Shame should not lead our spaces

I have noticed a pattern in recent times: a move once again towards control, especially over women’s voices, and an either/or theology. What interests me, however, is the number of times in the Bible women are asked not to speak in church (twice) compared to the number of references to the sins of omission and anger, and to the consequences of shame.

Shame does not primarily live in obvious failure. It is the way we speak to others to try to control the outcomes of our conversation. Shame lives in the gap between who we are and who we believe we are supposed to be. And in my experience, many unmet expectations in church communities, when reflected upon, are not biblical.

Imagine a group of teenagers and the shame that lies beneath the surface of being constantly told they are bad. When a youth pastor shouts and yells at the congregation, it says more about their leadership health than the body of Christ. The compassionate gap is enormous. The standards are impossible. The measurement is constant. And the theology many of them have inherited is not actually the gospel. Belonging and healing cannot co-exist in this unsafe environment. It is moralism with gospel language on top.

I have just finished my thesis for my Master’s of Divinity, and the title is “Addressing Burnout in Christian Leadership with an Integration of Biblical, Theological and Psychological Concepts of Self-Compassion” As a part of my research, I studied a report by Maslach and Leiter, which found burnout in ministry is formed from these three environments: emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation, and reduced personal accomplishment.[1]

The Barna Group has shown that 40% of pastors now face a high risk of burnout, a 400% increase since 2015.[2] The impact of social unrest, food instability, community polarisation, and the COVID-19 pandemic is evident.

It is shown that when people are under stress, they revert to places of control and shame-driven dialogue to try to redirect the uncertainty that they are experiencing.

It sounds like this:

God loves you. Therefore, you must be good. And if you are not good enough, not holy enough, not sacrificial enough, not fruitful enough, not available enough, then you have failed the God who loves you.

Which means the love is conditional.

Ie: You are not enough.

This is not Christianity. This is the fig leaf in Genesis 3: the human impulse to cover inadequacy with performance, to manage God’s perception of us through behaviour, to earn what has already been freely given. The fig leaf in Genesis was the first performance metric. Our program-driven communities are being measured by a metric that was never designed for human-centred flourishing.

What is Shame?

Brené Brown’s foundational research draws a clear line between guilt and shame. Guilt says, “I did something bad.” Shame says: I am bad. Guilt is connected to behaviour. It can motivate repair, apology, and change. Shame is connected to identity. It says that what happened is not a reflection of something you did, it is a revelation of something you are.

For a leader in ministry, the slide from guilt to shame is almost automatic in a performance-based system. When the ministry declines, when the program fails, when the congregation splits, when the numbers fall, it does not feel like something went wrong. It feels like something is wrong with them.

This is not an overreaction. It is the predictable consequence of a system that has taught the community that their worth is based on their output. If the output is the measure of worth, then insufficient output means insufficient worth. That is shame personified. And it lives, as Brown describes it, in secrecy, silence, and judgment.

“Shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing we are flawed and therefore unworthy of acceptance and belonging” —Brene Brown

A church that exists from a shame-based dialogue is unsustainable, and this model will fail.

“For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” —Colossians 3:3-4:

Performance and Shame Co-exist

Performance and shame are not two separate problems that happen to coexist in ministry. They are the same wound expressing itself in two directions.

Performance is the external expression: what the leader shows the world. I am productive. I am capable. I am useful. I am worth the space I take up because of what I produce.

Shame is the internal disposition: what the leader carries in private. I am not enough. I am never enough. If they really knew me, they would see that I am not who they think I am.

The performance is driven by shame. The leader produces more because the shame tells her that what she has already produced is insufficient. They give more because the shame tells them that who they already are is not enough to justify belonging.

Maslach and Leiter identify six organisational factors that contribute to burnout: workload (demands exceeding capacity), control (lack of autonomy), reward (insufficient recognition), community (absence of supportive relationships), fairness (perceived inequality), and values (ethical conflicts).[3]

They cannot rest because shame tells them their worth ends the moment their output does.

This is why the compassionate gap exists. A person living under shame cannot receive compassion for their present because receiving compassion requires acknowledging need, and acknowledging need confirms what the shame already whispers: that they are lacking, that they are inadequate, that they are not enough.

So the church keeps requiring more. They keep producing. They smile at the right moments and push through the hard ones. And the gap between who they are and who they are supposed to be grows wider with every year of unsustainable, shame-driven ministry.

Polarised Theology of Good and Bad

Christianity, like this, has been flattened into a system of morality. It knows about grace in the abstract. It can articulate justification by faith. But in practice, in the lived reality of daily leadership, it operates almost entirely on the logic of good and bad. Good leaders do not burn out. Good Christians do not need that much rest. Good ministers are available. Good women do not take up too much space. Good families do not have needs of their own.

This version of Christianity does not produce regenerative leaders. It produces exhausted performers who have learned to hide their depletion so well that even the people closest to them cannot see it.

The Pharisee and the Tax Collector

Jesus told a story about this exact dynamic in Luke 18. Two men go to the temple to pray. The Pharisee prays with confidence: I fast twice a week, I give a tenth of all I get. I am not like other people. The tax collector will not even lift his eyes. He cries, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

Jesus says the tax collector went home justified. Not the Pharisee.

The Pharisee is not a villain. He is a performer. He has built his standing before God on his output, on his fasting, his tithing, his comparative righteousness. He does not appear to be lying. He genuinely believes he has done what was required. And he cannot receive grace because he does not believe he needs it.

