Benjamin Espinoza
11 min read ⭑
“Caring for your soul, your relationships, your mental health and your body isn’t self-indulgence. It’s stewardship. It’s faithfulness.”
Benjamin Espinoza used to pride himself on being able to handle it all. But caring for a new baby and moving to a new city to start a new job in the middle of a pandemic changed all that. He quickly discovered he desperately needed the rest that only Jesus can provide.
Now, as a pastor of a thriving church in Western New York, teacher at several schools, publisher at Aldersgate Press and a senior fellow with the Center for Pastor Theologians, he still has a lot on his plate — but he’s learning to let Jesus carry the load for him. In his book, Good News About Self-Care, he gets honest about his own experience with burnout and offers leaders a new way to approach productivity and ministry.
Read on to find out how golf refreshes his spirit, what his grandmother’s kitchen taught him about generosity and the two places where he encounters the Holy Spirit most.
QUESTION #1: ACQUAINT
Food is always about more than food; it’s also about home and people and love. So how does a go-to meal at your favorite hometown restaurant reveal the true you behind your web bio?
I grew up in the Detroit area, and narrowing down a favorite hometown meal feels almost impossible! But if I’m being completely real, I would give anything to go back in time and sit down at my Grandma Maria’s table.
Every Saturday growing up, we’d end up at her house, and there was almost always a meal involved. Sometimes it was Jet’s Pizza or Chinese takeout. But most of the time, Grandma was at the stove turning out homemade Mexican food — rice and beans, tacos, fajitas, quesadillas. The kind of meal that just feels like home.
Grandma Maria was a cornerstone of the Mexican American community in Detroit, and whenever we showed up, one of her friends was usually already there. I remember one visit when a couple from her community came by — folks who were going through a hard season who didn’t have much. Grandma looked around her kitchen and, without missing a beat, made guacamole and whipped up homemade tortillas. That was our meal. And she shared every bit of it.
While we were eating, my grandma’s friend said, with a voice filled with gratitude, “Your grandma is one of the best people we know.” I still get choked up thinking about it.
Food, for her, was never just about eating. It was how she knit the family together and blessed the people around her. So absolutely, Detroit has an incredible food scene — but give me a plate of Grandma’s rice and beans any day.
Markus Spiske; Unsplash
QUESTION #2: REVEAL
What “nonspiritual” activity have you found to be quite spiritual, after all? What quirky proclivity, out-of-the-way interest or unexpected pursuit refreshes your soul?
I live on a golf course. I know how that sounds! I want to be clear: it’s not a fancy country club. But I do step out my back door and onto the fairway, and honestly, that might be one of God’s better jokes at my expense, because I am absolutely hooked — and have been for three decades.
Golf isn’t naturally a spiritual activity. Ask anyone who’s snap-hooked a drive into the water. But there’s something about standing on a lush, wide-open course early in the morning, dew still on the grass, the tree lines framing the sky, that just cracks me open. I meet God there.
The game itself has become one of my better teachers. Try hitting a 4-iron into the wind from a fairway bunker sometime — I’ll wait. Golf demands creativity in the most humbling ways. You rarely get a perfect lie. You work with what you have, you visualize something that doesn’t exist yet, and you swing anyway. That sounds a lot like faith!
Then there’s the fact that golf will break your heart on hole 9 and demand that you show up fully for hole 10, eager to show that you can do better. You can’t carry the bad shots. You have to give yourself grace and move on, because the next shot deserves your whole attention. I’ve been learning that lesson on the course for decades. I’m still learning it everywhere else.
QUESTION #3: CONFESS
Every superhero has a weakness; every human, too. We’re just good at faking it. But who are we kidding? We’re all broken and in this thing together. So what’s your kryptonite, and how do you confront its power?
My kryptonite? Control. More specifically, the anxiety that kicks in when I feel like I’m losing it.
I write about this in my book, “Good News About Self-Care,” and telling the story still makes me a little uncomfortable — which probably means it needs to be told again and again!
It was 2020. New job, new baby, new house, new city, global pandemic. My hands started itching. Then my eyes started twitching. Then came the back pain so bad I couldn’t sleep. I was convinced something was seriously, fatally wrong with me. I called my doctor’s office a dozen times a day. I consulted Dr. Google obsessively. I was absolutely certain my body was failing.
The diagnosis? Anxiety and depression. My doctor looked me in the eye and said, essentially, that I had too many good things happening all at once, wrapped up in a global health crisis. Nothing was physically wrong with me.
That was humbling. Here I was, someone who prides himself on handling things well, on being capable and put-together, completely undone by stress I hadn’t even acknowledged was there.
