The Divine Crash

As a pastor their are continuous assaults on my time and on the time I get to spend with my family.  As a result I have to guard that time as if I were guarding Fort Knox.

However, sometimes things come up that cannot be avoided and cannot be stopped.  Two of those things are weddings and funerals.  Usually a wedding is scheduled far in advance but still requires about 10-12 hours of prep time on my part that is extra over my regular weekly work.  Funerals are usually much quicker and usually come at times when I have the least amount of free time and funerals can require anywhere from 5-15 hours of my time.

Don’t get me wrong, I actually enjoy doing weddings and funerals this is some of the time when I get to spend uninterrupted time with just a few people and I get an extra chance to talk about Jesus with people who may not hear it any other time.  During these events I do not charge a fee for church members, and non-members have a nominal fee.  Early on in my ministry I learned a great rule for what I do with the fees/gifts I receive.

What happens is any money I may receive as a gift or as a fee I take and spend on the family.  That money is not used for bills or anything that is not-fun.  I take that money and I spoil my wife and two kids.  I can never get back the hours I spent on the wedding or funeral but I can try to bring some joy to my family after missing them for those hours.

One of the things I did today after a recent wedding was to take my kids to Toys R Us.  They each were allowed to pick out one toy.  My son picked out this toy guitar.  He was playing it all night.  My daughter picked out a little nesting toy. I know it won’t ever make it okay for all the hours I missed but at least this way the reason I missed was so they could be a little happier?

We went with my wife to the mall and she was able to get a new sweater and we had dinner at IHOP.

None of this is really a lot of anything and maybe it is only making me feel better but it works.  I may not feel good about missing all that time but at least I can have some fun with my family afterwards.

Not every pastor has this rule, some pastors spend the money on books or to pay bills.  I don’t think that is right, if ministry isn’t about you why should the pay for it be about you?

• If you are a pastor, do you have safeguards in your ministry to protect your family and your time with you family?  If you don’t why?  When your children are older they will not care how many good sermons you preached and how many hospital visits you did, they will only care about the baseball games you missed and the questions you didn’t help them answer.  That isn’t a fair trade for me and I refuse to sacrifice my family on the altar of my church. What about you?

• If you are a family member of a pastor, put those priorities in place, tell the pastor that you need him or her to be home and help with homework or dinner or to go on a date night without the cell phone.

• If you are in a church, give the pastor time off.  Respect those days off, call if you have an emergency but remember that if the pastor has a family they should come before the congregation.

Filed under:
Family, Pastoral Life by RevBT