Wes Jessop on Faith, Christian Surfers & Overcoming Burnout in Ministry
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How did Wes Jessop overcome burnout in ministry, and what role did faith and Christian faith play?
How do you stay passionate and healthy in ministry for the long haul? Wes Jessop, a longtime pastor, evangelist, and leader, has wrestled with this question firsthand. From his early days in Christian Surfers to church planting and pastoring, Wes has seen both the highs of ministry success and the deep valleys of burnout.
In this honest and raw conversation on Sunburnt Souls, Dave Quak sits down with Wes to talk about:
How surfing and faith collided to shape his ministry journey
Lessons from evangelism, youth ministry, and church planting
What caused his burnout after years in leadership—and how he recovered
Finding identity in Christ rather than in ministry performance
The father heart of God and the power of becoming a spiritual father
How churches can create a culture of health and longevity in leadership
For anyone in ministry, this episode is a must-listen. Wes shares deep wisdom, painful lessons, and hope for those struggling with burnout or performance-driven faith.
Want to hear more from Wes? Subscribe to Sunburnt Souls, check out Fire Church Gold Coast, and keep up with his mentoring and discipleship work.
Keep reading to dive into Wes’s journey and discover how God’s love can sustain us through the pressures of life and ministry.
Dave Quak: Wes Jessop. Good to see you, mate.
Wes Jessop: Thanks, Dave. Good to see you too.
Dave Quak: Let’s start with the stuff that matters. Yesterday was your wife's birthday. How did you meet Jen, and how long have you been married? What’s going on in your world at the moment?
Wes Jessop: I’ve lost track of how long we’ve been married, so I hope she’s not listening! I did work out the other day that New Year’s was the 40th anniversary of our first kiss.
Dave Quak: Wait, so you kissed her on New Year’s for the first time?
Wes Jessop: Yep, that’s right!
Dave Quak: Do you remember the year though?
Wes Jessop: No.
Dave Quak: Fair enough. And how long have you been married?
Wes Jessop: 39 years this year.
Dave Quak: That’s awesome! Have you always followed Christ, or what’s your story with that?
Wes Jessop: We both came from Christian families, but they were more religious than anything else. I’ve got to be thankful that they at least passed on the gospel, though. I wouldn’t be where I am without that. As adults, we both made a more serious decision to follow Christ. For me, it happened around the age of 20 through an outreach ministry in Sydney. For Jen, it was in her mid-teens after a visiting evangelist spoke at her church. She made a heartfelt commitment to follow Jesus then.
Dave Quak: That’s great. So, were you involved in Christian surfing communities in your 20s?
From Christian Surfers to Full-Time Ministry: Wes Jessop Journey
Wes Jessop: Yeah, I was a mad keen surfer in those days. Looking back, I guess I was put off by the kind of Christianity I’d seen. It just wasn’t attractive to me at that time. I wanted to be “cool,” and the Christians I knew didn’t seem to fit that mould. But then I bumped into a group of people who were my kind of crowd—surfers who shared my interests.
They communicated the gospel in a way that made me realise I could still be myself and follow Christ.
Dave Quak: That’s awesome. These days, churches are way more engaging and have their own subcultures, but back then, that wasn’t really the case.
Wes Jessop: Not at all. When I was growing up, church felt old-fashioned—like singing hymns from the 1600s. The Christians I knew were all cranky, and there wasn’t anything exciting about it. But when I hit my 20s, a few churches started becoming more contemporary. Now, things are much more relevant, and it makes a big difference.
Dave Quak: Yeah, the landscape has really changed.
Wes Jessop: I don’t want to sound too superficial, but those changes help. The music, the vibe—it all makes church feel more accessible and relevant.
Dave Quak: For sure. I think anything we can do to make the transition from not knowing Jesus to meeting him easier is so important.
Wes Jessop: The message is demanding, so it’s good to remove cultural roadblocks wherever possible. That helps make it easier for people to hear.
Dave Quak: Absolutely. Was Jen a breath of fresh air for you, especially since she’s one of the happiest people I know?
Wes Jessop: By that stage, I’d already started surrounding myself with people I enjoyed. Through the Christian Surfers ministry, I met people who changed my perspective on Christianity—and Jen was one of them. I think I was already moving past my old ideas of what Christians were like, and thankfully, I saw a whole different picture because of the people I met.
Dave Quak: That’s great. Were you working at that time? Did you study?
Wes Jessop: I was an apprentice cabinet maker at the time. I did well at school, but I chose that job because the hours worked out great. I could knock off at 3 p.m., which meant I could serve every day. It was a good gig.
Dave Quak: Nice. Sounds like a solid choice. And here you are now.
Wes Jessop: Yeah, funny how it all works out!
Dave Quak: Oh, yeah. We all make great decisions about time-wise thinking.
Wes Jessop: Yeah. Get in the surf and sweat—that was what my life was about.
Dave Quak: Okay, so you were a cabinet maker, churning gin. And then you started serving with CS. Did that lead to more formal ministry, or what was going on in your life?
Wes Jessop: It was probably starting that particular Christian Surfers Club. It was the first one that really launched into a worldwide movement. Being the first, it was very successful with heaps of converts, and that got me excited about it.
