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Boundaries
Some people believe a pastor should be available 24 hours a day for every situation—no matter what.
I disagree.
When you study the life of Jesus, he often escaped from the crowds to spend time alone with God. His “life rhythms” model healthy boundaries.
If a pastor or staff member doesn’t set some boundaries, he won’t be in ministry for long:
- He will burn out.
- She will get resentful.
- He will lose his marriage.
- She will have an affair.
This week we’ll talk about boundaries for the pastor.
Let’s start with honest discussion. How successful are you at defining appropriate and healthy boundaries?
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I go through seasons of success. At times I’m secure enough to draw boundaries and not care about the perceived consequences. Other times I care more about what my leadership thinks than I should. This provokes the tendency to compromise.
I’ve also found that boundaries are more mental than physical. Just because I’m not on my phone or computer, doesn’t mean I’m present with my family.
So true!!! My boundaries are real and I have learned to be successful at setting them. It’s not only important for my family; it’s equally important to model this behavior for my team.
They will do as you do and not as you say… So “Do” set boundaries!
I’ve only been at this for close to two years now, and I think I’ve been on both sides already. In my current position, my cell phone number is in the weekly bulletin, and nobody has taken advantage of it yet. I have only received a couple calls late in the evening (9/10 o’clock); and in both cases, it was an emergency.
However, where I was before, I felt like I was expected to be at everything and spending each of my evenings visiting with people. There was a strong (and unhealthy) expectation that I constantly be doing something, producing something or talking to somebody. It was very stressful, discouraging and educational. I definitely make it clear that I need to have some time off during the week, and people respect it.
This is the hardest thing I face. I come from a family that are incredible servants/workaholics. My dad is an incredible man of God, but had tremendous difficulty knowing where family life started and where ministry ended. I see a lot of those struggles in my own life. I am starting to go through Coaching Ministry International and my coach is getting ready to Jack me UP! I really need this. I see anything with people as ministry and struggle to shut it off, all the while my family that needs it is getting neglected.
I thank God that He is really helping me see my flaws. I want to have boundaries and are working on them fearlessly. Infact, I have put my calendar to work the last two weeks and have seen God work powerfully in my boundaries. People respect them and my family is honored by them
The toughest part about setting boundaries in the ministry is that you will lose friends and even members when you do it. Those who want to set your personal calendar or need to be the pastor’s best friend will accuse you of not being like Jesus “who always did everything..anyone needed…no matter what.” Better to lose friends and memebers than your health, your joy, your victory, your kids, or your spouse.
I haven done real well in the past. But I am taking today off after putting in extra hours last week. Last I had a long week and I didn’t take time off it burned me in the end. Here’s to living’ and learnin’.
My biggest question is how do I balance my full time work with people’s “leisure time” with my “leisure time”. Ideally, I should work something like 45-50 hours a week with one full day off. That is not always that easy. What is considered “work” since I love reading blogs and books and in many ways church/Bible is one of my hobbies.
I don’t like asking anyone to do something with their leisure time that I would ask of myself. I also hate asking already overly committed people to serve away from family (even if they are not willing to say no).
Make sense?
I make my “Sabbath day” Friday. I tell my congregation that they can always reach me for life-and-death emergencies, but routine stuff on Fridays will have to wait. I don’t check church voice mail or church email on Fridays. For the most part people have been good at honoring this boundary.
My biggest boundary is in my own mind. It’s hard to turn off the church switch on Fridays, to not always be thinking about “church stuff.” If I’m taking a day to rest, I want to truly disengage from my weekly routine and be completely engaged with my family and close friends. It’s a struggle to keep the church switch off, but I’m doing better at listening to the Holy Spirit remind me to not turn the church switch back on.
I have found that setting aside a true Sabbath day is the single-greatest thing to help me keep my boundaries at a healthy place throughout the rest of the week.
I have learned to accept the fact that I will disappoint people. Well I’m learning it….getting there.
I really work hard to schedule most appointments during the day. Protecting my evenings.
I flex my work schedule to be with my family, take them to appointments, meet my wife for lunch, and be part of important family moments.
If I sense a little burn out or am just tired out from ministry I have learned it’s better to take a unscheduled day or half day off and care for myself rather than just keep pushing on. At times I have even lighted my schedule for several days. I know if I do this i will be better in the long haul. If I don’t I will start to think about quitting.
I am fostering a culture in our church that does not expect my presence or involvement in every activity, event or need.
I fail regularly by spending too much time on the internet after work hours. Spending time learning, connecting and researching in the name of the Lord. I have to learn to turn it off and stay off my computer. This is the big area that pulls me away from my family and steals my down time.
Craig and others: I am not healthy. I think Satan uses this against me. When I set boundaries he makes such legit reasons to cross them.
If someone approaches me past a boundary time, I feel guilty if I don’t help them…like it’s my obligation. I’m scared that when I help or don’t help them, I may get my feelings confused with what God wants.
Advice? Haha
At the end of your life, who is going to be gathered around your bedside to love you and say goodbye? It is your wife or husband and your children. I want to be able to look them in the eye and know that they were always my priority. There is no church member or malcontent who will be there.
