One of the hardest things as a pastor to balance is being able to focus on what you feel called to do while also juggling all the needs and requests from the church you serve. Not long ago, I was sitting in a friends office, talking church ministry, and he made a every telling statement. “I mean, when would I find the time to do that?” He was struggling with the dispersing of time spent doing what he felt he should be focused on, or even called to do, and time spent putting out fires, answering calls and emails and dropping anything when someone walked into their office. Sound familiar? Now, don’t get me wrong. We are called to serve those we shepherd and lead, but also we need to remember that we can only effectively do so much and can only be as effective as we choose to be. You can only effectively put your attention on so many things, connect effectively with so many people. You have the choice to be in charge of your schedule or your schedule be in charge of you. This means you need to choose what and who get the majority of your time and the best way to accomplish this is invite others into the work you are doing.
At some point you need to realize that ultimately it is us that controls what takes up our time. We are the ones who answer the phone calls, dictate when and how we answer emails and are in charge of what we spend our time doing. We can make all the excuses we want and for some of us, the ability to turn things around from having being controlled to controlling our circumstances will not be easy. Maybe, you are in an unhealthy environment with unrealistic expectations. Maybe your job description was written for Superman. Maybe you even feel trapped in your position because there is nothing on the horizon. I don’t know what you face in your daily lives, but I can assure you of this: Things don’t have to be the way they are. You can’t control all the external pressures you face, but you can control your internal decision to be pulled by them. Ultimately, you have two options: (1) Continue down the path you are going and burn-out, quit or even put yourself into an early grave. (2) Or you can choose to make a change.
Half the battle is actually in our own minds. In my first article at ExPastors, I gave this challenge: “I know all too well the burden and stress of ministry and the toll it can have on an individual. As a pastor that is in the process of rebuilding a church, I have faced this terrible reality. So much so, that I had once contracted shingles on my face due to stress, and was dangerously close to losing my sight from the infection. It rang out like a siren, signalling to me that something seriously needed to change. One of the things that came to the forefront of my mind was that a huge part of the stress was either self-induced or that I had allowed it to enter into my life. And if you are anything like me, this may be the case for you.”
Maybe before you go any further in here, you may even need to read the entire article above first. But to the point. If you have read this far, you probably don’t need anymore convincing, but the question still beckons: How do we actually find this balance? How can we take control of our schedules and not continue to allow our schedules to take over our lives? It all starts with the principle of three.
Gary Odle
One problem I had was that I had a lot of retirees in the church who assumed that I had as much free time as they did. It was inconceivable to them that I was working 65 hours a week and 81 hours a week when it was Air National Guard week-end (I was a chaplain to an F-16 fighter wing). In their minds, if I chose not to do something they thought needed to be done it was because I chose not to do it, not because the demands on my time exceeded the time available. I was amazed when I left the ministry and only worked 40 hours a week. Such freedom!
Drake De Long-Farmer
Hey Gary. Thanks for sharing a bit of your story. I asked this same question to a comment on the expastors Facebook page and would love to hear from you as well.
Woukd love to hear any wisdom you may have no looking back. Would there be anything you would different going into a position or how you might have done things differently in the midst of it all? Any wisdom you might have for anyone reading might be able to learn from. Thanks.
Gary Odle
I knew there were problems going into it. The church was founded in 1905 and the average length of pastoral stays was only two-and-a-half years. My sense was that God wanted me to stay a long time, sacrificing myself to do it, in order to change that pattern … or at least try. I stayed as long as I could, eight-and-a-half years, and left when it became impossible to stay any longer.
I have no wisdom to offer. It is one thing to talk about being a living sacrifice when studying it in seminary, but quite another to actually be that living sacrifice. I gave all I had and left as a bruised reed and smoldering wick. That “holy fire” within me had been all but quenched and I was no longer fit for ministry. I gave all I had as best I knew howl.
The only thing I can say is that God is gracious and I am very happy with my life that followed after leaving the ministry. I assumed that the only jobs I was fit for would have me saying, “Paper or plastic?” or “Do you want fries with that?”, but it has been better than I could have dreamed or imagined. It turned out great.
