“Daddy, Why Are You Here?” The Question That Exposed Burnout with Alvin Sanders

Summary

Podcast Summary: UnSeminary Podcast

Episode: “Daddy, Why Are You Here?” The Question That Exposed Burnout with Alvin Sanders
Host: Rich Birch
Guest: Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders, President/CEO of World Impact
Date: July 16, 2026
Theme: Recognizing, Addressing, and Preventing Burnout in Ministry Leadership

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Overview

In this insightful conversation, Rich Birch welcomes back Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders to discuss the realities of pastoral and ministry burnout, drawing deeply from Alvin’s personal journey and leadership at World Impact. The episode explores how ministry leaders can not only prevent burnout in themselves but foster organizational cultures that prioritize spiritual formation, sustainable rhythms, and emotional health. Using poignant personal stories and practical frameworks, Alvin shares what he wishes he’d known 20 years ago—and what every church leader needs to hear now.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Alvin's Burnout Story: The Wake-Up Call (04:01–06:43)

• In 2007, after a decade pastoring and church planting in inner-city Cincinnati, Alvin transitioned roles and suddenly everyone commented on how much better he looked.
• Retrospectively, both Alvin and his wife recognized they'd burned out in the final year of that season.
  • Quote:

    “We were basically on autopilot... 60, 70 hours a week, flip the switch, doing what I need to do. Very jaded, cynical all the time, low energy.”
    —Alvin Sanders (06:43)

• Alvin realized he didn't fully grasp burnout until he was out of it, caught up in the endless demands of ministry.

2. Recognizing the Signs of Burnout (06:10–13:01)

• Autopilot living: Loss of joy, spiritual vitality, emotional connection.

• Overworking: No work-life balance—"zero."

• Physical and emotional neglect: Weight gain, emotional dysregulation.

• Memorable Moment:

  • Alvin’s toddler daughter asked:

    “Daddy, why are you here?”
    —Alvin Sanders (12:00)
    She was confused he was home for dinner—a powerful wake-up call.

• Ministry culture often rewards overworking, mistaking busyness for faithfulness.

  • Quote:

    “There’s consequence to being an alcoholic or a gambler, but overworking? You’re rewarded. It’s a badge of honor in ministry to be exhausted for Jesus.”
    —Rich Birch (14:25)

3. The Shift: Building a Sustainable Rhythms (08:05–10:17; 19:41–26:15)

• Alvin’s strategy: Go back to spiritual basics—prayer, fasting, Sabbath, retreat, spiritual formation.
  • Quote:

    “What had suddenly happened is I made work my worship. The job became what I worshiped... Subtly, the rhythms of what made you a Christian took a backseat to the work that I was doing.”
    —Alvin Sanders (09:46)

• Emphasis on not being accessible all the time, leaning into the wisdom of historic spiritual disciplines.
• At World Impact, spiritual formation was “baked into the cake”—valuing people for who they are, not just what they do.

4. The Organizational Approach: World Impact’s Framework (19:41–26:15)

World Impact's Three-Legged Stool for Sustainability:

1. Spiritual Formation
   • Regular disciplines: Membership, prayer, fasting, generosity, personal retreat days (paid), rhythm of rest and review.
   • Organizational “prayer days,” spiritual accountability.
   • Quote:

     “We care more about who you are than what you do, and we mean that.”
     —Alvin Sanders (20:08)

2. Engaging Stressors
   • Encouraging redemptive—not exploitative—work.
   • Right posture: Not the savior, but “utilized by God.”
   • Proactive secondary trauma care, especially in high-stress/urban contexts.
3. Skillset Development
   • Emotional Intelligence (EQ): “Impossible to be spiritually mature if you’re emotionally immature.”
   • Leadership development for all roles.
   • Dignified ministry engagement.

• Quote:

  “Developing the right skills will not save us from burnout. That’s a false dichotomy... All three (spiritual formation, stress engagement, skillset) must work together or the stool will not stand.”
  —Alvin Sanders (25:16)

5. Culture and Generational Change (16:04–18:11)

• Alvin highlights the learned workaholism in American and Protestant culture, and notes optimism in younger leaders (Gen Z) resisting this.
• Cautions against assuming more money or opportunity always means more fulfillment.
• Leaders must limit opportunities for health and legacy: “If I’m gone all the time again, guess what I’m on the road to?”

