Recalling an event that happened more than 30 years ago, I can still remember the icy cold feeling in the pit of my stomach. My wife, Connie, and I were enjoying a very rare Friday evening away from church activities.
We pushed our daughter’s stroller through a large indoor shopping mall in a neighboring community. Suddenly we heard my name being paged and I was urged to call the mall operator, which I did immediately. An irate bride-to-be was on the phone wondering why I was not at her wedding rehearsal. I had completely forgotten it and there was no way I could get there before the rehearsal dinner was scheduled.
I do not recall now what kind of arrangements we made for rehearsal, but I remember well the drive home from that evening at the mall.
Although Connie tried gamely to lift my spirits, I was full of recrimination and guilt. I had let this couple down and failed in one of the most basic of ministerial mandates: Check your calendar! Connie held the opinion that the evening’s omission came as a direct result of scheduling too many things and neglecting time for myself and the family. She maintained that if we had regular time just for us, forgetting a wedding rehearsal would be less likely. She was right. I needed to establish family time, which, barring a genuine emergency would be our time.
From the vantage point of three decades of ministry and greater organizational maturity, I have realized that one of my problems has always been with boundaries. I have been slow to set them and, once set, I have tended to let them be pushed back necessitating them to be reset periodically.
From an early age I accepted the false notion that pastors were to do be on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. What I did not realize in those early days is that never having “down time” creates anxiety. I believed that pastors should be available during times of crisis and that church members should feel the freedom to call their pastor at any hour of the day or night.
Having established this as my expectation, church members did not disappoint.
But after a time it became clear that not all crisis events were bona fide emergencies. Eventually I learned, when a call came asking me to come immediately, to ask if the matter was something that had to be attended to then or if it could wait until we could schedule an appointment. Very often the caller would say, “Sure, this can wait.”
Often what prompted the call was something that had been building over time until it reached a crisis point and just knowing that we had a time scheduled to talk was enough to ease their anxiety. Learning that it is necessary to set limits and establish boundaries leads to a happier and more effective ministry.
Other memories come to mind. Like the evening after a revival service when a distraught church member called saying that the service had stirred up all kinds of guilt and she needed to unburden herself before she could find a moment of peace. Reluctantly, I agreed to go. The fact that she was an attractive blonde widow only a few years older than myself caused me to feel uneasy about my visit. But if I was uneasy, Connie was, rightfully, angry.
Although the circumstances were exactly as the woman had described them and she did appear to feel immense relief after unburdening herself to her pastor and praying, making that visit alone was one of the dumber things I have done. Here again, as Connie helped me to realize when I got home, I clearly needed to establish some appropriate boundaries — which I did.
On another occasion I recall pausing on my front porch. I had just kissed Connie goodbye and had hugged the children on my way out the door. Before proceeding down the steps to my car and on to an associational meeting, I reflected. I had been gone to a meeting of some kind every evening for three weeks. As I paused, I wondered, “If I did what I believe Jesus would want me to do, would I go back in that door and spend the evening with my family or go to this meeting?” After a few seconds of reflection, I started my car and drove to the meeting.
Looking back, I think I did the right thing at that moment because people were counting on me to show up. Where I failed was allowing myself to get so committed to meetings that I neglected my family. I still remember that evening as a time when I got smarter about setting limits and re-establishing boundaries in ministry.
Clearly personal time, family time and the needs of the church have to be held in balance by an effective pastor. But how can a pastor explain his or her need for personal and family time without sounding whiney? Naturally, every profession has its demands, but one would think that a church would expect its pastor to model a strong commitment to family time. Truthfully, churches are often willing to put their organizational needs ahead of the needs of their pastor’s family.
Personnel committees, however, have a responsibility to help pastors and staff establish boundaries that will protect their ministries from rumor and burnout and energize them with “re-creation.” Recognizing that emergencies do arise occasionally, and even established personal time will have to yield to such needs, personnel committees will do their pastors and their churches real service by insisting that family time be a priority. And pastors, their spouses and their families will be much happier if they have time they can count on as their own.
Jim White ([email protected]) is executive editor of the Religious Herald.