According to the Barna Group, Americans want sleep more than anything else.
(I got the link to this via Jesus Creed.)
"October 16, 2006The article goes on to say(Ventura, CA) – Americans look forward to a variety of things. While one might guess that it would include travel to exotic locations or seeing the latest movie, by far the most alluring possibility is the simplest: getting a good night of sleep! Seven out of ten adults (71%) said they look forward “a lot” to having a refreshing snooze. That’s one of the results from a newly released nationwide survey of 1005 adults conducted by The Barna Group."
"The ranking of the items examined might surprise people. For instance, the fourth most appealing activity was attending church services, which 40% said they look forward to. In fact, further confirming that religion is “hot” right now, Americans were more likely to say they look forward to reading the Bible (31%) than to look forward to reading a novel for pleasure (25%). And the fact that shopping for clothing was ranked by women fifteenth out of the 17 options conflicts with the venerable stereotype."
So considering these two statistics, I wonder ... is the church something that is making us tired? Are we over-committed to the Body of Christ?
In my heyday, I was at church virtually every day for some reason. I was just a humble volunteer, serving in a variety of roles. Some of those roles were in a leadership capacity, but not all.
An example week:
Monday: Various ministry team meetings
Tuesday: Volunteer in the church office in the morning, attend a class in the evening
Wednesday: Attend bible study in the morning and church service in the evening. Sometimes arrive a church early to pray for the Pastor and the service.
Thursday: volunteer in the church office in the morning, attend prayer group in the evening.
Friday: off, unless a special event needed help or prayer support.
Saturday: attend one evening service, serve on altar team or pastoral prayer team for the other service.
Sunday: attend a class in the morning, have small group in my home in the afternoon.
Yes, I was exhausted and my family suffered. But I was a good and faithful servant.
Why, you might wonder, in a church of nearly 10,000, should one person have to do so much?
Well for one thing, I did it in order to build my self-esteem. People needed me, I was important. It felt fantastic. It was a drug, a high. I'm not kidding.
For another thing, my ex-church had one very big problem: they needed more help but had far too high of standards for the people who wanted to help. Our church was a "healing" church, which meant we had higher-than-usual percentage of attendees who were recovering from some kind of trauma - drug addiction, sexual abuse, abortion, divorce, the occult, etc. I'm not knocking this for one single moment.
But here's the rub: unless you knew someone on staff who could personally vouch for you, you were guilty until proven innocent. In other words, you had to personally know someone on staff who could say that you weren't a recovering drug addict in order to be considered for any type of leadership role, and for most types of ministry-service. You also had to be a verified "safe person". You had to take a plethora of classes in order "equip" you for ministry. You had to be attending a Bible study, and had to have verifiable accountability. This doesn't really paint an accurate picture for how hard it was to be considered "qualified" for ministry - it was jumping through hoops in a big way.
Then, of course, once you had been "approved" for ministry, every ministry wanted a piece of you. And there were always ongoing classes that leadership wanted me (and everyone else) to take so that we were "continuing to grow and expand our ministry service abilities".
So back to the subject matter...
There were far too few doing far too much.
I never served in any paid role, so I can imagine how much more so this might be true of paid staff members.
I was a lucky one, too, I wasn't trying to hold down a full-time real-world job in the midst of my flurry of activities. The church provided childcare for almost every activity, so my kids were taken care of.
So ... I was a stay-home-mom of toddlers and pre-schoolers, and childcare was provided How much easier could it get to have time to serve? (This message of sarcasm has been generously brought to you by overbearing church leadership).
Don't get me wrong ... I WANTED to do everything I was doing. But did GOD want me to be doing this much? Umm ... maybe the fact that I become so thoroughly burnt-up and broken-down that I had to crawl out of the church on my hands and knees because my blistered and bruised spirit could no longer stand upright should be some kind of clue. I tried to be autonomous of God. I knew He was frustrated with me in all this because I tried to do it all under my own power. I was addicted to church-service. I loved the feeling of being "important for God".
[Sidenote: So when people refer to the out-of-church season as "detox" there really is more than one way to look at it. For some people it's a season of ridding their spirit of the poisons of unhealthy church, for some it's more a season of ridding themselves of "church addiction".]
Anyhow, I know I'm painting with broad strokes, but the first thing that came to my mind when reading the Barna article was exactly the portrait I've painted here. We love our church and our sleep suffers because of it. When trying to raise a family, have a job, have a life, get enough sleep and serve your church, something has got to give.
Often it's not the Church. Maybe sometimes it should be?
it's funny that I'm reading this now...I just woke up from a Saturday afternoon nap! It's a rainy windy day here in the east, so a nap was quite appealing after I spent the morning working on a client project, cleaning and doing laundry.
ReplyDeleteThe thing I related to most in the article was the issue of setting boundaries. My church experience is somewhat different in that we find it hard to get people to serve because they haven't put the appropriate boundaries around others areas of their lives (work, kids sports, etc). I do agree with the far too few people doing far too much, although in my faith community, more and people are discovering their gifts and giving themselves away.
I think, like everything, it's all about balance. I know that's an overused word, but it's the best one I can think of. We tend to not want to listen to people in our lives when they tell us any area of our life is out of blance. Maybe Pastors should talk about how to be willing to hear what the people we are in community with say to us on this subject.
ReplyDeleteThanks for commenting.
When I had a life I use to have a blog… I don’t even know you, I found this blog while searching "over-committed to church services" because I am currently the definition of that. I am 21 yrs old, a newly wed, and the sole paid staff member of my church. The difference between your church that you talked about and mine is that I have great leadership who have big dreams and no one to help accomplish them. I feel a lot of times that I serve, not out of insecurity but because it needs to get done. My frustration has been people who try to help and then drop the ball. Eventually it falls back on me. I work 32 hours a week at the church but contribute 15 hours of volunteer service. My husband (who also serves) has told me that it's not my responsibility and yet I still feel like I have to do it... and when I don’t I am told that I should have. I love my church and my pastors but I often feel like the expectations are so high that I cant ever reach them. I've worked on balance (not going to Monday night prayer but once a month) but due to the fact that we are a small church and I am the only worship leader it is difficult to just not show up. And completely out of the question to miss a service. I guess I just wanted to write in and say that I feel you with the sleep and reading this blog and others have prompted me to pray for God's priority list to be my priority list. Also I have realized that along with voicing my concerns to my pastors I should pray that God reveals these things to them as well. Here I go...
ReplyDeleteAnonymous - Thanks for commenting. I so understand what you are saying...and I have a good friend who is the sole worship leader of a small church, along with her husband. I have learned from her the challenges with being in that position.
ReplyDeleteGod doesn't want us to burn out...that does such significant damage to our spiritual health and well-being. I know people who have become atheists because of it, in the extreme.
Please try to find time to listen to the Lord and hear what He would really have you be doing, and ask for Him to help you find freedom from the things you should not be doing.
I will pray for you.
P.S. when I wrote this post I was going by the pseudonym Lily, but my real name is Erin, and I write under that now.