i'm baaaack

Actually, I've just popped in because i thought i really should start to say something again. Things have been very pressured lately just because of the time it has taken to do everything that needs to be done - so much for this being a one day a week job!

I have six wonderful parishes full of intelligent, committed, thoughtful, concerned people. Many of the expectations placed on Clergy are unrealistic, but there is a certain level of pastoral visiting that one needs to do, after six months of unsettled life with a move, holidays, Christmas, a new baby etc it was time for me to do some remedial work, to visit as much as possibly could - this has been the focus of the last three months or so....

It goes on, I continue to make as much time as is humanly possible for visiting people, alongside other meetings, appointments, service planning and leading, events, praying, reading, writing sermons, and of course the hours i spend in a car getting between places. This is not a complaint, just a realisation that has been dawning on me that i am probably not that model of an unhurried and balanced life that i have always wanted to be. I don't mean that i think ministers should be slackers, far from it, but in a world that is hurried, time pressured and constantly 'striving' i do think that the Church could, and perhaps should, offer an alternative. We in the Church are called to pray, to make time for people, to be available. Ministers are often not good examples of that.

All Christians, indeed all people, constantly strive for balance. We in full time ministry are not alone in this, of course - and in many ways the flexibility that working for the Church offers in terms of being able to make time for family and to live where we work is nothing but good. In the end though, a burnt out person is not a well balanced person, and a burnt out minister is not an example after the model of Christ. May God preserve us from busy-ness.

TTFN, no idea when i will be back...

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