The tax collector cannot perform his way to God. He has nothing to offer. So he comes with open hands, which turns out to be the only posture in which grace can actually be received.

A regenerative community is invited to become the tax collector. To come with empty hands. To stop performing goodness before God and before the people she leads, and to receive what she could never produce for herself.

Regeneration: to Rebirth

Regeneration is the most radical element in this framework. Not because it is new, but because the church has almost entirely forgotten to apply it to the leaders who serve within it.

Regeneration does not say, “Try harder, and eventually you will be good enough.”

Regeneration says, “You have been made new.”

I had a dream a few years ago about a barnacled heart. One where the church’s ecosystem had created hard barnacles on the church’s soul, making it difficult to breathe and move freely.

When a boat has been in the water for too long and barnacles form, it requires fresh water to renew it to its former state. A softness of God’s presence must be released upon the earth in this season. The louder we shout with vengeance and performance-oriented expression, the more muddy the understanding of who God is and his passion for relationship over religion.

Not improved. Not reformed. Not given a better set of tools to manage your inadequacy. Made new. Given a new heart. Brought from death to life. Not because you performed your way there but because God, who is rich in mercy, acted on your behalf before you could do anything to deserve it.

Freedom looks like a lighter spirit.

Freedom looks like laughter in the neighbourhood

Freedom looks like people eating and listening to one another with intentionality.

Ephesians 2:4-5  But God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions — it is by grace you have been saved.

Ephesians 2:8-9  For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God — not by works, so that no one can boast.

The theological antidote to shame is not better performance. It is not trying harder to be good. It is the complete reorientation of identity from what I do to who I am in Christ.

Belovedness

One of my dear friends who has passed on to heaven had this word tattooed on her wrist. It was a reminder above all else that she was beloved.

Do your youth in your church feel beloved before all else?

Do the elderly feel beloved as they walk a little slower?

Do women feel beloved in the way you listen to their perspective and insight?

Before Jesus did anything in his public ministry, before he healed anyone or taught anyone or challenged anyone, God spoke over him at his baptism:

Matthew 3:17  “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”

He had not yet preached a sermon. He had not yet fed the five thousand. He had not yet called the disciples. He had not yet done anything that a performance economy would recognise as success.

Do you realise you could sit on the beach for the rest of your days and God would love you just as much as if you moved to the worst slum in the world and served the vulnerable?

God calls you beloved.

The Six Ideas as Acts of Resistance Against Shame

Could you reframe your leadership through the following lens?

Return — Coming back to yourself and to God

Shame says:  You should not be here. A good leader would not have ended up depleted.

The gospel says:  Come. Just as you are. I will give you rest.

Journaling Prompt: What Barnacles have hardened my heart in this season?

Receive — Learning to be replenished

Shame says:  You have not done enough to deserve rest yet.

The gospel says:  He makes me lie down in green pastures. He restores my soul.

Journaling Prompt: When was the last time I felt truly relaxed?

Reconnect — Recovering identity beneath the role

Shame says:  You are what you produce. Without the role, you are nothing.

The gospel says:  You are beloved. Before the role, before the work, before the results.

Journaling Prompt: Where do I gain my notoriety and identity from?

Reimagine — Designing a sustainable model

Shame says:  Your needs are inconvenient. A good leader would not ask for this.

The gospel says:  Ask, and it will be given. Seek, and you will find.

Journaling Prompt: When was the last time I asked for help?

Release — Leading from fullness

Shame says:  You must keep giving or you will not be needed.

The gospel says:  I have come that you might have life, and have it abundantly.

Journaling Prompt: What behaviours am I being led to lay down in this season?

Reproduce — Nurturing the next generation

Shame says:  Earn your place. Prove you belong before you are given responsibility.

The gospel says:  The table was always yours. Come and eat.

Journaling Prompt: What would I say to a teenage version of myself? Write a letter of forgiveness.

It is time to make our service and communities sustainable.

A leader who has done the interior work of regenerative ministry, who has named their depletion, received grace for it, and learned to lead from a place of genuine fullness rather than shame-driven performance, that leader is magnetic to the next generation, not because they are impressive but because they are free.

You cannot create a sense of belonging for others if you do not believe you belong. You cannot extend grace to the next generation if you are living under a theology that withholds it from yourself.

The regenerative church: the tapestry of community where God is moving across the neighbourhood is not built by leaders who have achieved sufficient goodness. It is built by leaders who have received sufficient grace. Leaders who know they are enough not because of what they have done but because of who they belong to.

A Different Kind of Enough

Brené Brown observed that the opposite of scarcity is not abundance. It is enough. I am enough. My kids are enough. My house is enough. My message is enough. I have done my best, and that honours God.

Enough is not a destination. It is a posture, like that of the tax collector, the posture of the woman at the well, the posture of the one who comes with empty hands and discovers that this is exactly what God was waiting for.

Zephaniah 3:17  The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love, he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.

There is a God who sings over you. Not over your performance, your program, your platform. Over you.

Regenerative ministry begins the moment we believe this is true.

[1] Maslach, Christina, and Michael P. Leiter. “Understanding the Burnout Experience: Recent Research and Its Implications for Psychiatry.” World Psychiatry 15, no. 2 (2016). 103–111.

[2] Barna Group, The State of Pastors, Volume 2 (Ventura, CA: Barna Group, 2024), 13.

[3] Maslach and Leiter, “Understanding the Burnout Experience,” 105-107.