Stillwater pastor on ministry's burnout problem

CATHY WURZER: After years of pandemic and the upsets to work-life that came with it, it can be tough to know what a healthy relationship with work looks like. This question is even more complicated for faith leaders, whose jobs are also a spiritual commitment. Clergy is called on to guide people through the most intense and sometimes painful moments of their lives. Burnout is a growing issue among religious leaders across all faiths.

Christian clergy from around the world met online this week for a free mental health summit that organizers said had more than 11,000 people registered. Reverend Karna Moskalik was one of them. She's a Lutheran pastor in Stillwater with a doctorate in organizational health and resiliency. She's on the line to talk about the burdens on faith leaders as well as what helps. Pastor Moskalik, welcome.

KARNA MOSKALIK: Thank you, Cathy. It is such an honor and a blessing to be here with you today.

CATHY WURZER: Interesting. I saw this mental health summit. That is a whole lot of people signed up to talk. What did you hear from folks who attended?

KARNA MOSKALIK: I actually don't know who all of those 11,000 people are. But I know that it was people from 129 different countries. And the reason why I found out about this summit is one of my professors in my doctoral research, Dr. Chris Adams, helped organize the whole experience. And so when the Associated Press came to talk to me about it, it was Dr. Chris Adams that said, you should really talk to one of my students. Karna might have something to say on the opposite side on resiliency and what that looks like too and how to flourish.

CATHY WURZER: I want to talk about resiliency and flourishing. But I think I want to set the table when it comes to the issue. I do have many beloved friends who are in clergy. And they're young. And they're idealistic. And they're already feeling like they've been beaten down.

KARNA MOSKALIK: Absolutely.

CATHY WURZER: And I just feel so bad for them. What's going on out there?

KARNA MOSKALIK: The demands of the job have certainly increased since these times in the last few years. Just being a human on planet Earth has been challenging for all of us. And there's a lot of grief involved with-- sometimes we had to delay with doing funerals or walking with people in pain. I know that I have had some incredibly challenging funerals in my 16 years of being a pastor.

And after you do that over and over and over again, we are human beings we have feelings. We care about the people that we're serving. And when our people aren't doing well and when they're in pain, there's just that compassion, I think, that compassion fatigue that can also set in. And it's also an unusual job to where maybe the work hours are just kind of always on call. You could get a call in the middle of the night. You might have evening meetings. It's hard to know how to pace yourself and to ground yourself so that you don't spend all of your time working, working, working.

CATHY WURZER: And it can also be kind of a political position too. Do you find that? I mean, one of my pastor friends says, when you think you got God on your side, it sets up some weird dynamics. You can have some parishioners who have some pretty strong feelings.

KARNA MOSKALIK: Absolutely. And, in fact, it's not uncommon for a congregation to have people from all sorts of political backgrounds and feelings. And how do you navigate those waters carefully and prayerfully and also really with integrity? I know that January 6 was a very tough day for our nation. And there were members of my congregation on both extremes that were really having difficult days. And how do you minister well to all people is a real challenge as well.

And even just, how do you pivot? There is so much decision fatigue as well. What does it look like to reopen? I think many of us had never faced anything like this in our lifetime before. What does it mean to be in a global plague? And we kind of maybe naively, maybe many of us in the world thought, oh, if everybody just quarantines for two weeks, that'll be great. We'll just reopen the church. And no. It was so intense. So how do you do that well?

And one of the things that I'm really grateful for is that our Bishop Lull had recommended that every congregation find a sort of resurrection team-- that is, how do you reopen, and what does that look like-- so that the pastor wouldn't be making those tough calls on their own and find people maybe in the health care that understand the medical concerns. Also how do you-- the emotional care.

So on our team, one of our members is trained in pandemics that she had as a public health nurse. And so I thought, will you chair this group because this would be really helpful. The other thing I think that was a challenge for me is that I just started this call six months before COVID. So I had just learned everybody's names. And my first year being at this church, half of it was at a distance. Thankfully, God provided for me that my husband is an IT specialist. So I had a luxury there of figuring out how to pivot quickly with technology.

But yeah. There's just been so many decisions. And how do you make the best call of masking, not masking? Do you have coffee? Do you not? And it can just be wearing on a person. And if the congregation is struggling with a sense of unity and peace, that could be a challenge too.

