Yeah, that was the only one that hymns versus Right. Right now there's just many, many societal movements, societal changes, pressures that are happening. Just an increase in your professional work and you can actually tackle this with one of the hats that you have, whichever hat. And then I'm going to have a follow up question about ethnic churches. I'm giving you a head, heads up which because I think you can, you can speak in that I' ethnic church. And burnout doesn't exist in the vocabulary. You're not allowed to as a pastor. We don't talk about that. Pastors are invincible. They're super people. They cannot. And there's no, there's no, it's not even stigma. There's no place for the conversation. We don't talk about. So I'm curious, you're talking about. But first, have you seen an increase and some of the reasons that you've seen around you in that regard?

Yeah. And the increase could go back to not even just so much managing Covid and the different dynamics, you know, are we doing online services or are we making those decisions? But really going back to how will this, this polarized divide, you know, be divisive for people? What kind of feedback will I get after I send out this email announcement? How many replies am I going to get telling me, you know, this is the wrong choice? What we've come to say is it's not that Covid or this pandemic has, has caused burnout, but rather it has stirred up the burnout and the dynamics that were perhaps already there, existing. That there's. Yeah, there's a lot of those pieces that pastors are already managing. But it's been accentuated, it's been sort of highlighted with yeah, now, now the church is really polarized. The church is really divided. Whether that's, you know, vaccines or masks or, you know, all of those things where people have a variety. Right. Where people have a variety of experiences and somehow as a pastor you have to find this middle ground. And even when you do, people are going to tell you that you did it wrong. That increased sort of pressure and conflict, I think brings out the burnout that was already underlying there and, and existing.

Sorry, I have some apologies. And, and you have to think that the, the even not aside from the Pandemic, the echo chambers and the social media have to be playing into this because like even I was going down one recently which will remain unnamed. And, and you know, I'm watching a bunch of, I'm reading all the people that agree with me and I'm just getting radicalized. Like I'm just getting angrier and angrier and I'm like, oh, I can't post, I gotta stop. You know, and, and, and then I have a couple friends that, that are not saying I gotta stop, they're just full bore. And I'm thinking, man, that, that, that seems to me in the last 10 years to be a new thing. Like I don't know about you guys, but I just remember maybe I've seen.

I've seen a lot of pastors that I have in friends in my social media, like the whole list, I have quite a few actually that, that wrote these long posts. I'm done with social media, right? And then like a year later, like I'm rejoining everybody, I just want you to let you know, right? But they always leave with the bang. They never leave social media with like, hey, just to let you know, guys, you can contact me here, right? And that's it. No, they're always right. This, like, I can't do this anymore. Social media is toxic. And then they leave and they come back. So I know this is, this is adding, there's definitely adding to the, to the thing. Ethnic churches in your.

Yeah. Oh yeah, sorry, yeah. Ethnic churches.

Ethnic churches in your perspective.

You know, with ethnic churches there's a whole, you know, diversity of backgrounds. It depends what culture you're, you know, you're referencing. And every culture will experience this a bit differently. And one of the, one of the backgrounds I might reference is for black churches, primarily for black ministers, is when we were just talking about individuals being more likely to go to their minister for relational concerns, mental health concerns, spiritual concerns. That's actually even more prominent in black churches. So if you're a black minister, you're often viewed at as even more of the superhero. You know, I think you use that language that you, you need to be able to provide all these answers and you, you have to be pretty bulletproof in that there's, there's increased, I know you, you kind of backed up a little bit from this word, but I'll use it again, there is increased stigma there as well because you're not allowed to give an appearance of your own struggles. You're not allowed to suffer or have anything but flawless spirituality and Spiritual practices, you know, forbid you doubt God or, or struggle.

Right.

You know, with your own faith in, in regards to something you experience. I think also with ethnic minor diverse groups, we're starting to get into recognizing that there's even some cultural apprehensions towards Western medicine, Western psychology, Western conceptualizations. And we talk about burnout. Seems like we're really talking about some western concepts. So immediately, if you're interesting, you know, if you're an ethnic person, if you're a minority, even in the spiritual context, some of that's going to come up like, well, I don't buy that psychology definition of all this because my spirituality gives me a different framework or a different conceptual experience.

