Friday, 18 July 2008
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Self-Sacrifice Does Not Mean Self-Neglect
from vvorldsapart
A few days ago, I read an article on MSN called (something like), “A Christian Pastor Cheats on His Wife.” It was a detailed retelling from the woman’s and man’s separate points of view on how their picture-perfect marriage spiralled downward. Pastors face the near-unrealistic expectation of "feeding the sheep" and taking care of everyone’s needs while putting themselves last. The wife and husband’s individual struggles were upsetting because they were relatable, but at the same time, I was frustrated at their lack of knowledge concerning recovery. At the very end of the article, psychiatrists gave their diagnosis (and you could tell they weren’t Christians, because they made it a very generic statement of all religious faiths) and it had frustrated me even more to see that someone who wasn’t a Christian knew better than a pastor who was supposedly supposed to be a messenger of God and a hope in this world. Seeing their struggles within their marriage was pretty typical of leaders of a religious group, the psychiatrist had said, and simply stated the steps they needed to take in order to make it better.
Reading all of this made me realize why it’s so easy to see Christians as hypocrites. From the outside, the pastor is telling hundreds, or even thousands of people what to do in order to be a “good” Christian, yet he can’t even handle his own marriage. He tends to other peoples’ needs and wants and concerns, but he doesn’t even know how to communicate lovingly to his wife and/or children.
And throughout the whole downward spiral, the couple both feared not “fulfilling their ministerial duty,” and so just kept pushing their own needs away while trying to help other people. It’s because they (and I, and probably millions of other Christians) grew up to believe that to tend to your needs was selfish, and that Christian life is all about sacrifice, ministry and saying no to yourself. What this does, in reality, is make you resent other people for not fulfilling your needs when you feel you’ve sacrificed your own in order to meet others. Then you try to obtain your needs by either becoming needy, by becoming passive-aggressive, or just by (unknowingly) talking about yourself all the time, demanding attention to you and your sacrifice. I’ve seen this happen to at least two people really close to me; they try to bite their tongue, serve others and not expect anything in return while continually pushing their own needs aside. They grew up with it as the sacrificial, loving and Christ-like duty. Now one of them constantly talks about himself and searches for validation through his “selfless” acts (which are invalid when bragged about), and the other has so much pent-up resentment that every word that comes out of her mouth is preachy, judgmental or bitter.
How do you draw a line between serving others and taking care of your own needs? Have you ever gotten burnt out from serving others?
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Comments (9)
Wow. I'm going through a class at my church on the book "Boundaries" By Dr's Cloud and Townsend. I'm only a few weeks in and it's already made a great difference in my life.
One of the issues that they address is how Christians often think that their need should be put on the back burner in order to "serve" others when, in fact, they are being poor stewards of their body/life by not taking care of that which God gave them.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough. If I had the money for it, I'd buy it for everyone I know.
I think this is one of the paradoxes of Christianity.
The point is that we can't be Jesus - ever.
Just make sure that you're put together enough to be able to help others. Otherwise, you're pretty useless.
Growing up in a small church where my family was one of the "founding" families of the church, there was a lot of pressure put on us kids to do stuff to help the church. When you didn't, or said you didn't want to, you'd get in trouble from your parents. It was like that until I guess high school.
As a result, I found myself resenting the need to help out. You could never say "I don't want to" without getting that "God asks you to do this" lecture. At the time, it was quite difficult to understand.
Even now, we joined with a larger church a few years back and though our Chinese ministry has grown by leaps and bounds, we were "stuck" helping out for the longest time. The fact that none of these people wanted to help... And as a result, I *had* to help out... It was quite frustrating.
Though there have been a few bitter discussions about it with my sister and mom, mostly, I try to pray about it. I think it's a mixture of problems in our case, but I find myself relying on Him more as I mature in my relationship with Him. Usually when I pray, I find a sense of peace, knowing that He's listening.
At the same time, you need to find ways of implementing that time to take care of yourself. I teach Sunday school during the school year, but we're given the two months off (July and Aug) to "recooperate" and relax. Since the summer months can be quite busy with people leaving on vacation, we at least ask that parents volunteer the number of times that they have children to help out. I think it's nice. I love the kids, but at the same time, it takes up a lot of your own time. So the chance to relax, it's a blessing as well.
that is the struggle in the ministry. yes, God called you to minister to those people, that is your mission. but you have to have your priorites straight.
it should be
1. God
2. Family (Spouse first, then kids)
3. Church/Ministry
and everything else falls underneath that. it's hard to set those boundaries, but you have to do it.
my dad is a pastor and we've been on a sabbatical for two years. we served in a small community for seven years and afterwards we were all burnt out. these past two years have been good for us to rest and rejuvenate.
