Stop Asking for More

“Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” (Matt 11:28)

Just this week, I realized that the screaming-dying-inside feeling that rises up in me when confronted with all the things I “should” say or do in the church or in my relationships to be perceived as a faithful and upstanding Christian is mutually felt by others in my generation. Faithfulness equals giving more and more—more time volunteering, more money given in tithing, and more presence at church events because it’s expected of us. For those of us who have heard this message our entire lives, we’ve reached a point of utter exhaustion. We love Jesus, but the church has sucked our lives dry.

My spidey sense says that this is partially in response to our culture’s rising awareness of neurodivergence (more and more of us are realizing that the demands of our crazy world far exceed our neurological system’s capabilities), and plus, we’re still just plain exhausted from the after-effects of COVID-19. The pandemic’s global shutdown helped us realize that our lives are too busy, we don’t want to fill our calendars with every imaginable social event, and we can say no. We can stay at home. We don’t need to smile and nod like broken mannequins; we can drop the mask and hide away. And we like it that way.

As a millennial pastor, I’m wrestling with the tension between this deep social exhaustion and the ways the church has often exacerbated the exhaustion by demanding more and more from its members. The church asks for more volunteers, and you feel guilted into offering more time than you have. The church asks for involvement and service, and you give and give because you feel that you’re being a “bad Christian” if you say no. The elderly man in the church foyer looks at you askance for wearing your worn jeans and a sweater and for not giving him a big smile as you enter the service; you feel judged and unwelcome.

I’m a pastor, so it’s my job to give my time to the church, and I love it. But I’m also highly introverted and constantly feel pressure to give more of myself than I’m able. Go to this event, help out at that potluck, spend your weekend helping that person. Last week, I got sick, which effectively took me out of every social obligation for a week straight. It was glorious. The time I spent by myself sleeping, eating, reading books, crocheting, and simply recovering was exactly what I needed to downregulate my exhausted nervous system. I had no idea how wound up I was until I was forced to stop.

I’m not the only one. I’ve read numerous books and articles by pastors on their brush with near-spiritual and vocational death. And pastors aren’t the only ones who feel this way; our church volunteers have borne the brunt of this pressure for years, because it’s the same 20% of the congregation that leads worship, teaches Sunday School, acts as Sunday morning hosts, does sound and video tech, and leads small groups.

We need to stop demanding more of our congregants. Millennials and late Gen-Xs have left the church in droves, and I think the social demands and expectations of Christian service are part of it. The church is clearly not meeting the needs of the younger generations, or else they would want to be there. So, that begs the question: What do people need from the church?

If we are already socially taxed from work, our families, and any other extracurricular activities like going to the gym or carting our kids to various events, then why would we want to give more of our time to an organization that demands more and more, often using a script of fear and shame to manipulate us into it?

God loves a cheerful giver.

If you’re not using your gifts to serve God, then you’re not being faithful.

If you’re not serving in a church, then your faith is dead and you don’t really know what it means to follow Jesus.

While I understand the sentiment behind these statements (they’re intended to encourage an active faith, rather than staring passively from the pews), they’re outright manipulative. After years of hearing these messages, people finally stumble out the front door exhausted, burned out, and traumatized. They reject God altogether because they don’t want to serve someone who demands so much of them.

Quite frankly, I agree with them. That’s not the kind of God I want to serve either.

Perhaps we’ve been going at church all wrong. There is a reason why many millennials and Gen Zs are attracted to liturgical churches: Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Lutheran. They are not required to give and give in these churches; they can instead receive the liturgy with quiet hearts and know that there is space for them to worship God as they are. The prayers and homilies become welcoming spaces that offer sanctuary from the chaos of their world. Sure, there is a danger of passivity, but right now, more people need shelter from the storm than they need a kick in the pants to jumpstart their faith to the next level.

You may be a pastor who is struggling to find volunteers for your various programs and services. You might be a longtime volunteer who feels the exhaustion of giving yourself to every single church request. You might be someone who still loves Jesus but has been drained dry by the church.

First off, I want to apologize for how the church has spiritually manipulated you into equating your service or presence with your value.

Secondly, I want to offer space for you to release the guilt and exhaustion that weighs heavily on your shoulders.

Thirdly, I want to change the church’s culture from a place that demands from you to a place that nourishes and sustains you.

Easier said than done, I know. But I think it’s worth a hard look. Our churches need to change. Mega-churches might be able to sustain a fast-paced, high-demand environment because they can keep pulling in new volunteers to replace the burned-out ones. But small churches? They’re going to die if they keep trying this model.

My church is a semi-liturgical non-evangelical Baptist church. This means that we have enough ritual and tradition in our services to appeal to those who have been exhausted by unstructured charismatics, but more flexibility in our choices of songs, prayers, and additional service elements than in high liturgical churches. It also means that we rely on volunteers for our Sunday services and youth and children’s programs more than we do on our staff, and continually rub up against a shortage of people who are able to offer their time.

Don’t get me wrong; serving in church is important, mainly because it offers an opportunity to do something for someone else, and this can foster a sense of belonging, family, and community around a common purpose—Jesus. But we need to offer the opportunity for folks to say no without guilt and to take rest for themselves when they need it.

Maybe we need to simplify our Sunday services and programming. Maybe we need to offer less because less is more. Maybe we need to listen to our people so that we can hear their needs—are they exhausted, or are they eager? Maybe we need to allow people to serve in the areas in which they want to and are gifted, instead of asking them for more and more in every area.

We’re in the middle of a massive shift in Western Christian culture. The pandemic irreversibly changed the landscape of faith, for the better, I think. It called out what was broken in the church and demanded reform. What’s left to us now is to determine what shape the church will take in the generation to come, and I think it will be quieter and simpler than what we’ve known before.

Photo by Cosmic Timetraveler on Unsplash