6. Practical Actions and Advice for Leaders (33:58–35:51)

Alvin’s steps for leaders feeling burnout:

1. Admit where you are—honesty over guilt or shame.
   • “There are traditions where it’s almost sinful to admit you’re burnt out.”
2. Rest—Seriously (Elijah principle)
   • Prioritize Sabbath, true days off, actual vacations.
   • “Are you resting as hard as you’re working?”
3. Get Help if Needed
   • Don’t be prideful about seeing a counselor—it’s not weakness, it's wise stewardship.
   • “Some of us might be too far gone and need to unpack things.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the reality of work as worship:

  “I made work my worship. I didn’t intentionally set out to do that, but... the rhythms of what made you a Christian took a backseat.”
  —Alvin Sanders (09:46)

• On the toll on family:

  “My youngest, Gabby, looked up in her little toddler face and said, ‘Daddy, why are you here?’”
  —Alvin Sanders (12:00)

• On emotional health:

  “We are emotional beings that rationalize our lives with facts... We have never made a rational decision that does not agree with our emotions.”
  —Alvin Sanders (13:02–13:44)

• On generational culture:

  “My mom was a farm girl. She would say, ‘Idle hands is the devil’s workshop.’ I grew up on all these idioms... it was in my DNA.”
  —Alvin Sanders (16:04)

• On organizational change:

  “We care more about who you are than what you do, and we mean that.”
  —Alvin Sanders (20:08)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Alvin’s burnout wake-up call: 04:01–06:43
• Signs & Evidence of Burnout: 06:43–13:01
• Making work into worship: 09:46–10:17
• Organizational rhythm framework: 19:41–26:15
• Generational cultural reflection: 16:04–18:11
• Practical steps for leaders: 33:58–35:51
• How to find Alvin/World Impact: 36:07–36:40

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Further Resources

• Redemptive Poverty Work (Expanded Edition):

  • Practical guide to sustainable, healthy ministry in high-stress/urban environments.
  • “…Not just a book to read—one to apply.” —Alvin Sanders (31:06–32:35)
  • [Available on Amazon]

• Connect with Alvin Sanders:

  • LinkedIn
  • worldimpact.org

• Webinar on Redemptive Poverty Work:

  • Find via YouTube; see show notes for direct link.

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Action Steps for Listeners

1. Self-examination:
   Pause this week and honestly assess if you are well-rested and emotionally healthy, or showing signs of burnout.
2. Re-engage spiritual basics:
   Don’t neglect prayer, Sabbath, retreat, and other foundational disciplines.
3. Prioritize rest:
   Take a real Sabbath and a vacation—rest is not optional.
4. Cultivate spiritual formation in your organization:
   Structure space for spiritual rhythms, emotional check-ins, and personal retreat—even for paid staff.
5. Get help if you need it:
   Seeking counseling is a sign of wisdom, not weakness.

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Final Word:
If your child would ever ask, “Why are you here?”—pause. Ministry cannot come at the expense of your soul or your family. Let’s bake healthy rhythms into our lives and organizations for long-term, redemptive impact.

Transcript

[Rich]

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[Unseminary Host]

Welcome to the Unseminary Podcast, the place where church leaders get practical insights, tips and strategies for ministry growth. Today, you're stepping into something bigger than just a conversation. This podcast is part of a bold mission to help 100 churches grow by 1,000 people. Whether you're dreaming of increasing your impact in your community, empowering your team, or or reaching more people with the message of Jesus, you're in the right place. We're here to bring you the stuff you wish they taught in seminary, ideas and tools you can put into action this week to see transformation in your ministry. Let's dive in.

[Rich]

Hey friends, welcome to the Unseminary Podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. Listen, I know you've got a million things going on this week. In fact, if you've got a lot of things going on, you really need to set aside the next half an hour or so to lean in on this conversation because I really think this is going be helpful for you. I know it's the kind of thing that you and your team is wrestling with. Plus we have a return guest on the podcast which what that indicates to you is this a person I want you to hear from. Honored to have Reverend Dr. Alvin Sanders with us. He is the President and CEO of World Impact, which empowers leaders to build healthy churches in communities of diversity and poverty. Poverty when urban leaders so when urban leaders are empowered to own and lead their own ministry, individuals, families and neighborhoods ultimately flourish. Super excited to have him with us. Enjoyed his episode from maybe a couple years ago and honored to have you back today. Alvin, welcome to the show. So glad you're here.

[Reverend Dr. Alvin Sanders]

Glad to be here, Rich, and thanks for having me back.

[Rich]

Oh, it's great to connect a little bit. Why don't you bring us up to speed, tell us a little bit about yourself, about World Impact. Give us some context if people don't remember.