I thought you were all about being open and spend time with people I always pictured you pastor craig as someone who carried everything on his sleeve….
I used to be horrible at this. Mainly because I cared way too much what everyone else thought about me. You know like I wasn’t “giving it all” in ministry like so and so if I didn’t spend every waking moment at my job. But then one day God told me to start caring about people, especially the ones He’s placed in my life. So, I started leaving at 5:00 on the dot with almost no exceptions. Sounds harsh but when you spent the first few years of ministry staying until 7:00 or later (like I did)…it begins to make sense. Now I’m closer with my family, have the most amazing friends on the planet, and am spending more time with God one on one. And I actually have a life! Yay for that!
I can agree with this on two fronts: as a minister now and as a former pastor’s kid. My father was a minister for most of my life. He was kind of forced into retirement at the age of 50 due to health concerns and the grind of being on call 24 hours.
My father died at the age of 53 and I feel that the life he led in the church directly contributed to it. I don’t blame God and I don’t blame the Church. I know that my father needed to say no more often. But I do think that the “church”, those who thought he worked for them instead of working for God’s minsitry, contributed to his early demise.
I keep those memories in my mind now as I pastor a local church. I find myself keeping my mind on the people and having a hard time turning it off. But the one thing that does turn my mind off on my Sabbath is remembering that I can’t talk to my dad about what is going on in my life. I don’t want that for my children. I have three great boys and the best wife in the world. They are a gift from God that I need to invest in and protect. I believe that I am raising ministers to this world, not just men. If they don’t see a heathly example of ministry in me then the cycle will just grow and get worse in their lives.
Guys and girls on the front line, do your dead level best to preserve your time, your efforts, and your energy for your family. They are worth it. They will appreciate it more than the church. To paraphrase the Bible, and I hope this is not too forward, What does it gain a pastor if he wins the whole world and loses his family?
Grace and peace
Thanks for sharing your story Randy. You painted a very vivid picture for all of us. I hope is helps us all wake up.
I pastor a local church and like many of you have a hard time balancing ministry and family time. As a pastor a a mid sized church it’s unrealistic to say I will only do ministry during the “work day” as the people in our church are working during the “work day” which does mean that I am going to have some nights I am committed to things. Here are some of the things I have put in place: My doesn’t work at the church however she keeps my schedule. Every appointment I have is cleared through her. Also, we have some ground rules in place for my schedule. First, I am going to have one day off a week period and she picks the day. Second. I am going to have 2 weeknights with no appointments and one weekend day with no appointments.
We have a team of volunteers if someone needs prayer or a visit on one of my days or times off they will go in my place.
i will never forget when i was a staff pastor who lived close to the church one time a church member knocked on my door after midnight.
“Can you let me in the church so I can get my son’s jacket he forgot? I would never dream of bugging the psator this late so I thought I would come by and ask you.”
jerk
I think it is tough but necessary. When in ministry it becomes a big part of your life. And not just your life but your family’s life as well. It can get very easy to see the lines between home life and church life get blurry. The hardest part is learning to say no to things. I am not good at that. I struggle with wanting everyone to be happy with me despite the fact that I don’t want to be that way. It is difficult to learn to say no, but it sure does help a ton when it comes to family life!
One way I’ve balanced this dynamic is that I live about 15 miles from the church. In my home life, I rarely run into congregation members in the store or in my community. I miss the interaction, but it does provide a buffer. We also have a large volunteer staff of pastors so that many of the emergencies are handled by staff members (ie..pastoral care usually gets called for deaths/hospital; youth staff for youth emergencies; etc) which intentionally buffer the Senior pastor from having to handle all emergencies.
To do this successfully requires the congregation to trust in the volunteer leadership and have confidence in their abilities.
When i was new to our church, 2 weeks in, I was at Disneyland with my kids and I got a call that a baby was being rushed to the hospital. The baby died before I could get there, but my kids waited with strangers in the waiting room. I almost didnt answer the call when we were at Disneyland. For months after that I slept ate and drank with my cell phone at my side until my mentor gave me to turn it off on my days off.
[...] Groeschel on Boundaries for a pastor (good [...]
Here’s the thing about our kind of leadership; leaders who are led by the Holy Spirit…
When full design, structure and development of the organization is enthusiastically placed into the hands of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit then the group matures individually and collectively. Now each individual of the group learns and lives out the truth that God is the director of this thing and the eager provider of our needs. And with that confidence the individual begins to accept more effective personal responsibility in his life. Because the group is maturing, when the individual has hit a place where he feels he needs support- he has many to choose from within the organiztion. When we eliminate the egotistical temptation to set ourselves as the nucleus of the whole thing instead of setting Jesus up as the nucleus of the whole thing- then we don’t have such a problem with boundaries. The pastor is not the provider- the I AM is the provider. Too often we refuse to take an unflinching look at how we may have created our own exhaustion. It’s not Pastor so and so’s church you’re building. It’s God’s. Confidently and calmly walking out the ministry like Jesus did-not like the disciples did so many times. Was Jesus in a panic over whether there was enough food? Did Jesus really need to draw some boundaries instead of saying “Suffer the little children…”