Wes Jessop: For the first time, I saw ministry being exciting—changes in people’s lives. People getting saved, people getting on fire. That really lit something in me. Jen and I moved away, and when we got married a year later, we bought a house away from the beach. But we noticed there were all these kids in Sydney waiting at the train station near where we lived.
Dave Quak: Where they bored?
Wes Jessop: Yeah. So we thought, let’s start a club, even though we were half a mile from the beach. Let’s start a surfing club here. The kids were sitting ducks because getting a lift to the beach was better than getting on the train. But God did crazy things, and we saw good results. There are still people I keep in contact with who are still walking with the Lord. One of them is now an incredibly successful youth speaker.
Dave Quak: That’s awesome.
What is it like to enter pastoral ministry?
One thing led to another, and we moved to the Gold Coast. We thought we’d do the same thing up here, but we failed miserably. Couldn’t get anyone interested. But the church I was attending said, “Why don’t you come be our youth pastor?”
Dave Quak: Okay.
Wes Jessop: Yeah, I was hungry for more ministry because it was so exciting to see the changes in people’s lives, so that took us down that path.
Dave Quak: So you’re a youth pastor. Did you go to Bible college or anything like that?
Wes Jessop: Yeah, I think the first year I was youth pastoring, I tried a couple of subjects. I didn’t have an academic background, but when I found something I was passionate about, I started putting in the work. My church very kindly sponsored me to study a couple of days a week. So then I ramped it up to a degree, and they employed me for about ten years.
Dave Quak: That’s awesome.
Wes Jessop: Yeah, they paid for my formal education, which was very generous of them.
Dave Quak: When you were speaking about the course in Sydney, it’s a bit surprising how you were half a mile from the beach in Sydney and then moved to the Gold Coast and it wasn’t the same. Did you still see people coming to faith at church, even though the surfing thing didn’t take off?
Wes Jessop: Well, I was blessed because the church I started at was the fastest-growing, conversion-focused church in Australia at the time. I don’t know how they measure that, but that’s what I was told. At that time, the biggest evangelistic tool was something called Christianity Explained, which was a Sydney Anglican thing.
Dave Quak: Yeah.
Wes Jessop: We ran that and saw an unbelievable number of converts. Looking back, everyone on staff was an evangelist, which was a bit crazy, but it was wonderful. So I got to learn a lot. Evangelism was my passion, and to see the guys around me just smashing it was very exciting. It was great to be part of the evangelism efforts.
Dave Quak: What is it about evangelism that gets you so excited?
Wes Jessop: Funny thing is, I actually don’t do much of it now. It seems to be a season that’s changed. For a long time, I didn’t understand that, I just thought, “Roll with whatever God’s doing with you.” But it’s the life change. Now, I probably get just as excited seeing a life change in an existing believer. Maybe that’s just a stage of life. Not that you ever move past evangelism, but when you’re working with younger people, they’re so open, and it’s easier for them to change direction in life.
Wes Jessop: At that stage of life, you see a lot of conversions if you’ve got a bit of fire about it.
Dave Quak: That’s awesome. It sounds like the church was reaching that younger demographic, which is something we’ve always got to stay focused on. What happened next? You were there for ten years?
Wes Jessop: Yeah, I took a year just to finish, awful. Did some postgrad studies to wrap things up.
Dave Quak: Yeah.
Wes Jessop: Then I took my first senior, or solo, pastor gig in Logan.
Dave Quak: Oh, yeah.
Wes Jessop: And promptly destroyed the church. Had to move on rather quickly.
What should Christians do when they feel mismatched in ministry?
Logan was a complete mismatch. Me in that church. I had it in my head that I was going to go do something for people in a lower demographic. They picked up on that vibe and felt insulted. I was just clueless. I knew so little about leadership, thought I knew it all, and, you know, managed to make a big mess in 18 months.
Wes Jessop: After that, went back to a youth pastor job, or more likely young adults and evangelism. Everywhere I went, evangelism just fit. Had some great experiences, God did a lot in people's lives. Some cool things happened. A lot of pastors came out of that young adults ministry, stacks of converts, and it gave me space to do a fair bit of itinerant stuff as an evangelist too.
Dave Quak: Yeah. Nice.
Wes Jessop: Then moved down to the Gold Coast to plant the church where you and I met.
Dave Quak: Yeah, that's where we met. Nearly 20 years ago now. Wow. Hey, we still look just as good as we did back then.
Wes Jessop: Oh, yeah. My hair’s a different colour.
What was Beachside Christian Church like?
Beachside was a lot of fun. Early days, lots of converts. I think when the Quak family came down, it really got going. We got the youth ministry happening, and that was the best part of ten years of fun.
Dave Quak: Yeah, that was good. We saw lots of people come to faith.
Wes Jessop: And people really progressed. Where I stand on Holy Spirit stuff, it was a massive advancement. People started out quite conservative, and they moved a long way from that. Many of them still are, but some kind of stepped back into a more conservative place. Whatever works for them with the Lord, it's all good.
Dave Quak: That’s right. Ten years of doing that together, and then what happened?
