Watch for these signs: Bad attitude. This is self-explanatory. Unfulfilled. Serving ceases to be satisfying. Reactionary rather than proactive. You sit around waiting to be told what to do. Noncommunicative. You stop returning people’s emails. Overly stressed. It’s the feeling that you’re carrying the world on your shoulders. Unmotivated. It’s not

We don’t really have an equivalent category for Pharisees in twenty-first-century Western culture. The best way to think about them is as if they were half archbishop and half US senator. In other words, they were very powerful people in both the political and religious worlds.

For years I was completely upside down about guilt. The crazy thing is that while this was going on I could give you a detailed, theologically accurate account of Christ’s atoning work on the cross. I sang songs about the love of God. I wrote songs about the love of God. I even went to seminary and wrote papers on salvation by grace. But when all

“Should” places you in the driver’s seat and makes your sense of obligation the ultimate source of authority. Once you’ve met the requirement of what you feel you should do, you are released from any further commitment. “Ought” turns your attention inward to what you feel about things. Once you’ve satisfied your sense of what you ought to do,

While Young Life has a proven methodology for reaching unchurched kids with the gospel and helping them grow in their faith, it’s important to note that its foundation is built on contact work. One of Young Life’s websites describes contact work this way: Because kids don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care, Young Life

There are two reasons why this is a bad idea. First of all, Jesus never used guilt to motivate people. As a result, people in the New Testament never followed Jesus out of a sense of guilt. You’ll never find a verse that says, “And Peter looked upon the Lord and felt guilty and began to follow him.” The people who followed Jesus were motivated by

As a speaker, you can use the “should” approach and make people feel guilty, but it doesn’t produce passionate followers of Jesus Christ. It merely produces compliant, guilt-driven church people. And once that guilt-based approach to faith gets a hold of you, it’s tough to find your way back to grace.

He was following Jesus in a new way. That new way led Josh out of the church and into the city—out of the comfort zone and into the chaos zone where things are messy.

Discussion Questions 1. Have you ever found a serving opportunity that you were really excited about? What was it? Did you create a sustainable pace for your work? 2. As you reflect on the seven signs of burnout, how do you measure up? Are you in trouble or are you doing pretty well? Explain your answer. 3. Have you been through burnout before?