[Reverend Dr. Alvin Sanders]

Yeah. So, President, CEO of World Impact. Our vision is a healthy church in every community experiencing poverty. We're working to solve the problem that 95% of the world's pastors have no formal ministry training whatsoever. So we, we try to bring that training to them and make it affordable and accessible. I don't know if you are paying attention to what's going on in the Christian educational world right now in terms of universities, but it's ugly out there. So we are really trying to make sure that people are equipped and they can be able to do ministry in the. In the context that they're called to do it.

[Rich]

Yeah, that's cool. Yeah. And I really. Friends, I would commend you to. If you don't know World Impact, you should get to know them. You know, Alvin and the team do such good, good work here. Well, we, I want us, I want you to take us back to 2007. So almost 20 years ago, which is insane to say that that's 20 years ago, because it doesn't feel like 20 years ago. It feels like just yesterday. What was going on in your ministry and life. Yeah. Kind of bring us into that part of the story. Let's start there. Yeah.

[Reverend Dr. Alvin Sanders]

So in 2007, I was wrapping up a 10 year project of planting and starting a church in inner city Cincinnati. And the denomination that I was a part of, the Evangelical Free Church of America, had offered me a position to leave the pastorate and to come work for them and run what's called our all people initiative. So me and my wife prayed, thought about it and said, yep, you know what? It's time to make a good transition. And we made that transition. Yet for the first six months after that transition, we were. It was really a weird dynamic in the fact that when we would run into other people, people would say, hey, you guys look so much better than. I mean, they didn't say it this directly, but essentially what they were saying is, you look so much better now that you're out of the past.

[Rich]

Right. What happened?

[Reverend Dr. Alvin Sanders]

You look good. Yeah, what happened? You look good. Did you lose weight? Did you know? Oh, no, whatever. You know, you're like, thank you.

[Rich]

I think.

[Reverend Dr. Alvin Sanders]

Yeah. Rich, this wasn't like a small amount A small amount of people. It was like every time we ran into people. So after about six months of this, we were like, okay, so what's going on? And then when we look back in hindsight, felt like the last year or so of being in the pastorate, we had burned out. And up until that point, I really didn't know what burnout was. You kind of sort of hear about it, but you don't really think about it. Why? Because you're too busy. Right. So you don't sit back and think about ordering the chaos of ministry or anything of that nature. And so we vowed that going forward, never again would this happen to us. So essentially, I divide my ministry life into two halves. The first half is pre 2007. It's kind of like how people look at the pandemic. Right. So, yes, pre 2007 and then post 2007. And so we began to implement a series of things that helped us to be able to do ministry in a sustainable way and not experience burnout, because you do not have to burn out doing ministry. That's what I've learned since 2007.

[Rich]

Yeah. When you. So when you think about that time. Yeah, I love that. Like, hey, friends, thanks for telling me I look great. Or you look terrible a year ago. Okay, thanks. When you look back on at that moment, you're like, hey, I think we were burnt out. What were some of those. Those patterns, habits, evidence, signs that you look at? And we're like, oh, that is what was going on there. You know, What. What was it that, you know, got you? Yeah, that you kind of saw it yourself in that moment as you looked back.

[Reverend Dr. Alvin Sanders]

In hindsight, what I looked at is we. We were basically on autopilot. You know, when I first started that ministry project, I was. I felt a call. I felt like I was walking with the Lord. I felt the Holy Spirit's presence. You know, it was. I. It's like a Book of Acts stuff, you know, it was kind of like God was right there. I was energized. I was excited. I truly wanted to make a difference in the lives and the hearts of the people who were there. Wanted to make a difference in the community. But that last year or so, I look back at it, it was just 60, 70 hours a week, flip the switch, doing what I need to do. Very jaded, cynical all the time, low energy. You know, vacation didn't matter because I had to go back to work. You know, these are. You know, it was sort of like a call of duty, so to speak. This is my duty to do it. Right, right, right.

[Rich]

Interesting. So now you made a few decisions to, you know, you. In the words you used was, I. We do a series of things. We changed the way that we work. What were those things that you changed? What were some of those things? When you look back, now that you're on the other side of that, what were some of those decisions you made to say, hey, we're going to live in a different way? And what was that? You know, what is that? What were some of those.

[Reverend Dr. Alvin Sanders]

Well, one of the big things that I realized, and it's. And it's going to sound elementary when I say it, but I think as pastors and people in ministry, we forget about the basic things. You know, I'm a big football fan. How State Buckeyes, to be exact. Right. Yeah. So I remember. I can't remember which one of those coaches, but I remember one of those coaches, I was listening to an interview one day, and they said, hey, you know, when we lose our first practice back is we go back to the basics. Just basic stuff. That's all we do. Blocking, tackling, you know, simple things. And one of the things we did was we went back to the basics of what it means to be a Christian. You know, over the years, they call that spiritual formation.