The deeper thing I had to confront wasn’t just anxiety. It was the pride underneath it. The need to manage everything. The refusal to admit I was struggling until my body forced the issue.
What helped? Honestly, a counselor, better sleep and leaning hard into Scripture and prayer. Hebrews 4:15 kept me going, the reminder that Jesus has walked through every kind of human pain and truly gets it. I wasn’t alone, even when I felt completely out of control. Especially then.
QUESTION #4: FIRE UP
Tell us about your toil. How are you investing your professional time right now? What’s your current obsession? And why should it be ours?
If there’s a single thread running through everything I do right now, it’s this: I care deeply about people who are worn out and don’t know why.
I’m pastoring a growing church, teaching at different schools, leading a publishing house and serving on many boards. In all of those spaces, I keep meeting the same person. They’re gifted, called and genuinely love God. But they’re also exhausted, running on fumes and carrying a low-grade guilt about the fact that they can’t seem to keep up.
That person is who I wrote “Good News About Self-Care” for. And if I’m being honest, I wrote it for my 2020 self, who fell completely apart in the middle of a pandemic, a new job, a new baby and a new city and had to learn from scratch that rest is not a reward for the productive. It’s a gift from a God who rested on the seventh day and told us to do the same.
The big idea in the book is one I now consider foundational for every leader I develop and every congregation I serve. Caring for your soul, your relationships, your mental health and your body isn’t self-indulgence. It’s stewardship. It’s faithfulness. And the world desperately needs leaders who actually believe that, not just in theory, but in the rhythms of their everyday lives.
Burned-out leaders can’t lead well. This book is my attempt to help with that.
QUESTION #5: BOOST
Whether we’re cashiers or CEOs, contractors or customer service reps, we all need God’s love flowing into us and back out into the world. How does the Holy Spirit invigorate your work? And how do you know it’s God when it happens?
To be honest, I don’t always feel inspired when I sit down to write a sermon or article or book chapter. Some mornings, it feels less like a divine encounter and more like fighting to fill that blank page. But somewhere in the process, something shifts. A sentence forms that I didn’t plan, or an idea surfaces that connects two things I never thought could connect. And I’ve learned to recognize that feeling. It’s not mine, and I didn’t come up with it.
I experience the Holy Spirit most powerfully in two places. The first is in writing. There’s a moment in the middle of working through an idea where something opens up and what comes through it is better than anything I could have manufactured on my own. I’ve written sentences that stopped me cold and made me think, where did that come from? We know where it came from!
The second place is in conversation. A mentor says something offhand that reorganizes everything. A church member shares something profound that alters my entire day. A student pushes back on something I said and cracks the whole thing open in the best way. I’ve come to believe that God speaks constantly through other people, if we’re paying close enough attention to actually hear it.
How do I know it’s God? Honestly, there’s a quality to it that’s hard to describe but impossible to miss. It arrives with a kind of quiet weight. It’s never loud or flashy. But you know it’s God.
QUESTION #6: inspire
Scripture and tradition beckon us into the rich and varied habits that open our hearts to the presence of God. So let us in. Which spiritual practice is working best for you in this season?
I used to think Sabbath was for other people. More specifically, I thought it was for the Israelites and that the rest of us had been conveniently excused.
But here’s what changed my mind: Jesus himself said the Sabbath was made for humanity, not for a specific time or a specific people. It’s not just a legal mandate. It’s a creation mandate. God embedded rest into the fabric of the universe itself. Trees go dormant. Animals hibernate. Even Henry Ford figured out that his workers were more productive when they actually stopped working.
So now I practice Sabbath, and it has quietly become the most transformative rhythm in my life. One day a week (mostly Mondays), I step off the treadmill. I don’t check email, I don’t chase productivity. I worship, I rest, I eat good food, and I seek to be present with my family. I remember that God can do more amazing things with my five to six days of work than I ever could with all seven. And what I’ve discovered is that Sabbath isn’t just about stopping. It’s about remembering who you actually are when you’re not performing or producing or proving anything.
There’s something that happens in that space, a kind of settling, where God has room to speak and my soul has room to listen. In a culture that worships busyness the way Pharaoh worshiped productivity, Sabbath is a quiet, weekly act of resistance. And I need it more than I ever thought I would!
QUESTION #7: FOCUS
Looking backward, considering the full sweep of your unique faith journey and all you encountered along the way, what top three resources stand out to you? What changed reality and changed your heart?
Only three? Really? Y’all aren’t making this easy!