Yeah, I, I, okay, so let me give this one, you'll really not, this one is more, even more controversial than the last one. So I, I come in full disclosure, I come from a family that was worked hard on in ministry, one of my jobs, and I'm sympathetic to them. Like they're good folks. So I go into one job and we had a new pastor, he's a really good guy. And, and he was working super hard his first year. Like, like really, really hard. Like, I don't know, you know, the kind of the 70 hour week. And I was like, man, you gotta, you gotta take it. You know, you don't have to, you know, you can back off, you don't have to, you don't want to burn out. And he's like, you know what your grandma grandfather told me one time and I said, oh no.

What?

He said, there's no such thing as burnout. And I was like, ah. And that is something my grandpa would say. He's a pretty hardworking guy. And so we had a laugh about it. But what do you think? Like, is it a thing? I mean, like, I mean you're studying it, people are. Yeah. What would you say to somebody that again, maybe, you know, good folks but doesn't believe it's real? What do you, what do you say?

And some of that, you know, it goes back to, I think, something we alluded to earlier in that there's sort of this myth that burnout is just the result of overworking or just the result of not taking, you know, good enough care of yourself. And there's so much more to the picture. So maybe even with previous generations that might have conceptualized saying this, this wasn't a thing. Well, the reality is you can, you can have people who work those 50, 60 hours in ministry and gain a tremendous amount of intrinsic fulfillment. They believe they're called by God. And we would look at them and say, well, they're not burned out.

Yeah.

And then you could have the part time bi vocational minister that's 10 hours a week. There's a church and they could be. So there's more to the, there's more to the conversation than just, oh, I'm overworked and I'm burned out. To that I'd say, well, yeah, that, that how we've conceptualized that that's sort of not the thing. Or at least that's not the full picture.

Yeah, no, that's good stuff. Good stuff.

So moving to the second part of the conversation, and I know this is always, the practicality of this is always painful for a practitioner because there's so many complex cases and so many things. But, but how would you, if you, if you know that somebody is struggling with this, what would be some of the things that you would guide them through and giving them the tools to actually either self identify or some of the things that you would communicate with some of the people that are experiencing this?

Sure.

And most of the literature, most of the quantitative literature at least, when we start to identify what are the predictive factors, what are the protective factors, what are the things that you can do? The difficulty is if that doesn't first address someone's internal attitude towards their own care, they can one just go through the motions of say, self care. So I don't want to get on this podcast and say, okay, well here's the. The top three things you can do to prevent burnout. Because some people will either look at those things, say, okay, I'm gonna make this list every day, I'm gonna check these things off and I then expect to be okay. And the reality for those folks is they probably won't be. And then the difficulty there is once they do those things, they can then say, well, what's wrong with me? Am I crazy? Am I just not called to this? And then you have even more doubts. So more than anything, more than someone's practices is an awareness and an acceptance to not be okay. Even in the going through the motions of doing self care. If the goal is, well, I should be okay and I shouldn't be struggling, then they're still internalizing stigma. Because even more powerful than the projected external stigma of the expectations other people put on the minister are the expectations that the minister themselves internalize. So if they continue to internalize those expectations, it's almost even worse to equip them with the checklist because they'll go through the checklist and still have the expectation that they should be able to handle something or they shouldn't feel a certain way. You know, we can look at scripture a number of the, the place that I go is a number of our minor prophets. They were not okay.

Right, right.

And, and you know, when we instead look at, you know, just exclusively like Psalm 23 as the experience every minister should have at every season of their ministry, like he leads me through green pasture, you know, all this. Well, yes, the Lord is good and you're going to struggle. And there's a, you know, there's a tremendous precedence in Scripture for that. So even as we get to this question of, well, what do we do? This first piece is accepting it's okay to not be okay and you're not. It doesn't diminish your, your call from God. If anything, we could look theologically, you know, his powers made perfect in weakness sort of stuff that, that, that could actually highlight God's call or God's use of you in the kingdom.

Yeah. By the way, we'd love to have you teach a class in the undergrad pastoral minute. Like if you ever have space in your load, we should create something because that would be super cool.

Yeah. Fantastic.

