Balancing Ministry With My Personal Life
Recently I was asked how I balance the demands of a large student ministry with the demands of a healthy personal and family life. Here are the basic points I discussed with my friend in ministry:
Ministry is demanding regardless of the size of your youth group. If you have a group of ten or a group of five hundred the demands are still present. Obviously the larger the group the more sporting events, band competitions, dramas, musicals, parties, etc come with it. However, hopefully you have a healthy team of committed adults who understand the vision and importance of being with students on their turf and they are out there helping you accomplish this demand.
With that said, I did give the following suggestions when trying to balance your personal time and your ministry time.
1. Calendar Family Days – we calendar everything don’t we? I just finished my 2010 – 2011 ministry calendar. I know where we are going to camp, mission trips, retreats, conferences, and I even have sermon series planned out for the next few months. When I was planning our yearly calendar I brought my wife into the process and we planned our family vacations, personal days, etc. We try to plan once a month for my wife and I to have a date night without the kids. We also try to plan once a month kid night where each of us take one of our children and we go do something special with them. Family time is important and if we don’t plan it and mark it on the calendars, we will fill it with something else.
2. Commit to it – We all know that ministry will throw us curveballs which will cause us to drop everything and respond to a crisis need. However, outside of emergencies, we really have to stay committed to our family time. I’m not perfect at this but I need to continue to focus on it. Think about it, would we ever just cancel our retreat because something else popped up we wanted to do? Of course not. We must make our family more important than our other ministry demands.
3. Share Vision With Team – I think it is important to share your vision with your team. Share with them how you feel about hanging with students on their turf and ask them to help you accomplish this demand. Share it with them frequently until they are doing it and then share it some more.
4. Lastly, I would simply say to evaluate your schedule and have others help you evaluate. An honest evaluation will show you if you are neglecting your spouse, your children, or your ministry demands. When evaluating keep in mind that a healthy ministry only comes from a healthy leader who has a healthy personal and family life. A leader with an unhealthy personal and family life will eventually have an unhealthy ministry as well.