[Rich]

Yep.

[Reverend Dr. Alvin Sanders]

So the basic things of. Are you praying, are you fasting? You know, that's good. You know, just. If you type in spiritual formation in Google, you're going to get a gazillion things that pop up. Right. Well, we should be doing many of those things, you know, retreating. You should not be accessible all the time. Sabbath, you know, it's. Hebrews 11 tells us that, you know, we're among a great cloud of witnesses. And that great cloud of witnesses are people who. Any and everybody who has ever been Christian ever in the entire history of the world. Enrich. Hate to break it to you, but it's not rocket science. It's how to be a good Christian. We just ignore it.

[Rich]

Right.

[Reverend Dr. Alvin Sanders]

Because there have been people before us who have worked out, hey, these are the rhythms. These are the things that you do.

[Rich]

Yes.

[Reverend Dr. Alvin Sanders]

You know, to be a Christian. And what had suddenly happened is I made work my worship. The job became what I worshiped. Now, I didn't intentionally set out to do that, but I had so much passion and I had so much zeal to want to make a difference in the world that subtly, the rhythms of what made you a Christian took a backseat to the work that I was doing.

[Rich]

Yeah, that's good. I want to come back to that. I want to put a bookmark in you made work your worship. I think that's a powerful idea. I want to come back to that. But just before we leave this idea, um, you know, I love that, the football analogy. I had a nephew that was a receiver, college ball receiver. And I remember talking to him, you know, once as well, and I was like, like, tell me, you know, kind of, what does your practice look like? And how are you? How do you keep on top of that? And he said, he said, well, you know, I've got these three formations, these three patterns that we run. And he's like, I just run those formations all day long. It's like, you just, you know, it's like the same, you know, four steps this way, three steps that way, you know, turn. You know, it's like, I'm do that for four years. We're just going to run that. Which stuck with me similarly, that, you know, I think oftentimes we can complicate this and we can say, hey, that, you know, we can complicate staying connected to praying, fasting, Sabbath, reading scripture, these kinds of things. We can drop them. Were there any other warning signs looking back now that you missed again, in hindsight, you look back and say, oh, there were some. Some things on the dashboard that were blinking and I didn't notice that you were leading up breaking point. Were there other things in your life besides these dropping off that, you know, that you, again, in hindsight, noticed and maybe are looking for now?

[Reverend Dr. Alvin Sanders]

Yeah, there was zero. What they call work life balance. Zero.

[Rich]

Right. Right.

[Reverend Dr. Alvin Sanders]

At that time, I was working on my PhD. I was pastoring a church full time, and I was running the church's Christian community Development Corporation that was attached to it. And, oh, by the way, I was also teaching classes at the local Bible college.

[Rich]

Right.

[Reverend Dr. Alvin Sanders]

I had a wife and I had two kids. Yeah. And so I remember during that period, a huge red flag that, in hindsight, I'm ashamed to say, I did not pay attention to. One Friday night, I was sitting down and I was eating dinner with my family. And my. My youngest, Gabby, she looked up in her little toddler face and she said, daddy, why are you here? I said, what do you mean? I'm sitting here. I'm. I'm eating dinner. I'm, you know, I'm here, you know, she's. And she. And she was so confused that I was home.

[Rich]

Oh, my goodness.

[Reverend Dr. Alvin Sanders]

So that's. So that was a neglect of family. Right. That was a huge red flag. Gained A ton of weight because I was not taking care of myself physically. I think that's something we underestimate in ministry, you know, to the point now that I even. I count when I go work out. That's part of my work day.

[Rich]

Right.

[Reverend Dr. Alvin Sanders]

Because I said I can't be a successful minister if, If I am not in shape. So I see that as a, you know, I don't have this sort of dichotomy of the physical and the spiritual and all that. No, I. It's all one, you know, it's going to hurt me spiritually if I'm out of shape, if I'm not eating right. I'm not properly fit and all those types of things. So I wasn't taking care of myself physically. I clearly was not taking care of myself emotionally. Yeah, we are emotional being. We are emotional. I have come to believe, and this is maybe a controversial point, but I don't know, it's my belief. I, I have come to believe, Rich, that we are emotional beings that rationalize our lives with facts.

[Rich]

Yeah, that's true.

[Reverend Dr. Alvin Sanders]

There's a lot of research out there that says we can think, we're rational, we want, but what we really do. We have never made a rational decision that does not agree with our emotions.

[Unseminary Host]

Right.

