I know what your Sunday looks like. Not the version you describe when someone asks how it's going — the version that happens in your car on the way home. The replay of the conversation that went sideways. The family you couldn't reach. The member who left the meeting angry at something you said, or didn't say, or said wrong. The list of people you didn't have time for, the calls you still need to make, the situation that kept you up at 2 a.m. this week. I know that version. This letter is for that version.
What Your Sunday Actually Looks Like
You got to the building early. You had three conversations before the meeting started, two of which were about things that needed immediate attention. During sacrament meeting, you were not present — you were mentally triaging. After the meeting, you had at least four people waiting to talk to you. One of them was in crisis. One was angry about something you couldn't fix. One needed something from you that you don't have the resources to give. You got home late. Your family asked how it went. You said "fine." Because how do you explain to someone who wasn't there what it feels like to carry a hundred people's pain through a two-hour meeting?
Nobody in your ward knows any of this. And somehow, that makes it heavier — the isolation of a calling that asks you to hold everyone else's weight while appearing to do so effortlessly.
You have not talked about this to anyone. Not fully. Not the real version. Because talking about it feels like complaining, and complaining feels like faithlessness, and faithlessness feels like confirmation of the thing you're already afraid of: that you are not enough for this calling.
That fear is the lie. And it is wearing you out.
Here Is the Lie That Is Wearing You Out
The lie is this: that your worth as a leader is measured by the outcomes of the people you serve. That if someone leaves the church, you failed. That if a marriage ends, you didn't do enough. That if a ward member is suffering, it is evidence of something you missed.
This lie is wearing you out because it requires you to be responsible for things that are not yours to control. A bishop is not a contractor. He does not guarantee outcomes. He shows up, he witnesses, he loves, he points toward God. What happens next is between that person and the Lord. When you absorb everyone's outcomes as your personal success or failure, you are not being more Christ-like. You are building a rubber band ball that is eventually going to become impossible to carry.
The Savior himself — who had all power — did not force healing on anyone. He offered. He invited. He wept. He did not take people's agency from them, and he did not carry their choices as his burden. You were called to follow his example of service — not to exceed his methods by shouldering what even he did not claim.
You are not failing. You are carrying too much. Those are very different problems — and only one of them is yours to solve.
What You Were Actually Called To Do
You were called to show up. Not to fix. Not to guarantee. Not to be responsible for outcomes you cannot control. There is a profound difference between presence and outcome, and most leaders who are burning out have confused the two. They have mistaken their calling to be present for a calling to be responsible — and those are not the same thing.
Your job is presence, not outcome. It is to sit with someone in their pain and say: "I see you. I am here. God has not forgotten you." What they do with that is theirs. The people in your ward who are struggling are not failing you. They are carrying their own rubber band balls. Your job is not to carry those balls for them. It is to point them toward the one who can help them set the balls down.
You are a guide to the Atonement — not a substitute for it. That is not a lesser calling. It is the right one. And it is one you can actually fulfill without disappearing in the process.
What Putting It Down Actually Looks Like
Putting it down looks like driving home on Sunday and making a deliberate choice not to carry the weight of the ward through your front door. Not because you don't care — because you do. But because the person who walks through that door is also a husband, a father, a friend, a man who needs restoration. He cannot give from an empty reservoir.
Putting it down looks like praying for the member who is angry at you — genuinely, with real intention — and then releasing the outcome. You have done your part. What happens next is not your responsibility to control. You cannot love someone into choosing well. You can only love them and then trust the Lord with what comes after.
Putting it down looks like telling someone "I see that you're struggling, and I am here" — and meaning it — without then spending the next three nights awake trying to solve a problem that is not yours to solve. Witness. Point. Release. That is the calling. The rest belongs to God.
And if there is something specific you're carrying — a failure, a regret, a moment where you genuinely fell short — the Five Surrenders are not just for ward members. The process was written for people who carry too much. Leaders qualify.
A Word Before I Close
You were not called to disappear. You were not called to sacrifice your family, your health, and your peace on the altar of a calling that was never meant to require that. You were called to lead — and leaders who run on empty eventually go dark. The most faithful thing you can do for your ward is to take care of yourself. Not instead of serving them. In order to continue serving them well.
The person your ward needs most is a leader who is still standing in five years. Not a leader who burned through everything he had in eighteen months and had nothing left. Longevity is a form of faithfulness too. Restoration is not self-indulgence. It is how you remain capable of giving.
You are not failing. You are carrying too much. Those are different problems — and only one of them is yours to solve. The other one belongs to the Lord. Let him have it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it normal to feel like you're failing as a bishop?
Yes — and the fact that it bothers you is evidence that you care. The feeling of failing as a leader is nearly universal among those who take their calling seriously. The problem is rarely actual failure. The problem is usually a misunderstanding of what you were called to do — and a habit of absorbing other people's outcomes as personal responsibility.
How do I tell the difference between genuine failure and carrying too much?
Genuine failure involves a specific action you took — or didn't take — that you had control over. Carrying too much involves feeling responsible for outcomes that were never yours to control: whether a ward member chooses to stay in the church, whether a struggling family pulls through, whether an angry member forgives you. If you can name the specific thing you did wrong, that is something to address. If it is a vague, heavy sense that everything is somehow your fault, you are carrying too much.
Is there a resource specifically for LDS leaders who are burning out?
Yes. Chapter 13 of The Rubber Band Ball by Ronald Howard is titled "Leading Without Carrying Everyone" and was written specifically for LDS bishops, Relief Society presidents, and youth leaders. A free downloadable Leader's Guide is also available at therubberbandball.com/resources.
How do I serve my ward without neglecting my family?
The answer is not a time management system. It is a fundamental shift in what you believe your calling requires of you. You were called to show up for your ward — not to be responsible for their outcomes. When you carry your ward home with you every night, you are not being more devoted. You are draining the reservoir that your family needs. Serving your ward and protecting your family are not in conflict. They only conflict when you believe your job is to fix everything.
You Were Called to Lead. Not to Disappear.
Chapter 13 of The Rubber Band Ball is titled "Leading Without Carrying Everyone." It was written for leaders who are quietly running on empty. A free Leader's Guide is also available.