Wes Jessop: I wiped myself out completely. Burned out. Dropped out of ministry completely. I was feeling tired, not wanting to continue, lost my passion, confused, resentful, angry... just in a bad way.
Dave Quak: Yeah. That’s a big deal. And taking ten years to sort through it all. What do you think led to that? Looking back, what happened?
Wes Jessop: Ministry is a bit of a pressure cooker. I remember in science class when I was a kid, they showed me this experiment. They put water in a big steel can, sealed it, and placed a Bunsen burner underneath. As the water heated up, the air pressure inside became greater than outside, and the can just collapsed. I’ve always thought that’s not a bad analogy for ministry. If the pressures outside are greater than what you have going on inside, you will crumple.
Dave Quak: Yeah, okay.
Wes Jessop: That’s what happened to me. I wasn’t aware at the time, but I did get some warning signs. In the last year, I started to notice things in myself that scared me. I found myself being jealous of other guys who were more successful, jealous of people getting bigger speaking gigs than me. I noticed it and thought, “What is this? This isn’t right.” I felt like I had a choice: do I squash this down and ignore it, or face it? I knew I couldn’t ignore it. I’d have zero integrity. So I started exploring it, and that’s when things started to unravel. I realised how much my self-esteem was built on ministry.
Dave Quak: Okay, very.
Wes Jessop: I’m a competitive person. In everything I tried, I always wanted to be the best at it, and that made me feel good about myself. But when I entered ministry, I brought that same mindset with me, thinking I was doing well, thinking I was going hard at ministry because that’s what mattered. What I didn’t realise was that underneath all of that was a broken need in me. I was just bringing a worldly method of self-esteem into the Christian sphere.
Dave Quak: Yeah, okay.
Wes Jessop: I’ve heard people say that a Christian’s self-esteem is based on their gifts, and that’s just atrocious. It’s no good. Your self-esteem as a Christian has to be 100% intrinsic. It can’t be attached to external pursuits. You can’t earn it. You’ve got to train your brain, renew your mind, and make it your experience: “I’m loved by God.”
Dave Quak: Yeah.
Wes Jessop: The end. That's what makes me valuable, and I can't add a single thing to it. Not ministry success, not being good, not doing stuff, not being gifted. All of those things are hopeless because you will compete and compare about it. And it's back to a works thing. Like, this is a faith about grace, and your value is totally a grace thing.
Wes Jessop: Not if you've got to earn it. You're on the wrong track.
Dave Quak: Now, that is really insightful. When you speak about the competitiveness that's deep down inside you, do you know where you can trace that back to? What was that like for you as a little kid?
Wes Jessop: I think what it comes from is I was adopted out as a little kid, and again, I was never aware of this. I just thought, "I'm being normal." But it left a void, as far as value was concerned. You know, you've got this underlying thing of rejection.
Although I was never conscious of it, I can now recognise it in hindsight. I was just trying to plug that hole all the time. And because I didn't know it was there, I didn't come into ministry acknowledging that or seeing a need to work on it. I thought, "Oh, this is good. I'm just going hard for the Lord. This is great. I'm doing the right thing."
How can pastors and ministry leaders overcome burnout and stay passionate long-term?
Yeah. I had a scary thought, probably about five years ago. I thought back to all that. I used to love going to pastors' conferences, you know, where they'd have some guru in and you’d learn new stuff and hear what's happening. And I just had this horrible thought: I’m putting myself in this.
I'm not pointing a finger at anyone else, but I thought, when I asked all my peers, "What's happening? What's the exciting news?" It was always, "We got 100 new people, we added staff, we got buildings." And I don’t ever remember anyone saying, "Man, I had this incredible time with Jesus, and I just feel overwhelmed by His love, and I’m learning so much. I can't wait to hang out with Him."
And that made me feel sick when I realised that. Firstly, I had a deep problem. But I think it's systemic in ministry. It's a huge issue. If you do have success and you’re good at it, you don’t ask the deeper questions because there’s some degree of fulfilment. Your addiction to excitement is being fulfilled.
Dave Quak: Well, I mean, I guess the evidence is you got to, what, 50, before it caught up with you? That’s a long time to be able to do ministry like that, with all that happening under the surface.
Wes Jessop: And my fear is I would be suspicious that many, possibly most Christian leaders, haven’t figured that one out. God blessed me... I hope I'm wrong.
Dave Quak: And I hope you're wrong, but if you're not... So, you mentioned burnout, right? For those who don’t know what that’s like or haven’t experienced it, or walked with someone who has, what is that like?
Wes Jessop: Yeah, it's really difficult to perceive if you haven’t had it happen, because it just sounds like some whingey, sucky sort of thing. I guess I’ve always been a highly motivated, determined person who will get up and work hard at everything. And then, it's like you reach a point where you just physically can’t. It’s like the wind has gone out of your sails. You just can’t keep going. Simple as that.
Dave Quak: Like your body just says, "No more"?
Wes Jessop: Emotionally, something inside of you has just shut down, and you can’t summon the energy that you usually are able to find. You’re just physically incapable.