[Reverend Dr. Alvin Sanders]

So we must take care of our. I was not taking care of myself emotionally, therefore, out of shape, physically, neglecting family, which, by the way, God says that's the first ministry you're supposed to lead. Well, so if you're not leading your family well, it really doesn't matter what else you're doing, you know, and just an emotional. Just not emotionally regulated. It's the easiest way that I can say it. Didn't know I wasn't emotionally regulated, but I wasn't.

[Rich]

Yeah. Yeah, that's good. You know, the Kerry Newhoff friend of mine, you know, he says around this whole topic, he says, you know, if you're an alcoholic and you stumble into work one day drunk, you know, you get fired or there's a consequence. Right. If you are a gambler and you're addicted to gambling and, you know, you lose your house, that's going to show up and, you know, you're going to, you're going to lose your house. There's consequence to that. And, you know, one of those might be you lose your job. But this area of like, overworking, if we overwork, even in good things, you're rewarded for it. Like, you're like, way to go. You're a good soldier. You know, there's. It's almost like a badge of honor in ministry to be exhausted for Jesus. When you said, man, I made work my worship, that stung because I was like, oh, I think I've done that before. Yeah, so take us inside, you know, other leaders, you know, heads. How does that mindset quietly, quietly set us up for this crash? How do we, you know, kind of unpack that even more for us?

[Reverend Dr. Alvin Sanders]

Yeah, I mean, I say all the time, I'm a recovering work. Workaholic.

[Rich]

Right.

[Reverend Dr. Alvin Sanders]

You know, that's the way I put it. And then a big thing that really set me up for this, that I didn't realize is that I come from a family of workaholics. You know, my father, who is my hero. Other people have heroes outside of the household. My father is my hero. He's 87 now. That's my guy. Yeah. I grew up in a household. My father grew up in Jim Crow, Alabama. And he overcame so much.

[Rich]

Right.

[Reverend Dr. Alvin Sanders]

Incredible. With the 10 when he joined the military. Military was. Was sort of like a saving grace. He was in the military for 30 years, and he went to night school, and he got two degrees in night school while working during the day. Wow. You know, my mom was an old fo. Was a. Was a farm girl. You know, Protestant work ethic. You know, you want. She would say, son, you want to kill time, work it to death. You know, idle hands is the devil's workshop. You know, I grew up on all these idioms. Yes, yes. And. And so that was in my DNA. And just by the fact that we live in the United States of America, where busyness is a badge of honor, I believe you said, and we all are under the Protestant work ethic, you know. You know, who, what, what. What bum works only 40 hours? I mean, you want to get ahead, the minimum is 50.

[Rich]

Right.

[Reverend Dr. Alvin Sanders]

You know, when I was pastoring, how many people in my congregation, you know, in terms of the white collar crew, you know, I had. I had all spectrums in the church that I was in, I pastored. It was no big deal for them to just be gone all the time.

[Unseminary Host]

Right.

[Reverend Dr. Alvin Sanders]

If you get offer a promotion, who would tell you, don't accept it for the sake of your family?

[Unseminary Host]

Right.

[Reverend Dr. Alvin Sanders]

Of course I'm going to accept it. It's more money because more money puts us in a better position or doesn't. It might, or it might not. So counterintuitive thinking is something that we have to do. I mean, I'm in a place now where God has blessed me that I have a lot of opportunities and I limit my opportunities because I say if I'm gone all the time again, guess what? I'm on the road to, right. You know, and we may have a little bit more money, but then, you know, I'm in the, I'm in the empty nest hood stage of season of life and I'd be missing valuable time with my wife. So it's a reordering of the priorities.

[Rich]

Yeah, that's good. Yeah, yeah, it's so good. And this is one of those areas where I see hope in, you know, next generation. You know, I see hope in Gen Z leaders. There is like, I think a healthy pushback on, on some of this area which is, I think is positive. I know sometimes, you know, I, I'm Gen X, classic Gen x, born in 1974, the lowest birth rate year of the 20th century. And you know, and I think sometimes, you know, my peers and particularly the folks older than me, that generation, they, they really did, they handed down this, this idea and I, you know, there's good change happening I think on this front. But so how do you think, you know, as you're thinking about the future or maybe you're coaching your team, people you're interacting with, you know, how do you kind of articulate this, maybe with a framework or thinking around this so that we don't just pass on more burnt out organizations. How are you helping, you know, lead an organization? Because I think there's, the reason why I asked that question is I think it can be easy for us folks that are in charge. I run my own organization. I like often joke like my boss is a bit of a taskmaster because it's me. But you know, when, but when we're the people in charge, we get to set the pace, we get to lead in a way. How are you leading different now? How are you helping your people understand this different now? What are, how are you? What's that look like for you?

