What a glimpse

Okay so today I got a glimse at what so many experience each and every Sunday. I stayed home from church. Even though I'm a pastor, have responsibilties (sorry Bill if you ever read this!), I wasn't there. I was at home. I slept in. I watched too much TV. I played with my kids. I laughed a little with my wife. I checked email, read some blogs online and didn't shower until my own scent bothered me.

So I was sick. Kind of a flu thing. But nonetheless I discovered something about myself. I really do enjoy getting together with folks. I missed not being with some people today. I missed worshiping God together. I also really liked not having to hustle my rear around on a Sunday morning (imagine a weekend that I actually look forward to!). I didn't feel guilty once for not being around in the morning to help my wife with our four kids to get dressed, fed, together, and out the door in time for church.

This is something that Carol and I both really loved in our visit a year or so ago to Solomon's Porch. We loved not having church on Sunday morning. We're not anti-church, but we are anti-something we wouldn't normally choose for ourselves. Perhaps this is not a new conversation. But today was quite a reminder and glimpse of what could be.

Or maybe its just this bug and the drugs... probably not though.

It makes you wonder...

I know that ministry is hard. I knew that coming into it. But I've really been struggling with the reality that so many who start in ministry don't finish in ministry. I read recently that 8 out of 10 ministers don't make it 10 years in ministry and something like 95% don't make it to retirement. Hmmmmm...

Any other profession that has that high a turnover it seems would seek reform. Yet I hear no calls for reform in how we train, treat and retreat our pastors and spiritual leaders. Unless you count this. I guess as a minister myself that makes me in tune. It also makes me in danger.

If I were to capsulize the reasons of so much turnover, I suppose that would say it is the constant emptying of yourself. Every Sunday it seems in preaching or teaching or counseling or conversations, there is this pouring out of a pastor's emotional and spiritual and physical self. How do we fil back up? How do we restore so that we can re-create/ re-imagine?

This is a problem for so many. I wonder what answers may lie out there???

The Warrior