GETTING LESS BUSY (OR HOW TO GET HEALTHIER)
Every person who has ever lived has the same exact number of minutes given to him or her every day. How we spend those moments makes all the difference. With so many busy people in this world it’s clear many of us constantly overspend on time.
My last blog ( you can read that here) explored how we never have enough time to do anything due to the expectations we place on ourselves to get everything done. This reality is often the most true among pastors. Of course, this is not good for anyone.
So, if pastors are often too busy, what can be done to move in a healthier direction? There are several things we can do, but we must remember it’s a group effort, involving everyone who belongs to a community of faith and not only pastors. With this in mind, here are three suggestions that may be helpful.
Pastors Are Not Heroes
There are many temptations that go along with being a pastor. Chief among them is the temptation to believe we are a cut above the average human being. At first glance this sounds like crazy talk, but it’s true. People want to know what you think, they show up Sunday after Sunday to listen to your sermons, give you gifts, invite you to dinner and send kind notes (and, at times, unkind notes). After a while it’s easy to think we are rather important.
As our swelling sense of self-importance grows we assume we can do it all. In fact, we must do it all because we are important. And important people are needed to do … well, everything. So we work and commit and teach and stay busy which only feeds more into our false belief of importance. History, however, tells a different story.
No pastor is as important as people think he or she is, and any honest pastor will tell you the same. Pastors come and go all the time and the Church continues to barrel on like a runaway truck. It’s essential pastors and congregations remember this. If we move beyond a special super-human category for pastors, they are then able to simply be human. They will find the freedom to exist as a brother or sister, a friend and a sojourner. In doing so we will remind ourselves and others, while pastors, like everyone, are important, we are no more important than anyone else.
We Need Each Other
Many believe they need their pastor for a multitude of things. Pastors don’t help the situation any by their willingness to consistently respond to the multitude of things they believe they are needed for. What is often forgotten is we need each other too. Next time you attend a worship service look around the room and notice something. There are far more men and women in the seats than there are pastors.
I know many who are a part of our church who possess great depth, maturity, insight, compassion and wisdom. Yet, because we’ve chosen to believe we need the pastor to meet our needs, we often walk right by a man or woman who may well be better suited to meet our need than our pastor. Rather than racing to meet every need we can, pastors must recognize the gifts of others, and allow them to meet the myriad of needs present in a congregation. Likewise, the congregation must recognize the pastor is one person, and the congregation is made up of many people who are perfectly suited to meet one another’s needs.
Give A Nonrenewable Gift
Time is a nonrenewable resource. Once a moment is gone; it’s gone forever. Busyness is the enemy of time seeking to steal every spare moment we possess. This is why one of the best gifts pastors can give to themselves and others can give to pastors is time.
Pastors tell me they receive negative feedback from others when they take a Sunday or two off from preaching or take a long vacation or skip work to go skiing. One of the best things about being a pastor at Denver Community Church is our congregation lavishes the gift of time on our pastors. This gift giving is built on trust in the pastor's heart and work along with a desire not to see pastors staying busy and fretting over all that needs to be done.
If you're a pastor, when is the next time you plan to take a day or three and do something fun? When is the next time you steal away if only to remind yourself you are not only what you do? When will you keep your phone off and not check email all the while renouncing any guilty feeling you have for doing so? Likewise, when is the next time you can celebrate - not question - your pastor taking time away to rest and refresh and renew and be fully away from it all? Perhaps making plans is the first step.
I suspect if we can just do these three things well, we may well find pastors would be less busy and far healthier. And if that’s the case, their congregations will be healthier too.