[Reverend Dr. Alvin Sanders]

Yes. So we have baked into the cake at World Impact three things, three areas. We talked, we touched on it before spiritual formation. You know, that's a big deal here at World Impact, you know, we, we really want to make sure that people understand your work is not your worship. You know, part of our, our sustainable strategy is, you know, we care more about who you are than what you do and we mean that. And it's funny because when you first say that to some people, they go, oh well, you don't want me to work. It's like, no, we didn't say that. What we said is we Understand you are a human being and we care about you and we're going to invest deeply in you as you invest deeply into our vision. And so making sure that works, not worship, make sure that people understand our identity is in Christ. Understanding also the spiritual disciplines. We incorporate eight particular spiritual disciplines. I probably should know them off the top of my head, but I don't. But I can roll off the top of my head. You got church membership, you know, we, it's not cool, you know, to be a church member. People love to kill the church and criticize the church and this, that, the other. But I leave that to the accuser of the brethren to use the KJV version and use that to the devil. Jesus came to establish the church, period. Ending discussion. So you ought to be part of one. So, you know, we encourage our folk to be part of churches, to fast, to pray. We have, three times a year we shut everything down. We have prayer days, you know, we, we encourage people to be generous with their money. We encourage people to empower others. You know, so there's, we, we, we encourage, we have a personal retreat days that we offer people for, for. It's a work day, but it's a different kind of structured work day. We say we'll give you one day a month where you go off and you examine yourself, you do a spiritual examine off basically, you know, off the old St. Ignatius type of spiritual examine. And then you also look at your professional development. You go off and we do that and we'll pay you for that.

[Rich]

Right?

[Reverend Dr. Alvin Sanders]

You know, so there are a number of things that we do in terms of developing a rhythm. We call, you know, having a rhythm, you know, so that's good. So a lot of spiritual formation and then the other S is we look at the, you could think of these assets as three S's or a three legged stool that serves the foundation and they're all intertwined. So besides spiritual formation, we also encourage people to engage. Stressors, right? We, there's, there's a way that you work in the world. There's. I got this from my friends at Praxis that there's three ways that you can engage the world. You can engage the world exploitatively, ethically or redemptively. So we want people to, we want our staff to engage the world, engage their jobs in a redemptive manner, which is sacrificing our lives in the pattern of Jesus Christ. We follow the pattern of Jesus Christ that we are doing this in order to make the world a better place. We Also have a posture of that we're not the saviors. Many people who are in ministry, we get in it for the right reasons, but then we think that we're the king and not a subject of the kingdom. Right? And so we think that whatever ministry we're in, whether it's urban, suburban, whatever it may be, that we're the saviors, it's like, no, no, no, no. That's not the right posture. The right posture is that to be utilized by God. And then also anybody who's been in ministry any, Any time in their life, any, you know, they are going to experience a lot of what's called secondary trauma. You know, like mine was very intense, being in a very violent neighborhood and ministering there. But even in suburban context, there's a lot of things. Now, Rich, I don't know if you ever experienced this, but, you know, people, the sheep bite, they talk about the pastor, they do a lot of things. You know, you're misinterpreted all the time. There's a lot of hurtful things that happen to you from an emotional perspective. And if you. If you try to blow them off or roll them under the, you know, it's water under the bridge. No, no, no. Those things need to be engaged. So that's keeping the right posture, making sure we keep the right pace in ministry. So. So we have one school of spiritual formation. 1, 1. One leg stool of engaging stressors. And then the third leg stool is skill set development. And we have to understand that developing the right skills will not save us from burnout. That's a false dichotomy. People think, oh, well, if I just develop X, Y and Z, well, then, you know, I. I won't burn out. No. There are three primary skill sets that I think people need to understand when it comes to any type of ministry or wherever they're doing it. A big one is emotional intelligence. It's a. There's a guy by the name of Daniel Goldman who really popularized the concept, wrote this book years and years ago called Primal Leadership. And that book makes the case that there. There are things that you can develop to emotionally regulate yourself. There's a book, they don't call it emotional intelligence, but it's another classic called Leadership and Self Deception. It's a classic book which teaches you how you can engage the workplace by emotionally regulating yourself, which I think is directly correlated to spiritual maturity.

[Rich]

True.

[Reverend Dr. Alvin Sanders]

There's also the skill set of leadership development. I believe that everybody is a leader. Right. We don't all have the same Responsibilities as leaders. But there are things that we can do to develop ourselves to become better leaders in the situations that we find ourselves in. And then there's also a skill set that we can develop where we engage our ministry context in a dignified manner. So that's sort of like our three legged stool at World Impact. You know, spiritual formation, engaging stressors and skill set. And you can't just like a stool if you remove one of the legs. Right. The stool will not work. So all three have to be intertwined in working together to give you that strong foundation. And if you do those things, I have found that, you know, you won't touch burnout.

