Mad Church Disease by Anne JacksonFirst time authors like Anne Jackson are few and far in between. Her blog FlowerDust.net is one of the top-ranked blogs for Christian leadership. In a recent list of the top 60, she is #18, and one of only three women on the entire list. She has an amazing heart for God's people and unity within his Church, both topics she regularly writes and blogs about, which makes the fact that her first book is about church burnout no surprise.

As unique as Anne may be, she is not alone in her journey. Her newly-released book Mad Church Disease: Overcoming the Burnout Epidemic is both a refreshing confession and hard look at the struggles of ministry burnout, its symptoms, and the dangers it can bring into the church and in the lives of its leaders.

This book isn't just for pastors. The symptoms of burnout affect everyone from the senior pastor to the worship team to the greeters at the door. If everyone should have a ministry, then everyone, in some way, can be affected by Mad Church Disease.
 
Jackson starts the book by opening up emotionally and sharing her story in order to introduce herself and allow the reader to be able to better relate with her story. Anne is a pastor's daughter, and her family has been hurt by the church continually in the past.
 
When she was just sixteen, she prayed a bold prayer, telling God that she would leave the church entirely, unless he gave her a way to bring unity back into it. Lucky for both her and us, after years of silence, God answered Anne's prayer.

Anne dives right into the issue of burnout, or, as she puts it, "Mad Church Disease." She shares the correlation between mad cow disease's traits and the symptoms of burnout within the church. Explaining that between attacking via hidden and internal methods or laying dormant until it is too late in a person's life, Anne expresses the gravity and real dangers of ministry burnout. "Cows don't have much hope when they are infected with mad cow disease," she elaborates. "Even though the process can take years, they die. There's no vaccine. We're a bit more fortunate. Satan's sole purpose in life is to ruin us -- but God's sole purpose in life is to redeem us. Cows don't get a second chance -- but we are promised a second chance, and more."

Through in-depth examination and reflection on the concept of "Mad Church Disease," Anne guides the reader through the different ways that we can all be attacked. Our physical, mental, social, and spiritual health suffer when burnout is raging inside us. At the end of each chapter, she provides a place for serious reflection on the risks of burnout and a second opinion in the form of an interview with an "expert in the field," such as Willow Creek's Bill Hybels.

Thankfully, unlike most books on the dangers of ministry, Mad Church Disease does more than suggest the symptoms. There is much healing to be found within these pages of Jackson's first book. Between finding that you're not alone on the battlefield and the redemption that God has had for us all along, you have the potential to see some of your deepest wounds healed through Anne's compassionate words. Jackson devotes a large portion of the book to finding remedies for and preventing burnout and its attacks on our bodies, minds, relationships, and souls. Towards the end of the book, Anne dives into a practical pursuit of spiritual restoration, forgiveness of those who have wronged you, and living life to the fullest.

I really don't have enough good things to say about both the author and her first book, but I will leave it at this: There are so many factors holding back Christians, especially leaders, from doing and being something great. Mad Church Disease is a wonderfully-written book that I believe anyone could benefit from by discovering the healing and redemption on each page.

You can find more information about Mad Church Disease: Overcoming the Burnout Epidemic at www.madchurchdisease.com (where you can read a free sample chapter of MCD). Anne Jackson currently serves on staff at Cross Point Church and lives with her husband in Nashville, TN. You can find her at FlowerDust.net.
Joe loves life in Nashville, Tn and spends most of his days reading, writing, playing guitar, eating great food, and deepening himself in a dependence of the love of his heavenly Father. He blogs at: www.josephallyngomez.com.