When the Shepherd Is Weary—and God Invites Renewal
If there’s one thing we often forget in the church, it’s this: pastors are human.
They carry stress, absorb grief, and quietly bear the burdens of the people they serve—often without ever voicing their own exhaustion.
In this episode of Honest Christian Conversations, I sit down with Dr. Ioana Popa, whose ministry grew out of her personal experience with burnout. This is a conversation every pastor, ministry leader, volunteer, and anyone who loves a church leader needs to hear.
Ioana explains that burnout isn’t simply tiredness—it’s whole-body depletion: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. It doesn’t arrive loudly. It builds quietly until the person who has always been strong suddenly can’t keep going. Even with years of medical training and deep faith, Ioana herself burned out—twice—not because she lacked wisdom, but because she had been taught, like many Christians, to push harder instead of tending to her own soul.
Through her ministry, Team for the Soul, Ioana helps leaders rediscover a biblical truth we often overlook: God cares about the whole person. Body, mind, heart, and spirit are not separate—they are deeply connected. Healing must address all of them. Her work blends faith and science, offering practical rhythms of renewal, rest, and silence—reminding us that rest is not laziness, but a spiritual discipline Jesus Himself practiced.
We also talk about silence—why it feels uncomfortable, especially for busy leaders and parents, and why it’s often the very place where God meets us most gently. Even a few intentional minutes of stillness can begin to restore a weary soul.
🎧 Listen to the episode to hear why burnout is not failure, how God invites renewal without shame, and why pastors and leaders deserve care just as much as those they serve.
💬 After listening, join the conversation in the community, where we reflect together on rest, healing, and learning to care for the ones who so faithfully care for others.
Wife. Mother of five. Podcaster. Fiction Novelist
Ana is the host of the Honest Christian Conversations podcast and a prodigal saved by God’s unending grace.
She grew up in a legalistic Christian home where asking questions often felt wrong. In her early twenties, overwhelmed by confusion and hurt, she walked away from her faith. Yet even then, God’s love never stopped pursuing her. At thirty years old—and after a painful second divorce—He brought her back to himself, and she has never looked back.
As Ana returned to Christ, she began rebuilding her faith from the ground up and asked the questions she once feared to ask. Along that journey, she discovered inconsistencies, misplaced teachings, and even lies woven into the Christianity she grew up with. Instead of destroying her faith, this only deepened it. Out of that discovery, she founded Honest Christian Conversations. Ana's heart is to help others navigate the same tension she once lived with: wanting to know the real Jesus while sorting through the noise of deceptive teachings, spiritual manipulation, and “wolves in sheep’s clothing.”
Everything she creates flows from gratitude for the God who rescued her, restored her, and continues to shape her into who He intended her to be.
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