[Rich]

Right.

[Reverend Dr. Alvin Sanders]

So again, yeah, you do. So I'm very, very focused on that. And we have interwoven all of those things within the DNA of World Impact.

[Rich]

Yeah, I love that. There's so much to unpack there friends. And there's, you know, in six minutes there, you gave us what a great picture of how we should be thinking and leading in our environments. I love particularly, you know, you talked, you touched on the emotional quotient, the EQ issue. And you know, I've had a friend of mine say, you know, it's impossible to be spiritually mature if you're emotionally immature. 100 I think that's true. And there are, we all know, these people who they, they walk around like they're spiritually mature, but they're, you know, emotionally immature. And it comes off, it's like they're bleeding. It's like the Internet's made for these people. Like those people get good followings, which is terrible. And you know, they get people around them who are just like, yes sir, yes sir. It's usually sirs, unfortunately, it's a lot of guys who, who, you know, we've got to fight that. And I love that you're attempting to do that, you know, at, you know, in the organization you lead at World Impact, I think is incredible. And one of the things, you know, calling this out, I'm not directly engaged in urban ministry, but the thing I think is like, I think every ministry has its stressors to it. I think every ministry has trauma related to it. And I think what you've outlined here we can apply really in any context. But I do want to underline for our listeners the fact that this has come out of a context where again, I don't want to stigmatize or create stereotypes around urban ministry. But there is a lot of trauma, there is a lot of stress in the ministry. You know, when you're dealing in communities that are experiencing homelessness and poverty and, you know, at the conflict at the, you know, the epicenter of racial conflict. And, you know, all of that creates context that makes it next to impossible to serve in. And the fact that you're leading there, I just want to commend you on that. This is actually a part of. Well, talk to me about the expanded second edition of Redemptive Poverty Work. And how does that tie into what we're talking about today? Because I want to move people even towards that call to action out of today's conversation.

[Reverend Dr. Alvin Sanders]

Yeah. So the things that I've talked about, that I just talked about, that we instilled at World Impact, it definitely works in any context. No doubt about it. What I tell my suburban colleagues is that whatever you experience in the suburbs, 10 exit, and that's that makes sense. It's not that you don't experience these things. It's that it's much more intense within the urban context. So the expanded edition of Redemptive Poverty Work is my attempt to really have our vision at World Impact come to fruition. Because at World Impact, if our vision is a healthy church in every community experiencing poverty, we cannot not talk about burnout, because the burnout rate within the urban context because of the 10x that happens down there in the urban community, but increasingly in suburban communities, to be quite honest with you, the same dynamics are happening in certain suburban communities is that you have to be able to. To deal with it. And the big, big way that you deal with it is that you are intentionally engaging those things that can cause you to burn out. Because you cannot have a healthy church unless you have spiritually formed pastors who are engaging stressors and who are developing the skill set to make the community a better place. So it was basically by doing things in the field and spending a lot of time with our partners that I said, you know what? These folks need an expansion. Because when I wrote Redemptive Poverty Work a couple years ago that we talked about, it was a little booklet and it was more academic. Right. But what I realized is, hey, these folk need to know how to implement this in a practical sense. So that's what the expanded version is about. It's not only teaching you the principle. It's like, here. Here's how you can apply this to your life. It's sort of like a field handbook, so to speak.

[Rich]

Yeah, that's fantastic. I think it'd be great for people to pick up a copy of this, and I think it could be really helpful for them as they're thinking about ministry in any context, even to help if there are folks that are listening in that serve in a suburban context and they're trying to gain a bit more understanding of our urban brothers and sisters as they're leading there. I think this could be a helpful resource for folks that picked up the first edition, you know, should they pick up a second. I know you're not just trying to sell books, but like, help me understand, you know, obviously you've added a lot to it. For folks that are familiar with your work, what would your, you know, kind of. What's your recommendation that you know for them?

