IS SKPIING CHURCH A GOOD THING?

From Charles Stone ...

Is Skipping Church Good for your Soul?

September 6, 2011 in body care,Pastors with 8 Comments

I’m a pastor. Pastors are supposed to go to church. So I go to church, several times each week. I’ve done that for decades. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve missed church by choice. This past weekend I added to that handful of misses. I skipped church.
My daughter had come to visit us over the Labor Day weekend and I scheduled one of our other pastors to preach at the weekend services. We took a long weekend at a lake house about 50 miles from our home.
The last time we took a long weekend we all went to church, a very boring one. This time however, I simply decided I wouldn’t go. To be frank, I felt a tinge of guilt because my wife will tell you I’m always the one pushing us to go to church while on vacation.

But for some odd reason, I didn’t push us this time.

So what did I do that Sunday morning? I sat in a swing and read my bible. I cut some dead limbs off a tree. I chatted with a neighbor. I exercised on my treadmill. I practiced the art of ‘slowing.’ And I really liked it.
Although I’m deeply committed to the local church and won’t make skipping a habit, I leaned a few valuable lessons.

1. My church truancy reminded me that pastors’ schedules keep us from normal weekends that most families experience. Sundays (and Saturdays if you hold services) are our biggest work days. But, it’s not all about me and I will gladly stay faithful to God’s calling.
2. Those not in vocational ministry will never understand this sacrificial part of our profession because when they want to skip church, they easily do with no repercussions. And when they do, most don’t even think twice about skipping.
3. An occasional ‘break from the Sunday routine’ can refresh a pastor’s soul.
4. I now understand how hard it would be for someone who has seldom attended church to give up his Sunday mornings and start attending. I truly enjoyed having Sundays free.
5. Number 3 above reminded me that we pastors must craft compelling, Spirit-led services if we are to entice the unchurched to attend and keep attending. What they experience at church must be worth the price of giving up their relaxing mornings at home, at the lake, or at the ballpark. We may only get one shot.
6. Pastors need  a sabbath too. Since Sunday’s aren’t ours, we must prioritize another day for rest. I take Monday’s off and I was reminded that I must truly rest on that day

PERRY NOBLE ON TEN WARNING SIGNS THAT YOU MAY NOT BE HEALTHY

Perry Noble shares some important insights for self-evaluation.

Pastor/church leader…you have GOT to get healthy…emotionally, physically and spiritually. I will say that the overwhelming reason that many churches are not healthy is that the leaders in the church are not healthy. What are some signs that you are not healthy?

#1 – You cannot remember the last time you clearly heard the Word of God speak to you about an issue in your own life.

#2 – You no longer use the Bible to learn more about Jesus and hear His voice…you are simply using it to find your next sermon.

#3 – You actually begin to hate and despise the people in your church (who, by the way, are the very people you are called to love!)

#4 – You spend more time on the cell phone and computer when you are at home than you do with your own family.

#5 – You are so obsessed with pleasing people and putting out fires that listening to God and doing what He says is no longer the goal of your life and ministry.

#6 – You often dream of being in another church…thinking that if you were somewhere else you would have no problems.

#7 – You are spending time building up people of the opposite sex and having intimate conversations with them that SHOULD be taking place with your spouse.

#8 – You are often overwhelmed with feelings of intense sadness and you don’t know why.

#9 – You can’t sleep.

#10 – You keep telling yourself (and your family) that one day everything is going to slow down.

I could go on and on…but seriously…if any of these stuck out to you then PLEASE, do whatever it takes to get healthy. Call a friend, get a counselor…take a day to just get away from your normal routine and spend time with the Lord.

The church needs devoted, passionate and HEALTHY leaders!

DO YOU SUFFER FROM RELATIONAL ANOREXIA?

Thanks to a friend of mine Lucy Bloom of the National Center for Fathering, I came across a great blog by  Charles Stone that I believe would be very helpful for pastors in their self-care and leadership accountability. I have added this to the blog roll at the bottom of the home page. Here is a sample. - Steve

In my research for my latest book, 5 Ministry Killers and How to Defeat Them, I discovered that pastors are often the loneliest people in the church, second perhaps only to their wives.
I interviewed Dr. Michael Ross, Executive Director of The Pastors Institute, who has worked with several thousand pastors in various capacities. He told me that the number one problem pastors face is isolation.
Gary Kinnaman author and former mega-church pastor and Alfred Ellis, author and founder-director of Leaders that Last, an organization for ministers, wrote, “Most people in full-time ministry do not have close personal friendships and consequently are alarmingly lonely and dangerously vulnerable.”[1]
Well known author, Steve Arterburn has observed that “the men in the church who are least likely to have friend connections are pastors.”[2]
Focus on the Family discovered that nearly 42% do not have any accountability partner with whom they meet.[3]
And the Alban Institute, an ecumenical organization that serves thousands of congregations through research and publishing, has learned that pastors tend to seek help from others only when they are in crisis, “rather than allowing these resources to sustain and nourish them consistently.”[4]
In other words, we don’t seek out safe people to help us process ongoing ministry issues until they escalate into major crises. Even then, many pastors suffer alone.
We’ve probably all preached that God created us for deep relationship with others. But just as anorexia (the word actually means “no appetite”) can cause a person literally to feel no hunger even though he is starving, relational anorexia can keep us from feeling our inner hunger for deep relationships. Henry Cloud and John’s Townsend’s Safe People lists these indicators that we might have relational anorexia.

• I am uncomfortable with people and relaxed when alone.
• I don’t get “lonely,” whatever people mean by that.
• I spend time with people out of obligation, or for functional reasons (tennis partner, commuting to work, etc.).
• My fantasies of vacation always involve my doing something fun by myself.[5]

The authors also posed several questions that may indicate major hindrances to healthy relationships. I’ve paraphrased them here.

1. Do you tend to only be a giver in most of your relationships?
2. Do others usually approach you only when they want something from you rather than to simply spend time with you?
3. Do you find it difficult to open up to others?
4. Do you most often choose to be alone to deal with your problems?
5. Do you feel that only God really knows and loves you?
6. Are intimate, two-way conversations with others rare?[6]

So, what should we do if we suffer from relational anorexia? I recommend that every pastor have at least one safe person in his (or her) life with whom they can be honest and with whom they can process their pain.
In my next blog entry I will suggest qualities to look for in such a safe person.
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[1] Gary Kinnaman and Alfred Ellis, Leaders that Last (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 10.
[2] REV.org, “Steve Arterburn Interview: Open Season,” August 2007. http://rev.org/protected/Article.aspx?ID=2519.
[3] Focus on the Family, “Pastoral Ministries 2009 Survey” (of over two thousand ministers), http://www.parsonage.org/images/pdf/2009PMSurvey.pdf, 8.
[4] Michael Jinkins, The Alban Institute, Congregations, “Great Expectation, Sobering Realities: Findings From a New Study on Clergy Burnout,” Number 3, May/June 2002. http://www.alban.org/conversation.aspx?q=printme&id=3284
[5] Henry Cloud and John Townsend, Safe People (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995), 129.
[6] Adapted from ibid.
For more Help and Resources for Depressed Pastors and their wives, visit Pastor Stone’s main site.