Dave Quak: Yeah, right. So, from going really driven, loving what you're doing, lots of energy, what did the next little while look like? Once you resigned from Beachside and finished up officially, what were the next few months like for you?
Wes Jessop: You know, probably both anger and depression, which I’m told are two sides of the same coin. Feeling lost. I have to say, at first, probably some relief, because unless you’ve been in a serious leadership position, you won’t know how demanding that role is.
Dave Quak: Yeah.
Wes Jessop: It's a hard gig, and I have full respect for people in leadership and pastoral roles. It's hard, man. It’s not easy.
Dave Quak: You hanging around, going to the beach...
Wes Jessop: Yeah, I know, it’s tough.
Wes Jessop: You're dealing with conflict all the time. You're trying to solve money problems. You political staff it. You've got pressures in your own life. Incredible time demands. You never have enough dough to deal with your arm. So everything's accumulating. You're running dry emotionally, you're short financially, and you're living with a lot of conflict. Yeah, that takes its toll.
Dave Quak: Okay, so depression and anger—did you go into a dark phase with the depression side of things? Were you able to function? Did you work? For me, when I go through those bouts, I’m really attracted to sleep. I just want to withdraw from human contact a lot, love being in dark rooms. What did it look like for you?
Wes Jessop: I probably had mini burnout phases, where it got worse. I think I came out of that depression a bit quicker, but I had a dark mood probably for a couple of years.
Dave Quak: Yeah.
Wes Jessop: But I think the anger side was more prominent than the depression side. And that made me realise another trap of ministry. Like anyone else, you’ve got to deal with the stuff in your heart. I recognise now that I didn’t.
Dave Quak: Okay.
Wes Jessop: Something that crept up on me was resentment that I wasn’t aware of.
Dave Quak: Yeah.
Wes Jessop: Again, a hard thing in leadership is you have well-intended people in your church or ministry who say, “Yeah, I’ll do this, I’ll do that, I’m committed.” Then they don’t show up, you’re covering, and there’s a shortfall in the money. You’re finding it. And if you don’t deal with that, something gets twisted. So yeah, I wasn’t dealing with my resentment along the way, and it built up until I was really ticked off.
Dave Quak: Yeah. So the anger was primarily directed at people?
Wes Jessop: Yeah, I think so.
Dave Quak: Yeah.
Wes Jessop: Ultimately, it’s all on me because people are people. They’ve got growth issues, their own brokenness. I took a leadership role, which is about growing people, and I didn’t handle my stuff well.
Dave Quak: Yeah.
Wes Jessop: So I’m not really pointing fingers at people these days, though I will say, if you’re signing up for leadership, or you’re in there, this is real. You’ve got to get this stuff, and people will continually let you down, telling you they’ll do something they don’t, and you’ll have to do stuff you don’t want to do.
Dave Quak: Yeah.
Wes Jessop: That’s why I have so much respect for those who do it. It’s a hard gig, but for your own health, you need to deal with your stuff. Don’t let it accumulate. I had 20 years of being ticked off, which just got bigger and bigger until I spat the dummy.
Dave Quak: Did you ever feel angry towards God in the situation?
Wes Jessop: Yeah, I did. I remember thinking of that verse where Jeremiah says, “You deceived me.” He says, “You tricked me, you gave me this hard gig, and I wasn’t expecting it.” I remember feeling, unfairly, shaken. I was like, “God, this sucks. I thought I was going to do this and that. This is not what I wanted.”
Dave Quak: Yeah, that’s tough. I don’t know if this is correct, but I thought I read a commentary once that said that verse can also be translated like, “God, I feel like you’ve violated me.”
Wes Jessop: Is that right?
Dave Quak: Yeah. Okay. Like you’ve just taken it too far. And, yeah, you know, I certainly felt ripped off.
Wes Jessop: Yeah.
Dave Quak: And I think there’s a false perception of full-time ministry—well, pastoring, at least, based on my experience. I remember the first year of pastoring, getting to the end of the year, and saying in a message, which, in hindsight, was lacking wisdom, “I thought this pastoring gig was going to be about leading people to the Lord all day and all these great things, with people driving forward. Instead, I’m dealing with whingeing Christians.”
Dave Quak: They’re in the room, yeah.
Wes Jessop: Yeah, I’m preaching to them. I made more problems for myself, but that was the reality. It was a shock. I had this picture of the book of Acts, thinking all this crazy good stuff would happen. I didn’t think about the rest of the epistles, like divisions in the church, fights, and people doing this, that, and the other. I just didn’t have a realistic perspective.
Dave Quak: And I mean, by God’s grace, you got a bit of protection from that at the start too. You had a dream run at the start, with these guys coming to faith.
Wes Jessop: Yeah, I knew that the last church I was with you at, that was a dream come true. It was awesome. But it was just the accumulation of not dealing with my stuff and a whole lot of other things going on. It all came to a head, and I needed to step out and sort myself out.
Dave Quak: So what did sorting yourself out look like during this decade?
How can we know the father heart of God?
The biggest thing was the self-esteem issue I mentioned. I hadn’t figured that out at that point. Maybe people had told me, but I hadn’t perceived it, because some things, you know, you get the message when you're ready and when God opens your eyes. Maybe it was that. But I don’t recall ever hearing the right basis for Christian self-esteem.