[Reverend Dr. Alvin Sanders]

Yes, because the, the first redemptive poverty work booklet is really only one chapter in the expanded edition. Right. It's. It's, as I said earlier, it's really about how to apply and how not to burn out. The whole thing is it assumes that there's a point in your walk in doing your work of the ministry that you're going to be. You're going to hit a wall. Yep. I don't know anyone in ministry, let alone urban ministry, who hasn't at some point hit a wall. Right, right. To go back to sports analogy, right. You talk about how if you're a rookie and you're coming into the NBA, you only play like 40 or some college games. NBA is 82 games. No matter how skilled you are, no matter how much you play game about Game 50, you're going to hit a wall because you've never really played at that intense level for that long. Same thing with ministry. At some point you're going to hit a wall. So within this urban context, you know, when you hit that wall, or hopefully before you hit the wall, read this book and begin to implement it in your life. It's a failure for you just to buy the book and read it. A lot of books you just write, you buy it and you read it and you go, oh, I got the knowledge. I'm good. No, this book is like, read it and apply it and I can tell you it'll work if you do. So.

[Rich]

That's so good. Where do we want to send people to pick up copies of the book? Where? Online. How can they get their hands on it?

[Reverend Dr. Alvin Sanders]

Yeah, just go to Amazon. You can get it off of Amazon. Redemptive Pop of Duty Work Expanded Edition. You type that in or you can type in Alvin Sanders and I'm sure it'll pop up. Yeah, we'd love for you to get it. You got paperback and hardback Versions that are there. And then you can also go on YouTube. We just had it. We launched it last week. We had a webinar around the topic of redemptive poverty work. It was about an hour long. So if you're really interested in this topic, you can check that webinar out as well.

[Rich]

Nice. Yeah, we'll link to that in the show notes to make it even easier for folks to find that we'd love for people to track with you. Alvin. You're doing such a great, great work. So let's take us back to 2007. Let's say there's a leader who's listening. Well, I know that there's a leader who's listening in today. There's at least one in the couple thousand people that are listening in who are heading towards where you were in 2007. Not the new part, not the new job part, but the like, oh, I'm burnt out. This is not good. Maybe today they've been listening in and they realize, oh, wait a second, maybe they had a similar thing with their kid. Hey, dad. Hey, Mom. Why are you here? What's one thing you'd want them to do this week? What's one action step that they could take coming out of today's conversation?

[Reverend Dr. Alvin Sanders]

Well, I would say I'm gonna cheat. I'll give you more than one. But first is to admit where you're at, because there are. I hate to say it, there are some faith traditions where it's downright almost sinful to admit that you might be burned out. What? You don't. You don't pray enough. You don't do this, you don't do that. Say, you know what? I'm tired. I'm still committed, but I'm tired. I'm jaded. I'm. Whatever. So the first thing is to embrace that. The second thing is, you know, get some rest. You might. It might just be an Elijah situation. You know, Elijah wanted to die, and God said, no, man, just go lay down, have a nap. You just had a really, really intense situation. Go lay down, take some time. Go take a nap, get some refreshment, get some food. Look at your schedule and say, am I actually taking at least one day a week off? You know, what's your rhythm of rest, Right? Are you resting as hard as you're working?

[Rich]

It's good.

[Reverend Dr. Alvin Sanders]

Are you taking vacation or is vacation for the week, right? Are you taking your paid holidays off to actually really start to take the commandment of Sabbath seriously and to actually start to rest and then There are some of us. And, you know, and there's nothing wrong with this either. We may be too far gone and we may need to take some time to go see a counselor and to unpack things and to unpack some emotional wounds and things of that nature. So I would say, you know, first, acknowledge where you're at. Second, actually start to rest. And then third, if these things aren't really working, don't be prideful. Go see a mental health counselor.

[Rich]

Yeah, that's good. Alvin, you've been a gift again to our audience. Thank you so much for being here today, for helping us think through these issues and take some steps. If people want to track with you or with World Impact, where do we want to send them online?

[Reverend Dr. Alvin Sanders]

Well, if you want to track with me, you know, as a good Gen Xer like you, I'm on LinkedIn, so easiest place to find me, love it is LinkedIn. Buy me at LinkedIn. I have an Instagram account. I ain't been on that Instagram account in forever. So, you know, that's just not me. But you can find me on LinkedIn if you want to personally interact, talk, whatever great thing to do on LinkedIn. And then the other thing is go to world impact.org and you can learn a lot more about World Impact and what we do. We'd love to serve you.

[Rich]

That's great. Thanks so much for being here today. Really appreciate you taking some time to be with us.

[Reverend Dr. Alvin Sanders]

All right, thanks for having me.

[Unseminary Host]

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the Unseminary Podcast. If you found today's conversation helpful, I'd share it with a friend in ministry. It's a simple way to spark new ideas and grow together. Also, don't Forget to visit unseminary.com to sign up for our email list. You'll get exclusive resources and practical tools to delivered straight to your inbox to help you lead your church more effectively. Most importantly, take what you learned today and put it into action this week. Ministry Impact starts with small, intentional steps. See you next time.