Drake De Long-Farmer
I think you have already shared loads of wisdom is what you just shared. 🙂
May I ask two follow up questions? Knowing what you know now, would you do it all over again, would you take the position?
Are you comfortable in expanding on what you mean by: “but it has been better than I could have dreamed or imagined. It turned out great.”?
Gary Odle
1. Would I do it again, knowing what I know now? It is a silly question, much like “Can God make a rock so big He can’t pick it up?” It is a question based on wording that makes no sense. I only know what I know now because I did it then. How could I possibly be in a position of doing it again while knowing what I know now?
I tend to think of it like this: C.S. Lewis was once asked if he were hoeing in his garden and found out that Christ was returning in ten in minutes, what would he do? Lewis said that he would keep hoeing in his garden because hopefully, whether he knew Christ was returning in ten minutes or not, that he would always be doing what Christ wanted him to do. That is the key to the question.
The decision I made to go there was after prayer and seeking counsel with those whom I respected, and turned down more attractive offers to do so. I did it because I believed that it was God’s will as best as I could discern it. Would I do it again? Hard to say. But I would do whatever I understood to be God’s will as best as I could discern it. Such things can rarely be discerned in a theoretical setting such as your question; only in the actual arena of life.
2. Regarding it turning out far better than I could have dreamed or imagined:
I am now doing what I always encouraged my congregation to do: represent Christ in the workplace where pastors never go to.
I work at an airline as a flight dispatcher: I write the flight plans pilots use to fly their trips and maintain communication with them while they are airborne to help avoid bad weather or handle any problems that may arise.
Not only is it a job that utilizes my gifts of planning, decision-making, problem solving, and communication, I am in a work environment where I have been a positive impact of others for Christ. I have seen people come to Christ and grow, I have seen doubting, troubled Christians grow in their faith, and I have been able to be an example to unbelievers of what a real believer is like.
Plus it is so much fun! I get to fly for free with my airline and, due to the nature of my job, I can ride on the flight deck with the pilots on any airline … and I have had some pretty great conversations with pilots while doing so.
Every day at work is a blessing and I cannot communicate how grateful I am to be where I am, doing what I am doing. Here I am with an M.Div. and most of a D.Min. and I earn my living based on a five-week course I took to become a flight dispatcher.
Could you dream or imagine that?? I couldn’t.
Gary
Drake De Long-Farmer
Gary, thank you again for taking the time to write this all out. Great stuff. Your answer to the second question reminds me of another article I wrote here speaking on that exact idea and so I am glad that you have found a place to use the gifts God has given you and be both happy and passionate about it.
As for my first question. Let me rephrase it in hopes to better communicate my intent in asking (nonetheless some good stuff there as well). If someone were to come to you looking for advice about a position in a church they were thinking on taking and the circumstances or culture of that church looked very similar or even identital to what you faced, what advice would you give? What wisdom would you impart in things to look for? What things would you counsel them to weight before taking on such a hard task? What ways would you advise them to prepare themselves before entering such a position? Would there be anything that they should watch for to possibly say not take the position?
You have mentioned a confidence in God’s leading. I am thinking more on the practical things to look for, be diligent in and be aware of before going into such a position or even possibly consider walking away. I hope that makes my intent in the question more clear. 🙂
Gary Odle
Happy 4th of July! I hope you have a great day with friends and family.
I’m very hesitant regarding how I would advise somebody else in that very same situation and here is why. When I was preparing for ministry or looking for professional direction, I noticed something about the advice I was being given. Pastors I asked recommended I be a pastor. Military chaplains recommended I be a military chaplain. Hospital chaplains recommended I be a hospital chaplain. Missionaries recommended I … well, you see where this is going.
Most people, if you ask them for God’s will for your life will give you God’s will for their life and put your name on it. I made a vow to never, never, never tell people what I would do in their situation based on God’s leading in my life. I might share what my experience has been and what happened to me but that should not be the deciding factor. Rather, I would give advice on how to seek intimacy with God in order to know His will. As Dr. Gerald March, my Pastoral Ministries professor in seminary told us, “Every jug sits on its own bottom”.
Immediately after Christ told his disciples to pray to the Lord of the harvest because the harvest was plentiful but the laborers were few, He sent them out and told them that they would be rejected by many, flogged in the synagogues, mistreated, and persecuted for His name’s sake. Wisdom might say, “Then don’t go” but Christ said,
“Go, and here is what you can expect.”