Dave Quak: Yeah.
Wes Jessop: It probably came about through reading “right now” from Brennan Manning. I found them really helpful. It’s interesting, a Catholic priest, but now the emphasis on “the beloved.” If you haven’t read Life of the Beloved, read it. You can get through it in an hour. But I must have read that book about 20 times.
Wes Jessop: It’s so important. I think, like you, I should probably read it once every six months, just to remind myself that I’m loved. You’ve got to train your brain to accept that you are loved by God. You can’t earn it. It’s not about what other people are doing, comparing yourself to them. It’s about knowing that God loves you completely, and nothing can change that.
No success, whether positive or negative, will affect that love. It’s just for you to enjoy. It’s a journey. And it helps you go deeper in your relationship with God. Instead of seeking ministry success, you realise you need to be built on the Father’s love. That’s when you really start learning how to love Him and receive love from Him. That’s where the foundation is. You’ll be solid, no matter what life throws at you—whether it's ministry pressures or storms of life.
Dave Quak: Yeah, because like you said before, if the eternal connection with God isn’t strong enough, the external stuff will always crush us.
Wes Jessop: Exactly.
Dave Quak: And it comes down to love. That’s something I’ve always been confused about. It took me a long time to figure this out, but why does it take so long to accept God’s love?
Wes Jessop: I’m sure there are many reasons. One of the big ones I’ve noticed is that we’re just trained to compete from a young age. You know, run this race, do your best, get a ribbon or certificate. Kids know when someone’s smarter than them, even if everyone’s getting an award.
Dave Quak: Yeah.
Wes Jessop: We’re born into that mindset. And that’s the enemy at work, trying to get us to believe that we have to prove ourselves. You see it in the temptations of Christ. The enemy attacks His identity—“If you’re the Son of God, prove it. Do some tricks to impress people.” That’s the lie. We’re always being told, “Go prove you’re worth something. Go compare, compete, and invest your life in things that won’t bring you any real value.”
Dave Quak: Yeah.
Wes Jessop: But God’s grace says we don’t need to earn anything. It’s a gift. That’s what’s hard for us to break out of—this lifetime of competition and comparison. And the problem is, it’s rarely talked about.
Dave Quak: Yeah, you’re right.
Wes Jessop: But I’m encouraged by the younger Christians I meet. They seem to have figured it out early. I think, “Wow, you guys understand this in your 20s? It took me until I was 52 to get it!” I was listening to a message by Francis Chan a couple of months ago—well, actually, it was probably a couple of years ago. But he was talking about Moses' encounter with God in Exodus. What a great preacher.
Dave Quak: Yeah, he’s awesome.
Wes Jessop: And he’s describing how God presents Himself: “I am the Lord, slow to anger, compassionate, abounding in love, grace, mercy.” And I started noticing that same description in other books of the Bible, like 60 times! “I am the Lord, slow to anger, abounding in mercy.” It started to hit me—this is how God wants Himself to be perceived.
Wes Jessop: And if he was repeating this across multiple books of the Bible, the only reason you say something is because you think that people think the opposite. So I think, underlying it, people—and perhaps many of us believers—still have a picture of God as harsh.
That he's not merciful, that he's not slow to anger. That he's fiery and will snap if you do the wrong thing. But he's saying, "I want you to know I'm slow to anger, abounding in mercy, I'm compassionate." And he says it over and over again. Like, "Can you guys please understand who I really am?"
Dave Quak: Yeah.
Wes Jessop: This is who I am—slow to anger, compassionate, abounding in love and mercy. If you could get that picture of me, it would break a lot of the other stuff. The need to compete, the misunderstanding that I'm demanding more from you. So getting your picture of God right—that was a process. You know, over the last two years, I’ve been thinking about those verses.
But I think God reworked his picture of himself to me across those ten years as well. I’m not sure if I saw him as harsh, but I wasn’t perceiving that he cared for me. I saw myself as a ministry machine, and it was a badge of honour to work 80 hours a week, go hard, and sacrifice.
Wes Jessop: That’s what real believers do. I remember bumping into a verse in 1 Timothy that shocked me, where it says, "I've made every good thing for your pleasure."
Dave Quak: I’m like, what?
Wes Jessop: He's got time for pleasure? I’ve got ministry stuff of eternal consequence to get through! But I started realising God actually cares for me too—not just for the people I’m supposed to care for. He cares about me.
Dave Quak: Yeah.
Wes Jessop: That sounds so dumb, but I guess that had to connect. It helped and set me on the journey of, "Who are you really, God?" Because I think I got the wrong idea of you. I had some sort of messed-up picture of this demanding guy who just wants me to be a ministry machine, cranking out results. But he wants me to be healthy first. Not that I want to be averse and sit back, not go hard. I still go hard.
Dave Quak: Hard.
Wes Jessop: But I guess it's from a place of personal health.
Dave Quak: Yeah.
Wes Jessop: And out of the overflow of a now healthy relationship with God, a healthy understanding of who he is, and out of enjoyment of him, I think that gives me a richness to go and bring blessing to the people in my world.
