October 20, 2005

MINNEAPOLIS – Burned out? Professionals in ministry lead lives of great demands, high stress, and impossible expectations, often in trying and conflictive settings. Making themselves available to all, they lapse into codependent practices that further endanger their own lives and health. In Clergy Burnout: Recovering from the 70-Hour Week . . . and Other Self-Defeating Practices, clergy counselor Fred Lehr clarifies the nature and practice of clergy codependence.

In twelve, short, insightful, and highly readable chapters, filled with many examples and stories from his own life and those of others he has counseled, Lehr identifies the typical forms that codependence takes, shows how it figures in professional and personal burnout, and offers real strategies to enable ministers to regain balance, set boundaries, live with new purpose and self-respect, and root their lives anew in holiness and the gospel.

Clergy Burnout, complete with tools for personal assessment and a study guide, is rich with personal anecdotes and real life examples. It is a real pastor-to-pastors book-that is also very helpful for congregational governing boards and personnel committees.

John Frederick (Fred) Lehr is a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and founder and manager of Renewal Ministries, LLC, a ministry of training and consulting about church systems, church leaders, and church professionals. His practice lays special emphasis on conflict management, change management, healthy boundaries, stress management, and healthy congregations.

The author has suffered from many of the codependent behaviors he describes in this manuscript, and for eight years he worked at the Church Renewal Center, a specialized treatment program at Good Shepherd Rehabilitation Hospital in Allentown, Pennsylvania, designed exclusively for church professionals.

Format: Paperback, 5.5" x 8.5," 160 pp, ISBN: 0800637631, Price: $18.00, Publisher: Fortress Press.

To order Clergy Burnout please call Fortress Press at 1-800-328-4648 or visit the Web site at http://www.fortresspress.com/.

Fortress Press