Should one not go simply because it is a bad situation? Should one not go simply because chances of success are low? Maybe. Or maybe not. Yes, there are times when you go, are rejected, and stomp the dust off your feet and move on. But there are also times when the second half of Hebrews 11 is yours as you become “one of whom this world is not worthy”.
There is no simple answer that I could give to your question. I do not know this hypothetical person nor the hypothetical situation. I do not know how God has gifted that person or what God’s will is for their life.
If it looks bad I might say, “Here is the cost you may end up paying. You might get bloodied up pretty good on this one. You might come out on the other side broken in many ways but also honored because you were found worthy to suffer for the cause of Christ, but don’t romanticize that too much. Such things are bloody, awful messes, but that’s not the issue. The issue is this and only this: Is this what Christ wants you to do? If you do this and it destroys you, will you be able to look back and say with confidence, “At the very least I know that I did this in obedience to the Lord as best I knew how. To do otherwise would have been sin, even if it would have worked out better for me.”
And, of course you have noticed that I just gave someone God’s will for my life and put their name on it.
I am not one who thinks bad situations should be avoided as a matter of course nor that being broken by ministry is necessarily something the Lord would have us avoid. Sometimes those are the very things He sends us into.
But in light of all of this is this perspective I learned from Sister Agnes Joy, a nun of the Maryknoll Missionaries that mentored me for a year (I’m Baptist) a long time ago.
One day I was in her office weeping over my tremendous sense of failure, personal brokenness, and inability to believe God actually cared for me or to trust Him. I sobbed heavily for about forty-five minutes as she just sat there, saying nothing.
When I was done she smiled and said, “Gary, I’ve been waiting for this moment” and reached into her desk drawer. She pulled out a small wooden cross and gave it to me saying, “Gary, embrace the darkness. Embrace your brokenness. Don’t push it away for it is in times of darkness and brokenness that we find Christ as we can never find Him anywhere else. Now is the time, if you embrace it, that you discover what the cross was all about and you know Christ in a newer, deeper way.”
Maybe the whole intent of it all, from Christ’s perspective was my brokenness so I could know Him on a deeper level and, in some fashion, be transformed more to be like him. Maybe that’s what He would intend for this hypothetical person you are wanting me to advise.
Or maybe not. Maybe for them it is about effective ministry or avoiding suffering or making one’s life count for the Kingdom in major ways. But it might be about brokenness and transformation and intimacy.
But how am I to know? How can I tell that person what they should or shouldn’t do? I can’t. I can only point to C.S. Lewis who said that he wanted to always be doing God’s will at every moment of time. I can only point to Christ who sends us out and advises that it may very well be a bloody mess but to go anyway. I can only point to Sister Agnes and tell them to embrace the darkness and find Christ in ways that can only be found in that darkness.
I don’t know the answer to your question because I don’t know what I would say. But I’m okay with that.
Gary
Drake De Long-Farmer
Again, thank you Gary for all of this. You said: “I’m very hesitant regarding how I would advise somebody else in that very same situation and here is why.”, but I think you did just that. My objective in asking the question was truly for you to speak wisdom into what I think many people face in deciding how to proceed when in tough situations and you did just that. You are right, and I would agree, that we need to be wise and I def don’t think we need to run head long into suffering or hard times. We need to count the cost, weigh the information before us, pray, gather godly counsel from those who know us and maybe the situation and of course, above all, intimately seek God.
But what I love about what you did here was turn the question on its head and show that struggle isn’t always to be avoided. As it says in James 1: “Consider pure joy my brothers whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know the testing of your faith develops perseverance, and perseverance must finish it’s work, so you may be complete, not lacking anything. But if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God who gives generously to all who ask.”
We need to count the cost, use wisdom, but above all truth Him when he leads. So developing a intimate relationship that hears his voice would be above all our greatest asset, wouldn’t you say?
So, thank you again, for taking the time to both share your story and wisdom. Blessings. 🙂
Gary Odle
Glad to help.
Bo Lane
Thanks for the comment, Gary, and for sharing a part of your journey with us.