Dave Quak: I love that. Yeah. So you can still go hard, but it's a platform from which you do it. I wonder if that's why the Catholic Church, as you mentioned before, has a deeper revelation of it—or at least is leading the way in it—because in their traditions, they have time to go away and attend to the soul. Time to reflect. Time to have solitude and let your soul actually sit with God. Maybe we were just so busy that we didn’t get that penetrating time. It takes time in the spirit.
Finding identity in Christ
Wes Jessop: I think a lot of it is, you know, some of you might be a lot younger than me and didn’t experience this, but in the '80s, there was the church growth movement, which was very mechanical. It was all about systems and human wisdom. Basically, it was how to run a church, and God's not really doing anything. You didn’t have to have spiritual depth.
It was more about having nice signage, pretty donuts, good coffee. You know, those sorts of things. And it was like, "What? I can get a crowd doing this?" So much of it was mechanical and unspiritual. Thankfully, the younger pastors I know now have moved past that. But it put so much pressure on results and on being clever as a human minister, rather than recognising that Jesus says, "I will grow the church."
Wes Jessop: And I think spirituality says, "Seek me first." But I wasn’t a particularly spiritual person. I thought I was, but now I look back and think, "Man, I was shallow and mechanical." I was just using the tools I’d tried. Yeah, I developed my gifts, but how empowered by the Spirit was I? Maybe I was, when I preached the gospel, because God backs his word. But there was certainly nothing like the depth that I get to enjoy now.
Dave Quak: Yeah.
Wes Jessop: I just wasn’t even alert to that or maybe I gave lip service to it, or thought I was there, but had no idea. Really, that’s the kind of church culture I grew up in. It was like performance-based.
Dave Quak: Now, what's it like now for you? It looks like you salivate whenever you talk about God now, but not in a way where you feel like you’ve got to achieve anything. It's more like, "Oh man, I love this, this daily. I want to be with Him."
Wes Jessop: I would not want to suggest for a moment that there’s any point at which you’ve arrived. There’s so much more. You know, when you read Isaiah 6, and let that sit on you for half an hour—just like, the angels covering their faces because they are so overwhelmed by how glorious God is, His holiness, His separateness.
In Hebrew studies, He’s so far beyond us, so detached. The angels have to cover their faces because they can only handle short glimpses of looking at Him. That kind of stuff will just tell you this forever—God. I really think we’re not going to know all of God when we get to heaven. There will be more and more to be revealed eternally.
Wes Jessop: So what I can say is, I’ve got a better taste of Him than I had ten years ago.
Dave Quak: Yeah.
Wes Jessop: And at times I still wander off and prove myself to be a goose once again, but I want to know God.
Dave Quak: Yeah.
Wes Jessop: You know, speaking on Philippians 3:10 the other night, “I want to know Christ.” I used to say that, but did I really? Because if you looked at what I invested in and what adrenalineised me, it was not knowing God. Just the truth. Now, I do not trust myself to minister unless I’ve got stuff going on with God that I feel in my gut, in my heart. My emotions are charged by it. If I’m not feeling passion and excitement about tomorrow—like, I cannot wait to go hang out with God and soak up His presence—then really, I’m a fraud when I go and do the rest of it.
Dave Quak: Yeah, so you're in a season of ministry now, where you just said you preached on Philippians 3. What else are you doing? I know you’re part of an awesome faith community down here on the coast. What else does ministry look like for you at the moment?
Wes Jessop: Well, it’s a lot of one-on-one stuff.
Dave Quak: Yeah, okay. A lot of mentoring and that?
Wes Jessop: Yeah, finally. Although, looking back to when I was a pastor with the title, I don’t think I was one.
Dave Quak: Like a pastoral pastor?
Wes Jessop: Oh, it’s like, I’ve got to get the results, kick the door down, and crank the numbers out.
Dave Quak: Yeah, we give pastors labels to nearly anyone these days.
Wes Jessop: Now, weirdly, I think I am one. One of the changes I think that’s happened in resolving my own brokenness—or, again, not that that’s a done job—but I’ve not got that same level of emptiness from ten years ago. The baseline’s there. I’m working from a much healthier place. And part of that, I think, is you genuinely get that overflow.
Wes Jessop: And now, if I’m dealing with people, man, all I can say is I’ll just feel overwhelmed by love for them. I’ll regularly pray for people, and I’ll just burst out crying, overwhelmed by God’s love for them. It’s like God’s love welling up inside. I just love Him, that’s all.
Wes Jessop: Remember that guy you told me to get?
Dave Quak: Oh, yeah.
Wes Jessop: I only briefly met with him once, and he had some things to say to me that were pretty confronting. I was like, “I don’t know if I’ll like this guy.” Looking back, he was right, though.
Dave Quak: Yeah.
What does it mean to be a spiritual father, and how can Christians step into this role?
Maybe I should have continued on with him, but I remember him prophesying over me, saying, “Where’s your father now?” I thought, “What? You’re a father?” Well, okay, whatever. Now I get called that all the time. I get texts from people all the time saying, “Yeah, you’re like a father to me.” That’s happened now.
