Family Maintenance.

December 28, 2011

Pastors, when was the last time you were in church and you weren’t in charge? When it wasn’t a learning event or work related but was a time for you to sit with your family and just worship the God of the universe? God created us to worship in community. Pastors are not exempt from that.

One thing my family and I do is around Christmas time we find a church holding services on the 23rd and we attend. Usually it is a giant mega-church where we can blend in and I am not a pastor I am just a husband and a father. For an hour we get to worship together like we did before God called me to this ministry.

When was the last time you got to do that? Why has it been so long? What will it take to get you to be in worship?

I would challenge you pastors to try it. Maybe it will be refreshing and re-energizing to your soul.

I would encourage the laity to encourage their pastor to do the same thing.

I am discovering that it is important for pastors to be able to not be a pastor all the time. When a pastor cannot turn it “off” and simply be a human then we begin to define ourselves as a pastor instead of defining ourselves as followers of Jesus. When pastors stop being followers of God and start being “pastors” all the time burnout begins to set in.

So then, the key to longevity as a pastor is to not always be “on duty” but to sometimes just be in worship.

Beyond that, when anyone (pastor or not) is not in worship with their spouse and children it begins to take its toll on the family. It begins to create rifts within the family unit. Bitterness, loneliness, and hatred start to set in and if these things take root then the family is in danger. When you family falls apart everything else in life falls apart. Pastors are not exempt from that.