There are several issues that bring about the condition you've illuminated. One is the issue of whom we are serving. Another is the faulty church system construct.
The first issue is what I call the WWJD problem. In other words, people are serving because they are guessing what our Father wants them to do, whom to serve, and how to serve them. Why ask what would Jesus do when we can find out straight from the horse's mouth?
Jesus only did what He saw the Father doing. This means He had His eyes always on the Father. He knew Him intimately enough to know what His Father wanted Him to do. This is a central problem in the church - we do not teach intimacy with our Father by example and leading.
We should ask the Father whom He wants us to serve and how He wants us to serve them. In so doing we become His servants to the people in question. We really should only have one Master to serve. With this attitude we also acknowledge that all our service is truly His to whomever we are sent. It also allows us to develop good boundaries when determining how much of whose request we should meet. This helps prevent burnout and and apportions our time more appropriately so that our families don't go unministered to.
With that said, the current one-man-at-the-top church structure, or as I like to call it, the "clergy-laity" structure of church organization is designed for failure. It puts way too much responsibility on the clergy while leaving the laity without growth opportunities that the church is charged with providing them. It also creates the potential for abuse of authority that is far more often seen than not.
The church should be more like a technical school, training and equipping the saints for the ministries they have proclivity and inclination toward. It should appear as a group of people with all levels of training, from the completely inexperienced, to apprentices, mentors and experts in each field of ministry. Yet rarely do we find such a paletted congregation. Instead, we find one overtaxed person incompletely trained and equipped in several areas of ministry, though most likely well-trained and equipped in several areas, being required to be mentor and expert to the masses. Since he is spread so thin the result is that few if any receive sufficient training/equipping to pass beyond infancy. The pastor burns our and/or loses his effectiveness, being taught in his seminary not to let anyone from his congregation get close enough to minister to him.
God forbid he have a family! If he has received the teaching that the congregation comes first, his family will eventually end up with the fumes of a hollow man since the congregation has already lapped up the last drops.
IOW, this system is designed to fail.
However, the synagogue system, which Paul replicated, accommodates the requirements of the congregation to be equipped toward becoming deacons and elders, as this is the maturity level desired for all. Elders earn the trust of the people by their love for them and by their example of maturity and wisdom. Elders train the future elders who mentor the younger folk in Messiah. There are no levels of maturity like the clergy/laity stair step. But instead the maturity looks more like an incline or ramp.
Everyone submits to the correction of others despite the difference in maturity in that each one takes the correction before the Lord alone to find out how much of it is from Him and what He would have them do to be fully corrected. Each one realizes that wisdom and correction can come from the mouths of infants and sucklings. Each one is humble enough, even eager enough to receive correction from wherever the Father wants bring it.
This is a very good point. Too many in the ministry burn out because they are constantly expected to be there for others, to constantly be putting out fires. They are so heavily depended upon to solve others' problems that it's easy (for a while) to push their own needs to the back burner to deal with them. However, this will shorten the life of anyone's ministry, and probably shorten their physical life in the long run, as we are not created to live under constant pressure and stress.
I don't think it's selfish to make sure your needs are met, i.e. sleep (!), food, companionship, and I don't think it's selfish to put your family before your ministry. In fact, it think it absolutely necessary.
pastor are also humans, even if they're deemed holier than thou, they are always human. that's why i don't have too high regards to any of these people in ministry. surely, they serve noble purposes and sometimes sacrifice material comforts to become pastors and ministers. that's very commendable. but at the end of the day, they are not God, they are mere human who will fall once in a while. cut them some slack and move on already.
i think i have... i've turned into the passive aggressive i guess. there are times when i'm resentful and bitter =( and that just sucks =(
I'm pretty sure that God and the rest of the church around you would understand if you were having marital problems and needed to tend to them. I mean, if your life is breaking apart you can't exactly be a help to those around you, now can you? It's your duty to make yourself whole before you attempt to give others a better life.