Dave Quak: Yeah.
Wes Jessop: I think it all started from just pursuing what Paul talks about in Ephesians 2 or 3, where he talks about knowing God. There's this idea of gnosis and epignosis – knowing in an experiential way, not just having the doctrine right, but really knowing the love of God through experience.
Dave Quak: Yeah.
Wes Jessop: It's not just knowing that God is love, it's knowing it deeply, living it, and enjoying it. That has changed everything for me. It shifted who I am and how I do ministry. So, you asked about what’s happened in ministry. I still love the upfront stuff – preaching, all that – but now it’s more about integrity.
It's not just about performing on stage; it’s about really loving people. And I believe that’s the Holy Spirit working in me, making me feel what God feels for people. So, a lot of what I do is just loving people, encouraging them, and being a father where people need that.
I’ve also ended up taking over the role of running all the home groups in our church. I’m now encouraging and caring for the leaders, helping them multiply, and supporting them in building a deep, loving community.
Fire Church Gold Coast is such a good church, and our plan is to keep that loving culture intact as the church grows. It’s starting to take off numerically, and we can’t afford to lose those values. One thing I want to instil in people is that love must remain their highest priority in ministry.
Dave Quak: It’s such a good church.
Wes Jessop: It really is. But as it grows, we have to protect that culture of love. And that’s what I want people to take away: to let love be the foundation of their ministry life.
Dave Quak: I love that. There are so many people around the world that God is tapping on the shoulder and calling to serve Him. What would you say to a young person in their early 20s who feels called to vocational ministry? I know we’re all in ministry, but there are some who feel called to pursue vocational ministry. If they were sitting here with you now, what would you say to them? You’ve got a few minutes to just download on them.
Wes Jessop: Well, it comes back to love again.
Dave Quak: Yeah.
Wes Jessop: And I know that sounds boring, but when it truly changes your life, it’s everything. Jesus said, "Love the Lord your God and love your neighbour." That’s the foundation of it all. It wasn’t just a nice saying; He really meant it. So, sort out your love relationship with God. Make sure that’s going deep and genuine. Don’t worry too much about outcomes or skills for now. Focus on that relationship with God, and everything else will fall into place.
Dave Quak: Yeah.
Wes Jessop: If you invest in your relationship with God first, that will make up for all the time you didn’t spend sharpening your gifts. I spent a lot of time working on my gifts, but now I’m realising that it’s that deep connection with God that brings the power. Right now, I might not be the best technically, but when I preach, there's a real power in it because I’m connected to God. That depth will sustain you through the hard times and help you stay true to your calling.
Dave Quak: Well, as spiritual leaders, we’re called to bring people into a deep relationship with God. If we don’t have that ourselves, how can we lead others?
Wes Jessop: Exactly. If we don’t have that, it just makes us look like nice, religious people who are following the rules.
Dave Quak: Yeah, I think Keller called it “therapeutic deism,” where it’s just behaviour modification with no real power behind it. Like you said, you can have the right dynamics and a great building, and it can still grow, but there’s nothing behind it.
Wes Jessop: That’s right. So, if I were talking to someone just starting out, I’d say, dream big, but start small. Be prepared to do the little things. You might not be a superstar when you begin, and that’s okay. God’s not looking for superstars. He’s looking for servant-hearted people who are operating out of a love relationship with Him. They shouldn’t be pursuing personal gain or the approval of others.
You’ve got to be honest with yourself, because a lot of people try to prop themselves up by proving they’re good at something, but that’s a trap. I spent 20 years doing that before I figured it out. You don’t want to go through that.
Dave Quak: Yeah.
Wes Jessop: One little thought I had from a healing experience a while ago—because for those ten years, I was really down on myself. I think I’ve told you before, Dave, how much I was pursuing my own glory in ministry instead of God’s, which is terrifying. When I look at the Bible and start thinking about judgment day, I see what’s going to get burned. The stuff done for your own glory will be like chaff on Judgment Day. That really haunted me for a while. I wasn’t aware of it at the time, but the more I look back, so much of what I did was just hoping someone would think I was good at it. That terrified me, and it really haunted me.
Dave Quak: Yeah.
Wes Jessop: I remember sitting in my car one day, crying, saying, "God, I’ve wasted my whole life on this stuff."
Dave Quak: Wow.
Wes Jessop: And it wasn’t even rightly motivated; it was for me. I was thinking, "I’ve used up all my years and it’s going to burn." But God put this thought straight in my head, and it wasn’t a pattern I would normally think, so I believe it was from God. He said, "Wes, what happens when your little child brings you a drawing of you, and it’s just a page of scribbles? Do you laugh and say, ‘You idiot!’ and screw it up and throw it in the bin?"
Dave Quak: No way.
Wes Jessop: Of course not. He said, "When I look at what you did for me, it’s beautiful to me. I know your motives were messed up, and you’re on a growth journey. What a parent expects from a three-year-old is entirely different to what they expect from a 40-year-old. If your 40-year-old son gave you a scribbled picture, that’d be a problem, but you know what a three-year-old is capable of."
Dave Quak: That’s a really good point.