CATHY WURZER: You were talking about some churches-- the decisions around closing and then reopening. Some churches, as you know, Pastor Karna, are for want of a better word on hospice because even prior to the pandemic they were seeing declining enrollment and empty pews. And you as pastor have to decide, OK, now what are we doing next? How do we go forward?

KARNA MOSKALIK: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That is a common, I would say, storyline that many of my friends and colleagues have experienced. And I think too that, as churches are relational networks too, how are we being creative in how are we caring deeply and going after those people in a good way, like checking in, caring for them. And so I'm grateful that, actually, our bounce back from COVID has been pretty strong. We have just a very relational church that loves each other, but also is very welcoming of new people.

So at the same time-- I know that my first sermon that I preached amidst COVID I talked about how the Chinese symbol for crisis means both danger and opportunity. And we know the dangers. There's a lot of the disease and all of that. But the opportunity was maybe people are searching for meaning. When you're faced with death and the gravity and the reality that we'll all eventually die, people are looking for purpose and meaning and spiritual connection. And many people are incredibly lonely and feeling so isolated. So there can be a great opportunity to reach out to people that are hurting as well.

CATHY WURZER: I know your father was a pastor.

KARNA MOSKALIK: Yes.

CATHY WURZER: Do you remember him struggling with burnout when you were growing up?

KARNA MOSKALIK: Yeah. I would say that it's always probably a challenge for any human being. But before I was born, one of my older brothers, when he was like three years of age, nicknamed him daddy bye-bye because he was always leaving for meetings. And so then my dad realized, wow, I do need to figure this out, what it means to have good family time, spiritual time with God, as well as being faithful to leading others and being on call. So I think it's probably always a challenge for pastors of how to balance work and life, and maybe for many other professions as well. I'm confident that it is.

CATHY WURZER: Did you get good ideas during this summit meeting this week how to truly balance work and personal life?

KARNA MOSKALIK: I attended a few of the sessions. And thankfully, they've been archived as well that pastors that did sign up for it can go back and listen. But a lot of the things that I was attending, the different seminars that they had, was on things like emotional intelligence, how to read a room, and how to even really increase your own level of self-awareness and mindfulness. And I think that's really helpful.

And also I think too when someone is coming at you and they're really hurting or they're angry or they're sad, one of the things in my research is that recognizing that those are secondary human emotions, meaning that there's always a backstory behind that. And so to be curious. What caused that? What happened in their life that they're experiencing this time of languishing? And those are moments that you can really have breakthroughs and be caring for people well.

But to get to that place of you have to be caring for yourself too, that it's easy I think as human beings to worry what people think or feeling as if we're being criticized or this or that. And so to be kind of mindful, staying in that moment, recognizing what's happening, and taking care of yourself is really, really important. If you never stop and sharpen the saw. You're not going to be effective.

CATHY WURZER: I wonder here, Pastor Karna, what congregants can do. There's some self-awareness that I would hope that some of your flock would have when it comes to maybe backing off a little bit on pastors.

KARNA MOSKALIK: Right. I'm grateful for my congregation that they're very loving. In fact, our mission statement is that we're a caring community. That's embedded in there. But I would say don't hesitate to pray for your pastor. Prayer is really essential, I think, for our own livelihood and to know that there are demands and to be respectful of that and maybe to not always hold us on a pedestal, if you will, that we are human beings too.

When I had my first date with my husband, I had reassured him that I can only walk on water when it's frozen and then I slip. And that really kind of broke the ice, if you will, and he was like, she's great she's got a great sense of humor. So I think pray for them, check in on them, and also recognize that they're sometimes scarce for time, that maybe they can't attend every single meeting.

But one of the summit seminars said for congregations to actually recognize that it's OK to allow the lay leaders to lead things and to entrust them with-- if they're passionate about a ministry, you don't have to attend every single thing. In fact, it's good to delegate and let things go.

CATHY WURZER: Good advice for a lot of people. All right. I appreciate your time. Thank you so much. And best of luck.

KARNA MOSKALIK: Thank you so much.

CATHY WURZER: Reverend Karna Moskalik is with us. She's the pastor of Our Savior's Lutheran Church in Stillwater.