Yeah, we're doing one of my business right here on MU talks. So this is really good. That was very helpful, Jeremiah. That actually is really helpful. And I'm very thankful for, for the larger framework, not for the one and two, three steps which, you know, push people into yo, yo, you know, diets or life changes or starting gyms on January 1, 2 and 3 tops, the third day of January. But, but rather to actually internalize and, and say, what am I doing? What's going on? Role of the community in burnout.

Yeah.

And your thoughts?

You know it for, for a person watching this and they say, okay, well, or watching this, listening to this. Sorry, it's a visual person, you know, if they're listening to this and saying, okay, well, I'm not a pastor.

Yeah.

How might I help my pastor? How can I be an advocate? So to speak. Speak. You know, if you're participating in any sort of church culture, normalizing the experience of mental health related distress, there's a tremendous amount of even stigma for experiencing mental health distress in the church. That can be viewed as, well, you're not, you're not spiritual. If you were a better Christian, you wouldn't struggle with depression, anxiety, burnout, whatever those things might be. So everyone in the church can have a role in that destigmatization or the diminishing of the over spiritualization, which you know, can even look like, stop saying well intentioned, unhelpful things. Like when someone comes to you, hey, I'm really struggling with depression and you know, through the good intentions of your heart, you say like, well, are you, are you reading your Bible enough? Which is like God's word is so good and someone can read their Bible a lot and still be depressed and to leave space for that, you know, piece. It's not just that they're depressed, but now they walk away from that conversation going, okay, I'm depressed and, and I'm a bad Christian, thanks.

So they have this, I'm depressed and it's my fault.

Yes.

It internalizes. So you know, from other pieces in the community that when you see your pastor being vulnerable, being authentic from the pulpit, you know, talking about preaching, about praying, about mental health related concerns, truly support the pastor in that, you know, this whole community that both contributes to the formulation of stigma and perpetuates the stigma. So it kind of is a all hands on deck approach to say, can we deconstruct this stigma that's in the church about struggling, about having these adverse experiences.

Your points too about there being no safe place for pastors. That's so true. And by the way, cool thing that Wilford's are doing, our former president starting like kind of a. So shout out to him on that one. But you know, I've talked to a lot of guys, you know, over the years, you know, young guy in youth ministry maybe started looking some things on the Internet they shouldn't have. And, and then they're like, oh, I gotta stop doing this. Told their senior pastor fired. And you're just like, there's got to be a better way. You know, these guys are people, you know, they're not perfect.

Absolutely. And, and you know, a lot of times there's that, there's that same pressure to. You can't be transparent with your struggles because it means you're not spiritual, you're compromised and you'll lose your job.

Right. Because we thought you had no sin.

I mean. Yeah, we thought that when we hired you.

Yeah. And you also, your point is really good. The one I'm thinking about mostly on a personal level is the idea that pastors see themselves as an exception. Like they can't, that it's not fair for them to do. Like I remember sitting in my office and, and I knew I had a sermon coming up and I was thinking, man, I need to work on the sermon. I need to go, like, sit in a coffee shop for four hours and work on this sermon. And then I felt guilty about that. And I'm like, how am I feeling guilty for wanting to go spend four hours that I'm paid to be a pastor to go work on my sermon? You know, why do I think that I have to do that in the evening after my office work is done? Like, that's. But there is that thing.

It's sort of this exceptional thinking.

Yeah.

You view yourself as the exception.

Right.

You.

I've got to work till 10.

You justify things that you wouldn't recommend is healthy for anybody. I'll work through my lunch. That's fine. I would never ask someone else to do that.

Right.

It's not acceptable for my best friend, but for me it's okay.

Yeah.

What elements do you think are protective? Like, when is knowing these facts enough? When a new pastor or ministry leader comes up, is just knowing this enough? Is it something they have to walk alongside someone else that's already doing it? Like, what do you think are the protective measures?

Yeah.

So coming back to some of those protective factors, you know, we can look at things like self care, you know.

I know.