The first is any John Wesley sermon you can get your hands on. Wesley wrote with a clarity and pastoral warmth that still cuts right through the noise. He had this relentless conviction that God’s grace wasn’t just a one-time transaction but a lifelong journey of transformation, and reading him has shaped how I think about nearly everything. His sermons are free online, which makes them the best deal in Christian literature.
The second is Ken Shigematsu’s “Now I Become Myself.” This book arrived in my life at exactly the right moment. Ken writes about identity and spiritual formation with a gentleness that sneaks up on you. He has this knack for making ancient practices feel not just accessible but genuinely urgent, like they were written for the specific exhaustion of modern life. I’ve read it four times, and I’ve recommended it more times than I can count.
The third is Johnnyswim. I know, throwing a music recommendation in here feels like breaking the rules. But Amanda and Abner make music that does something I can’t fully explain. It’s soulful and honest, and it has this quality of pointing you toward something bigger than yourself without ever feeling preachy about it. Put on “Georgica Pond” on a quiet evening and tell me you don’t feel something shift in your chest.
I could go on, but we’ll leave it there for now.
Certain things can be godsends, helping us survive, even thrive, in our fast-paced world. Does technology ever help you this way? Has an app ever boosted your spiritual growth? If so, how?
Full disclosure: I wrote an entire chapter in “Good News About Self-Care” about limiting technology. So when I saw this question, I laughed a little!
Here’s where I actually land on this. I think our phones are making us worse. Not because technology is inherently evil, but because we were never designed to be reachable by everyone, all the time, about everything. Social media, in particular, has this way of making you feel connected while quietly hollowing out your capacity for real presence. I’ve watched it happen in my own life, and I’ve watched it happen in the lives of folks I care about.
So the most spiritual thing I do with technology is put it down. Specifically, I try to protect my mornings. Before I open any app, email or notification, I want to have already spent time with God. Because whoever gets to me first tends to set the emotional temperature for my entire day, and I’d rather that be the Lord than Twitter.
That said, I’m not immune. I’m on my phone more than I’d like to admit, and the struggle is real and daily. The one app that has genuinely helped me is a simple Bible app. Nothing fancy. But having Scripture one tap away means that when anxiety spikes, or I find myself doom-scrolling, I have an off-ramp. I’d love any recommendations for apps that help me get closer to the Lord and live a Spirit-filled life!
QUESTION #8: dream
God’s continually stirring new things in each of us. So give us the scoop! What’s beginning to stir in you but not yet fully awakened? What can we expect from you in the future?
Such a great question. Something is stirring in me, and I’m only beginning to find words for it. I feel like I keep running into the same person. They’re in ministry, they love God, and they are profoundly lonely. Not lonely in a casual way, but in a deep, structural way. The kind of loneliness that comes from pouring yourself out for others so consistently that you’ve lost track of who refills you. And the burnout that follows isn’t just a productivity problem. It’s a soul problem. I want to do something about that.
I’m also dreaming about Western New York. People don’t talk much about this region, but they should, because it is one of the most post-Christian corners of the country. Beautiful, resilient and deeply spiritually hungry in ways people here don’t always have language for yet. I believe God is up to something in this place, and I want my church and other churches to be part of building a genuine, gospel-centered movement here. One that sends people out as much as it gathers them in.
Those two dreams are starting to feel connected. Healthy leaders build healthy communities. Communities that are deeply rooted in the gospel have the best shot at reaching a post-Christian culture.
Do I have fears about all of this? Absolutely — mostly that I’ll be too small for what I’m dreaming. But I keep coming back to the fact that that’s probably exactly where God’s work shines brighter.
A couple of years ago, religious “nones” — those who don’t identify with any particular religion — became the largest cohort in the U.S. (28%). Bigger than evangelicals (24%). Bigger than Catholics (23%).
Perhaps you’ve heard this statistic before. It’s easy to resort to worry after hearing it. After all, what does it mean for us and our freedoms to live in a post-Christian nation? Just how bad will things get?
But instead of approaching this news with fear, some are approaching it with faith, seeing it as a signal of opportunity in a land desperate for Jesus. When darkness spreads, the light of truth and love can shine even brighter.
Which perspective will you choose?
Benjamin Espinoza is a child of God, husband, father, pastor, scholar and executive leader dedicated to renewing Christian institutions and cultivating gospel-centered communities. He serves as the lead pastor of Riverstone Church in Western New York, publisher of Aldersgate Press and a senior fellow with the Center for Pastor Theologians. He has held senior leadership roles at Roberts Wesleyan University and taught at Gordon-Conwell and Fuller Theological Seminaries. Ben holds a Ph.D. from Michigan State University and is the author of Good News About Self-Care (NavPress, 2026). You can find him chasing his kids, boxing and golfing these days.