Protect Thyself
Part On
Interesting title for an article...wouldn't you say? Protect thyself. But what does it mean? And
more importantly, how does it pertain to us in the ministry? Glad you asked...and hopefully I'll
be able to share some insights with you that will help protect you and prolong your life in the
ministry. So over the next four months I want to share some insights, principles and plans to
help you avoid several things that can hurt you, your family and your ministry.
Let's first begin by addressing some of the biggest attacks on you and your ministry. Probably
the biggest attack that comes against all in the ministry is the possibility of "burnout." Following
that is 1) lack of appreciation, 2) lack of funds (both for ministry and personal needs) and 3)
sexual failure. I'm not going to cover a lot about each of these attacks, but rather share with you
some "prevention strategies” to help you avoid these pitfalls to you and your ministry. Let's get
started.
To begin, I do want to address the very real possibility of "burnout." I'm sure every one of us
has experienced burnout in some form or the other. From the very serious where we have
nothing left to give so we quit the ministry, to not wanting to peach another sermon, sing another
song, or go to another service. I’m sure most of us get those feelings sometime during our
ministry. Some of those feelings come no matter how prepared we are, but if they last any
length of time we could be in trouble. Let's deal with them before they become a major problem.
There are three things you can do to keep burnout at bay! Here they are in the simplest terms.
1) Don't take yourself too seriously. 2) Remember, God is not looking for a replacement, an
associate or a substitute. 3) Get away! Now let's look at them is some detail.
The first is "don't take yourself to seriously. So what does that mean? Exactly what it says! You
don't have to be everywhere all the time. I know that everyone wants you to be at every function
every birthday, picnic, family event, special occasion, outreach, ministry meeting, rehearsal, and
party. Wow! I'm tired already. In case you haven't realized it yet...you are not omnipresent. Only
God can pull that off.
Early in the ministry I found I was becoming exhausted attending every event our church and
church families had. It was hard keeping up when we only had seventy people, and almost
impossible now that we have five-hundred. Although Paul said, "he was all things to all people,"
I'm sure he was not talking about being at "all things of all the people." Whether you want to
admit it or not...we as ministers are not superhuman. We get tired, weary and to be honest, fed
up with people, church life and all the demands placed upon our time. So if we're to succeed in
ministry and not burn up, blow up or blast up to heaven, we've got to find a balance.
The question is, "how do we find a balance that keeps us sane and still meets the needs of the
people?” Notice I said, the "needs" of the people, not the requests, pleas and demands of the
people. There is no way possible to attend all the events of our church and our church families.
And there is no way to make all the families of the church happy about what invitations you do
or don't accept. However, if you don't set up some spoken and unspoken guidelines for yourself,
you'll soon be seeing a counselor for your burnout.
I know, your inquiring mind wants to know, "how do we set these two kinds of guidelines?"
I'd like to tell you there's a simple process to do it, but there's not. In thirty-six years of ministry,
I've not found one set of rules (guidelines) that work for every situation. I've also found that even
though I have found guidelines that work for us, I still must violate them from time to time due to
the importance of an event.
One of the guidelines my wife and I have set up for ourselves is, "we don't go out on Saturday
nights." If we do go out during the day, our goal is to be home between 5-6:00 PM. We aim for
closer to five rather than six. We do that in order to quiet our spirits before the demands of
Sunday services. We want to be at our best for Sunday as that's when most of our people show
up, and we want them to experience everything God has for them through us.
From time to time, we have to violate that guideline. If there's a wedding and reception after, we
won't make it home before six. When that happens, then part two of the guideline kicks in. We
leave and make it home by eight in the evening. Again this gives us time to settle down in
preparation for Sunday services. So here's the first rule of self-preservation.
We have learned to balance our time between ministry, special events, personal pleasures,
personal rest time, and family time.
The thing that works best for us is simple; we determine what amount of time we must
appropriate for each of the above areas. We set the number of nights per week we need for
ourselves in order to stay fresh, alert and healthy. Then we determine how many nights we're
out for ministry, how many invitations we can accept, and how much time we need for our own
family.
We evaluate this each week, constantly adjusting the schedule to keep a proper balance. If one
week we get overweighed in one area, we adjust it for the next week. What we want to
accomplish is that over a month's time, we keep all the areas in proper balance so we keep
back the demon of burnout.
In next month's article, we'll continue this topic of burnout and add to it the subject of God's
replacement.