Time, boundaries and health

It was quiet on Rupert’s blog last week: mainly due to illness in the Ward household … all of us at one point last week. Shakes and shivers. Not much fun, and I am still feeling a bit washed out. So all this has got me reflecting on: how much of this continual illness (pretty much from beginning of December for one or other of us!) is due to having small children (with small immune systems) around the place … and how much of it is due to running life too fast.

This Sunday, we were looking at “rest and recreation” … and boy was I glad that I wasn’t sharing my thoughts! We were thinking about a Sabbath … a day of rest. Rob Bell has described this as a day when you do as few of the routine chores as you possible can (there is no getting round it, you do HAVE to change nappies!).

But my thoughts have been going further than that. We have always tried to have a day off … a quiet day, when we take things more slowly, drink coffee, have a nice meal and a bottle of wine. But it really is NO GOOD, when you rush around like some mad hatter for the other six days, cramming in as much as you can, only to crash on the seventh. It’s not healthy. It’s not a life!

I know each job, faces its own unique challenges: it is so easy to get into the mindset that ‘I have it much worse’. Having said all that, now I am going to say how much harder it is to be working for a church! Well that isn’t true, but here are some of the challenges:

1. The lack of good role models. Many who I have observed, seem to have worked too hard, sacrificed family, hobbies / interests and a life, for the Kingdom. While I admire the commitment, I think the cost they have paid is not one that Jesus ever asked them to pay. It is not unusual for church leaders / ministers / priests to working 60+ hour weeks. I know others work that hard, but it doesn’t make it right!
2. People, people, people. Don’t go into Christian “ministry” if you don’t like people (I once met an “evangelist” who didn’t like people… !). I love people. I love seeing and hearing what God is doing. I love helping and being alongside, teaching, and drawing people to Jesus. But at the end of a people week, I JUST NEED SOME SPACE…
3. Working from home is great: there are many advantages. But I find it hard to have good boundaries sometimes. You can’t just shut the office door, catch the bus or get in the car, and go home to forget about work until another week.
4. The people who I am working with, are also my friends, my community. When is it work? When is it friendship?
5. This is the Kingdom for goodness sake. And isn’t sacrifice part of the deal? Aren’t we supposed to give ourselves for the sake of the Kingdom? There is always things that could be done; good, holy, Godly things to be done. More people to see. More praying. More reading. More planning. More need to meet.
6. And it has to be admitted that being successful is a pretty powerful drug that church leaders aren’t immune too … in fact I sometimes wonder if we aren’t some of the most addicted people around. To have the biggest, the best church … the next big thing in the Church world (or the blogging world for that matter!) … so if we can just make it, get recognised, noticed, invited to preach, be part of this initiative or that team … So we just work a bit harder, a bit more …

So these are some my challenges. Add to that being a Father (another full time job!) and husband and friend and blogger and … is it any wonder that “rest and recreation” is hard to come by.

I have started reading “Finding Sanctuary” by Abbot Christopher Jamison (who is the Abbot at Worth Abbey, where the Monastery was filmed). His first Chapter is all about how we got this busy that we rarely find sanctuary in our lives. Looks a good book, and I am looking forward to reading his view on how we can ‘retreat’ & find space … once I find some time to read the book that is!