Dan Broyles has been a care pastor at Valencia Hills Community Church for more than 20 years. He is also a licensed therapist, which means he has spent his career translating between two worlds, the counseling office and the church lobby. This week he joined our webinar, Caring Well Without Burning Out, and gave care pastors and ministry leaders some of the most practical advice we have heard on staying healthy in a role built around other people's crises.
Here is what stuck with us.
Change takes grace, truth, and time
Dan’s formula for helping people change is grace plus truth plus time. Most of us are good at the first two. We love people well, we speak honestly, and then we get frustrated when they are not better yet. Dan said time is the piece leaders minimize most. “I’ve loved on them and told them the truth, so they should be better.” Except change cannot be rushed, and expecting it to move on your schedule is a fast track to resentment.
Perfectionism is quietly driving your volunteers away
Dan named perfectionism as one of the biggest barriers in care ministry, and he tied it straight to anxiety. Wherever there is perfectionism, there is anxiety underneath it. Perfectionist leaders also create what he called an eggshells environment. When expectations are unspoken and never quite met, volunteers start asking why they would give their free time to a place where they can never get it right, even when the mission is good. His other warning: perfectionism and procrastination feed each other. If you wait until the plan is 90 percent ready, nothing launches. Some structure matters. Total clarity before you start does not.
Tell your team how you affect them
The best leaders Dan knows are self-aware, and they say out loud what they notice about themselves. He tells his own staff, “I realize I cause a lot of excitement and anxiety at the same time.” People visibly relax when he names it. They stop wondering if the anxiety is their own failure and start bringing their creativity back to the work. Acknowledged anxiety builds courage. Unacknowledged anxiety shrinks it.
Who should you disappoint this week?
This was the line that got everyone. Highly compassionate leaders are the most vulnerable to what Dan calls urgency addiction. The more compassion you carry, the harder it is to hold a boundary, and if the urgency of the moment gets to dictate your day, you will never build the systems that make care sustainable. Dan will sometimes deliberately leave a small fire burning to protect his time for systems work. So he asks over-extended leaders one pointed question: I wonder who you should disappoint this
week.
Keep asking, what are our rhythms?
Good systems are less about software and more about rhythms. What is our rhythm when someone calls the church in crisis. When a caller is suicidal. When we add a volunteer, or care for a person whose needs never end. Dan said once the roles are clear, the intensity of the stressor drops for everyone. Roles should be strong but not rigid, and your team should be able to flag a broken system without it getting personal.
Remember your why
Dan has done this work for two decades without burning out, and he credits one habit above the rest. Burnout happens when people forget why they started. Budgets, volunteer schedules, and fundraising can bury the mission if you let them. Reconnecting to the why is what carries him through budget meetings, hard conversations, and letting a volunteer go.
Watch the full conversation
The recording is 30 minutes, and it is worth every one of them: Webinar Caring Well Without Burnout
And if your church or ministry is carrying more needs than your budget can hold, this is why Aid the Way exists. The platform is free for churches and ministry partners. A trained advocate from your team posts vetted needs, believers fund them, and 100 percent of every donation goes to the need itself. Learn more or apply at aidtheway.org.
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