'No' is an Option, Not a Failure

A young pastor recently told me a story about reluctantly agreeing to help a man move.

When he arrived on a Friday evening to help, he discovered that the man had not bothered to gather a single box to pack anything into. Instead, the man said, “Oh, you’re from the church? I thought you were going to bring a whole team with you to help pack everything.”

After a long week of ministry work, this could have been the perfect moment to say, “I’m sorry, I can’t help this time,” especially since the pastor had been told it would just take a couple of hours to move a few boxes. Instead, the young pastor smiled warmly, picking up a pile of loose clothes and tossing them into the trunk of his car. “It’s fine, really,” he said over his shoulder. “Just grab whatever you can carry—I don’t mind at all.” (I would've minded!)

Despite the pastor’s long week and his family waiting at home for him, he still felt he could not say no to the man. Many pastors really struggle to say “no” to people. After all, pastors are supposed to serve, right? 

Saying no can be one of the most difficult parts of being a pastor. After all, pastors are called by God to be pastors. The fact that we refer to pastoring as a calling hints at how sacred the work is. Rae Jean Proeschold-Bell and Jason Byassee (2018) talk about this in their book Faithful and Fractured:

When work is sacred, sanctification theory suggests that you will exert extra energy to do it. When work is sacred, clergy might end up with a default approach in which everything is equally important, meaning that they are more likely to overwork and, at the same time, less likely to take care of their own physical and mental health (p. 24) 

Here’s a challenging question about sacred work: What parts of ministry are sacred, and what parts aren’t? It’s more than a theological question; it’s a practical one.

In Matthew 25, Jesus tells us that how we have treated “the least of one of these brothers and sisters of mine” (NIV) is how we have treated Jesus. When the phone rings asking us to help someone, I wonder if part of us deep down feels that it literally is Jesus calling us.

In that case, how can we say no? It would be like saying no to Jesus himself!

Sometimes we get the mentality that in ministry, yes should be the default answer, and no is only a last resort. This is one of the risks of having a profession that is a sacred calling—it can be incredibly difficult to decide what to say no to (Proeschold-Bell & Byassee, 2018).

The Problems With That Mindset

Something else gets deprioritized.

First, every time we say yes to something, we are saying no to something else (Olsen & Devor, 2015). As clergy, it usually means saying no to ourselves—our rest, our needs, our physical, mental, and emotional health, or our family time (Proeschold-Bell & Byassee, 2018). Many pastors feel this is part of the self-sacrifice that Romans 12:1 asks of us, to offer our bodies as living sacrifices. On the other hand, saying yes to everything frequently leads to burnout (Proeschold-Bell & Byassee, 2018).

Is God truly asking pastors to burn themselves out? To give and give until they have nothing left to give their families, their churches, and themselves?

Surely, at times, we have misunderstood what it means to be living sacrifices. The nature of a living sacrifice is that it’s meant to be alive, and no part of burnout feels alive in any way. 

Everyone else pays the price.

A second problem with saying yes to everything is that it robs everyone of the best version of ourselves (Proeschold-Bell & Byassee, 2018). When a pastor burns out, it is not just the pastor who is affected—the pastor’s family, friends, community, and church are all affected by it. Even if burnout doesn’t lead to catastrophe and is handled well, there will be fallout. In fact, even the buildup to burnout presents a more irritable, less effective, more exhausted, and less present version of ourselves to everyone around us, including God. 

It isn't scriptural.

Scripture is full of examples of saying no and setting boundaries—they just weren’t called “boundaries” at the time.

• Jesus’ frequent withdrawal to lonely places to pray required saying no to the crowds seeking preaching and healing (Luke 5:15-16).
• The apostles' empowering people to choose seven leaders to administer the distribution of food in Acts 6 meant they had to decline that responsibility for themselves.
• Jethro’s advice to Moses in Exodus 18 has long been taught as a model for leadership delegation—one that is rooted in Jethro telling Moses that he can’t keep saying yes to mediating every dispute that comes to him.

As leaders, we often know these passages, and we understand the importance of delegation, time management, and boundaries. Yet our sense of calling may make it difficult to say no even when we recognize that we probably should (Proeschold-Bell & Byassee, 2018). 

If you have a difficult time saying no as a pastor, I hope you will consider what other things you might be forced to say no to by saying yes to too much. If you are regularly saying no to your own mental, physical, and emotional health, it may be time to reconsider how many things you are saying yes to before burnout becomes a risk.

If you are in co-vocational ministry, I invite you to visit https://www.briercrestseminary.ca/leadershipcentre/co-vocational/ to connect with Co-Vocational Canada and access complimentary counselling, coaching, and resources to help you set boundaries, reinvigorate your calling, clarify your priorities, and empower you to say no without feeling like you’re not fulfilling your calling.