Wes Jessop: That was really healing for me. God accepts the offering that I spent my life on. He knew my brokenness, and some of it’s still redeemable because I was a child in that regard.
Dave Quak: Yes. Which is actually a very good point. I really like the way you put that. It’s like, your status as beloved was with you in those days. He was still looking at you as beloved, even though you hadn’t received that full revelation yet. And I guess it’s consistent with some of the guys in the Bible that God used, even with skewed motives.
Wes Jessop: Yeah.
Dave Quak: Samson, for one.
Wes Jessop: The list goes on.
Dave Quak: But there’s those guys, and then we also see pastors and leaders who fall or have skewed motives. Sometimes the fruit they produced was still real, genuine fruit, despite their flaws.
Wes Jessop: Yeah, like the devastating stuff with Ravi Zacharias. I learned his stuff inside and out for years. It doesn’t mean his stuff wasn’t good or true. It just meant he didn’t attend to his inner life. For me, I might’ve started in a better place, but as the old saying goes, a sheep that’s one degree off course ends up a long way off. I’m sure that’s what happened for him.
Dave Quak: Yeah, people can start well but that brokenness can shift them a degree off every year, taking them to a horrible place.
Wes Jessop: Exactly.
Dave Quak: Yeah, but like you said, millions still had their faith equipped through his apologetics.
Wes Jessop: And his answers were still good. It’s just that he messed up in his internal life.
Dave Quak: That’s a really good point. It’s been really lovely having you on.
Wes Jessop: Thank you.
Dave Quak: Yeah, it’s been good to chat. Good to see you again.
Wes Jessop: You too.
Dave Quak: Well, mate, would you do us the honour of praying for us as we finish up?
Wes Jessop: Yeah, for sure.
Dave Quak: Awesome, thanks, mate.
Let’s Pray
Wes Jessop: Father God, I just want to ask that your blessing would fall on everyone listening tonight. The things we’ve talked about, Lord, I pray that you would pour yourself out on everyone listening. That they would have a real love encounter with you.
That they would know in their experience that you’re their loving Father, abounding in love and mercy, slow to anger, and happy to deal with us as your children, nurturing us into something more mature. I pray that this wouldn’t just be words or something we nod our heads to theologically, but that it would be something we live. I pray that people would experience the enjoyment of you.
And if anything comes out of tonight, I just pray it would be a depth of love for you, and that would flow into a depth of love for others. Let that be the baseline of everyone’s life, I pray, in Jesus' name. Amen.
Dave Quak: Amen. Thanks, Wes.
Key Questions and Answers
How can Christian leaders prevent burnout in ministry while staying spiritually strong?
Burnout in ministry is a growing issue, but Christian leaders can prevent it by prioritising their spiritual health, maintaining healthy boundaries, and finding their identity in Christ rather than in performance. Regular Sabbath rest, deepening their prayer life, and fostering accountability within a trusted community can help sustain long-term ministry. Churches can also play a role by creating a culture that values soul care over relentless productivity.
What does the Bible say about mental health struggles like anxiety and depression?
The Bible acknowledges emotional and mental struggles, with figures like David, Elijah, and even Paul experiencing deep distress. Verses like Philippians 4:6-7 encourage believers to bring their anxieties to God through prayer. Jesus himself demonstrated compassion toward those suffering, showing that God does not condemn those with mental health challenges but rather offers peace, healing, and hope through His presence and community.
How can Christians support loved ones struggling with mental illness?
Supporting a loved one with mental illness involves offering practical help, being a safe and non-judgmental presence, and encouraging them to seek professional care when needed. Prayer, scripture, and a loving church community can provide spiritual strength, but it’s also crucial to understand mental health from a medical and psychological perspective. Listening with compassion and avoiding simplistic spiritual fixes can make a lasting difference.
Can faith help in recovering from trauma and emotional wounds?
Faith plays a crucial role in healing from trauma by offering hope, identity, and purpose beyond pain. The Bible speaks of God being close to the brokenhearted (Psalm 34:18) and offering restoration. Christian healing involves both spiritual renewal—through scripture, prayer, and community—and practical steps such as therapy, counselling, and self-care. Trusting in God’s love and seeking support from fellow believers can aid in long-term recovery.
How can the church better address mental health while staying true to the gospel?
Churches can integrate mental health awareness into discipleship by creating safe spaces for honest conversations, training leaders in mental health first aid, and partnering with Christian counsellors. Preaching about biblical figures who faced emotional struggles helps break stigma. A gospel-centred approach reminds believers that faith and mental illness are not mutually exclusive, and God’s grace extends to every area of life, including mental well-being.
Are you struggling with faith and mental health? Find hope and support here
For more candid conversations on faith and mental well-being, check out sunburntsouls.com. You can subscribe to our podcast on any major platform, or contact us directly to book us to preach or speak. Sunburnt Souls is a faith-based ministry, and we want to thank everyone so far for their generous support.
If you want to get behind us, please pray that our message reaches those who need to hear it. Feel free to donate online, but if you feel obliged or manipulated to give, you’re better off sharing a coffee with a loved one instead. I’m Dave Quak from Sunburnt Souls.
