CNA Staff, Oct 4, 2025 / 07:00 am

Daniel Whitehead knew it was time for a change when his wife told him she couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen him smile. With the strain of constantly meeting with people who were struggling, the Christian pastor said he had “gone numb.”

“I realized in that moment, it had been well over a year that I’d felt any emotion,” he told CNA. “No laughter, no tears, just numbness.”

Then he discovered Sanctuary Mental Health Ministries . At the time, it was a small, local ecumenical group creating resources for mental health in pastoral ministry. Nine years later, Whitehead has become its leader and Sanctuary has become a large-scale resource operating across the world.

Working through burnout “was really confusing,” Whitehead said of his own experience

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