I was just saying, like someone can do that and still be burned out. But the reality is it can be helpful. And if they approach it with an attitude that says, I should have this just as much as someone else, you know, scripture says we should look not only to others interest, but also, you know, or look not only to our interest, but also the interests of others, that we can prioritize our wellness not to the exclusion of others. So that can be a protective factor. Also, ministers engaging in their own mindful spiritual formation practices a number of ministers who will neglect their own spirituality and their own relationship with God in view of shepherding others. You know, we do find that it's a protective factor to engage in mindful prayer, to engage in, you know, your own spiritual formation. Not to say if you do that, you won't struggle. But those that do tend to report struggling less. So there's sort of a dichotomy that we're holding there that we're not guaranteeing saying, okay, do this and you'll get results. Because that can be internalized. Right. And if someone does it and say, well, what. What's wrong with me that that didn't work, that's not the full picture. And yet it can be tremendously helpful.

I. I'm married to. Am an ambitious lady, and I sometimes ambitious myself, and I Know, I've done this, made this mistake a few times over my, the course of my life is, you know, we just, we get so ambitious that we, we forget about a sustainable pace. And you get into a job and you work at it and you work at it, you push and you want to make it better. And then Pretty soon, like Dr. Gary Friesen, I don't know if you remember him back from the old. He used to tell me, he goes like, remember Rob when I started doing spring, thought every year's gotta be better. And his point was, his point was, don't go crazy because you know you're only gonna go crazier the next year if you go crazy. And then, and then, so what happens? At least for me, you know, you get into that situation where you can't make it better and you're competing against yourself every year and you want those so badly to have the attendance and the external consolidation and probably unhealthy things sort of. And, and, and, and then you get to the point where you just can't keep it up and then you quit. And it's like that, that's not a win for the kingdom.

You know, you're building up these bigger and bigger, you know, giants to, to overcome each year. And you know, the, the difficult dynamic there we haven't touched on. This is so much of that is predictive of whether the minister has what's referred to as an internal orientation to their role or an external orientation. And that external orientation is really representative of performance achievement. Do people like me? Was that effective? How's our attendance, our numbers, everything that's externally validating as opposed to, you know, you asked about protective factors. We really find that people who have an internal or more of an intrinsic orientation to the role as that being a protective factor, that their being in ministry is less about their external validation and more about their intrinsically being being called. The way the minister conceptualizes making making meaning. This is why God has called me to do this. And it's not necessarily just the result. I'll go back to minor prophets. You know, God tells go to this unbelieving people preach and no one will listen. You know, from an, from an external orientation to the role standpoint, that sounds like a really difficult thing. But the reality is God has called them. So those that have that internal orientation have more protective factors against mental health related distress and burnout than their external counterparts.

Yeah, unfortunately we are at time. But the good news is Professor Jeremiah Peck has a few courses in monoma plus@multomaplus.com you can find a few courses. Rapid fire session. Let's go. Let's. Let's get to know Professor Jeremiah a little better.

No. So first question. If you had to live in a movie or television show for one week, any, any movie or television show, you got to experience it for one week. Which, which one would you choose?

Oh, as soon as you said movie, I already had an answer to this. It's not a specific movie. Anything Marvel. Anything. Yeah, yeah.

I would absolutely gotta ask a follow up. What if you're a superhero? What's your skill?

Oh, what's my skill or ability or whatever? Flying, like just, Just being able to fly is just great.

That'd be cool.

Okay, well, that might actually answer this one. If you could go to outer space, would you?

If I could go to outer space. There's something kind of creepy to me about outer space. It's like silent. It's isolated. I need to be. I need to be around people.

Yeah. Yeah.

You know, there's a question about that. If you could go to outer space, one way ticket, you know, and there's some people. If you know, that makes you think, what's the strangest thing you've eaten on earth? Let's get back to Earth a little bit. What's the strangest, strangest thing you've ever eaten?

The strangest thing. I have. I have so many things that maybe people would consider strange. I see. I. I don't discriminate with food. I, I just. Okay. I'm pretty equal opportunity. Probably this one of the stranger things that people would hear this and go, that's pretty strange. It wasn't strange for me. We were out this actually when I was a student at Multnomah, so Please don't tell me.

I was in the cafeteria.

So we were doing this like dorm section retreat type thing. Went to the beach and we made this little like bonfire and we set up these like two wooden logs. I can't believe I'm telling the story. So this is your fault.

This is good.

And we found these, these snails that we cooked over the fire. Someone had ramen packets. I'm not making this up. And we took up the, the ramen seasoning packets, open it and sprinkled it on the escargot and fried them over the barbecue. And it was.

