Formation through disorientation

This article intervenes in contemporary practical theological discourse on clergy burnout by critically reexamining the category of Reduced Personal Accomplishment (RPA), a core dimension of burnout that refers to a sustained sense of diminished ministerial effectiveness, inadequacy, and loss of vocational meaning. Dominant burnout frameworks interpret RPA primarily as diminished professional efficacy, grounded in performance-oriented anthropological assumptions. This study argues that such assumptions are theologically misaligned with ecclesial vocation and insufficient for interpreting ministerial experience, particularly in contexts marked by pressures, such as those where churches exist as religious minorities. Employing constructive practical theological methodology, the article proposes Formation Through Disorientation as a normative framework that reconfigures RPA as vocational disorientation rather than functional deficit. Integrating vocation theology, imago Dei anthropology, and cruciform spirituality, the framework reorients burnout discourse from managerial restoration toward ontological realignment of ministerial identity. Drawing on Indonesian minority church realities as a critical case, the article contributes a Global South theological anthropology that challenges dominant Western paradigms and advances practical theology’s engagement with identity, legitimacy, and perseverance in ministry.