You didn't die.

We didn't die.

Wow.

You ate snails.

That was like. But not just scared snail. This is American snails that are American snails. Wildly caught. Yeah.

And cooked them over the fire. They kind of bubbled in the shell and kind of. Anyway, that's kind of gross. From.

Ladies and gentlemen, Multoma University students. Send your donations to Save a Student. We need to put.

Probably should have omitted some details there.

No, that's a good story.

Oh, that's good.

What item do you hope will be obsolete in 20 years?

Item? Well, I hope will be obsolete. Maybe this is just like the, the parent insight. Because I'm thinking, yes. Oh boy. Well, you know, our kids will be this certain age. Phones, like phones. I really just want these things that by the time they get to be young adults or all of this, that, that this isn't a thing. I'd rather.

That's cool.

Rather than not.

Yeah.

So you want us to have like chips inside or just like, like I'm curious.

I thought we were doing controversial things today.

Yeah, no, no, I'm actually like, I'm not going for the spiritualized aspect of it for like the technical aspect of this.

Right.

You can actually like just scan with your hand your glass. That's beautiful. Yes. And if you had a parrot, what would you teach it to say?

Oh, if I had a parrot. Oh, that's going to be this.

Nobody said I have one. Like no. In all our.

Yes.

Nobody would be like, oh, I have one. And I thought what would you teach it to say?

You know, and so here's why. I probably won't just be, you know, playful, but I'll be really intentional. One of the things I encourage people often to think about, if I could get a parrot to say this, it would be just so existentially like profound.

Yeah.

Is what are you saying to yourself about yourself? Oh, so what are you saying to yourself about yourself? It's kind of some of that exceptional thinking. If I can get a parrot to say that. Hey, what are you saying? You know, could remind me even to, to do that. That. So there's my serious answer to a, to a light hearted question.

That's a lot of words thinking about that now.

What's your favorite room in your home?

Oh, my favorite room in the, in the house.

Keep in mind we follow you on social media. I saw the room that you built for your daughters. It was beautiful.

Oh yeah. So yeah, we, we built a little like clubhouse for them in this little like nook space that, that, you know, I'm really proud of that room. It's not my favorite room. It's pretty small and cramped so I don't know, spend a lot of time in there. You know, probably this new office room that we set up. I have a drum set in there. You know, you ask about music early. Guitar, not so much. Drums, I just have a lot of fun with. So probably just get us to have a little escape, get inside that room, play drums a little bit.

That's.

That's probably my favorite room.

You know, I cannot think of a better instrument for a counselor than drums. Just go in there and just. Just hit something and let it out. Last question for you. Favorite place on Earth. If you could go anywhere, anywhere on Earth, where would you go?

Oh, boy. So we. I haven't traveled much, but I really love traveling when we do. And of course, admitted the last two years, we haven't done. We haven't done a lot of traveling. But I. I want to go to Europe. I actually want to go Japan, probably, if you were to ask me, favorite place that I've been that I want to go back to. We were in Japan just over a layover. We were there just for a couple hours. And it's not enough to see Tokyo and Japan, all that, so I go back and really spend some intentional time. Japan would be Japan.

Well, Jeremiah, thank you so much for being with us. I really appreciate your insights. I really appreciate the ministry and the work that you do. Where can people find out more about you? Do you have a personal website where people can go and learn more about your ministry?

Yeah, absolutely. So probably the. The best place to find out more information is my counseling practice@allychristian counseling.com and there I have links to other work that I do. You know, whether it's videos and resources and things of that nature.

That's. That's Ally, right?

Yeah, Ally Christian Counseling and also ally Academy on YouTube.

Oh, wow.

Look at that. That's really good to know. Well, thank you again for coming with us. Thank you for. Again for your. For your ministry at Multoma, for the great work. The Mac team, they're just. They're just a stellar team. They're excellent extroverts in counseling. Oh, they're just. They're. They're really a stellar team. So thank you again for doing that and thank you for being with us on MU talks. Here we go. We're getting out of this.

Ladies and gentlemen, we'd like to thank you for spending some time with us today. As. As always, the views and thoughts expressed in this podcast refer only to those speaking them. They're not. Not representative of Montgomery University or affiliates. Have a.