To Do or Not to Do: The Hidden Costs of Ministry Decisions
Photo by Javier Allegue Barros on Unsplash
Most of us are aware of the trade-offs we made to enter ministry.
For those who relocated to go to seminary for three years, for example, we gave up:
three years of career income and pension accrual
our spouse’s job and our kids’ schools and friends
time spent on hobbies, travel, and rest because we had to study
financial stability from taking on student loans
There’s an economic term for these tradeoffs: opportunity cost.
According to the Oxford online dictionary, an opportunity cost is:
“the loss of potential gain from other alternatives when one alternative is chosen” (emphasis mine)
In other words, when we went to seminary, we gave up all the potential financial, relational, and personal gains our family may have experienced had we stayed put.
We probably didn’t make this decision or accept the trade-offs easily or lightly.
We probably weighed the sacrifices carefully.
We also probably included in the decision those who would be affected by it, like our spouses and children. They needed to agree that the opportunity costs they paid to support our call were sacrifices they were willing to make.
Ultimately, we decided in community to make these sacrifices in favor of spiritual congruence to obey God’s call.
The opportunity costs we made to enter ordained ministry were calculated—family decisions made through a spiritual process of discernment with them and our churches.
Few of us, though, could have calculated the relentless demands of our future ministries, or the breathtaking scope of tasks we were trained—and not trained—to address.
The Trade-Offs of Ministry
From sermon prep to emergency pastoral care—
From unexpected funerals to managing staff conflict—
From roofs that need replacing to graying and dwindling church attendance—
From crippling parish debt taken on a generation ago to a lack of administrative support—
Answering the call involved far more demands than we ever anticipated.
And all those demands have a cost.
Now that you’re practicing your ministry, are you still calculating these opportunity costs with your family and church?
Are you still being intentional to direct your time and energy through a process of spiritual discernment?
Every time we assume responsibility for a plumbing leak, a pastoral care request, a new bible study, the church bulletin, an email newsletter or blog, a staff meeting, a new initiative, etc., something else is lost.
It may be sermon prep time.
It may be the ability to fully tune in to the person in front of you.
Too often, it’s a pastor’s personal time and energy.
Some of these are worthy endeavors.
We may find it’s worth sacrificing some pastoral care time in order to lead a grief group.
The problem comes when we keep saying yes without recognizing the corresponding no.
As a result, we say goodbye to any semblance of a sabbath, to family togetherness, to the peace of mind on Sunday mornings that comes from delivering a well-prepared sermon.
Your “Yes” Means You’re Saying “No” to Something—Recognized or Not
Perhaps you, your loved ones, and your congregation have weighed these opportunity costs.
Maybe you’ve talked, prayed, and discerned that you’re willing to sacrifice whatever has been lost to be available for the above.
If together you’ve calculated and accepted the sacrifice of your health to work on your day off, or your spouse’s birthday dinner to attend to a pastoral emergency, or your family’s cohesion and personal recreation to prep sermons on Saturdays—and these sacrifices provide a sense of congruence of God’s call for all of you—okay.
Have at it. Keep going.
But that’s not the sense I get from most of the preachers I serve.
I get the sense that ministry demands come so fast and furious that this becomes “the way things are” without you, your loved ones, or your church having ever weighed the costs.
If your church were asked to prioritize the way you spend your time, would it match the way you actually spend your time?
For example, if you laid out for them the limited hours you have for sermon prep due to all the other demands, would they bless that choice? Or would they get intentional to remove responsibility to protect those sermon prep hours?
We forget and therefore don’t articulate there’s a price every time we begin a task.
As a result, we experience the consequences of this lack of discernment:
stress, overwork, and deteriorating mental, spiritual, and emotional health
the resentment of families who see us choose the pastoral needs of parishioners over and against their own.
losing touch with God because there isn’t time to pray or go on retreat.
the weight of the formidable weekly search for a sermon message in order to get sermon prep off our plates and move on to the next task—while also feeling the guilt that we’re not giving our sermons the attention God asks us to give them.
We’re tempted to resignation that our sacrifices are inevitable, that our current way of life is the way things have to be.
That we don’t have a choice.
Except we do: we’re already making it.
Are You Saying Yes and No to the Right Things?
If you wonder whether your sacrifices are being made by default rather than careful spiritual discernment, now is the time to do that discernment.
And not only do the discernment, but act.
If you learn you’re making sacrifices God is not calling you to make, engage in the hard work to make new choices.
In other words, it’s time to stop paying a price no one is asking you to pay.
If you’re ready to do this work of discernment, what will it require?
A detailed look at the tasks you choose, and the price you/your family/the church pays for you to do them.
Careful consideration of the tasks you are not choosing, and the price you/they pay to sacrifice them.
Discernment about which sacrifices God is calling you, your loved ones, and your church, to make.
Decisions about whether these are sacrifices you can live with, and what other choices you’ll make if you can’t.
A process to craft your life—and your schedule—to match that call.
Oh! And the time, energy, and tools to do so.
Got all that?
No?
Spirit & Schedule: The Course
We do.
“Spirit & Schedule: The Course” was developed in response to the enormous popularity of our Spirit & Schedule Challenge: our independent, 28-day process to align your calendar with your call.
However, some people want to go further.
Some folks want a conversation around their discernment process.
And some people need the accountability and support of having an appointment on the calendar dedicated to learning.
That’s why I developed this course.
The Challenge and Course have the same goal, but the process and tools are different.
In other words, if you benefitted from the Challenge, you’ll benefit even more from the Course.
By the end of this course you will:
discern your call anew
weigh the opportunity costs for tasks chosen and rejected
discover a process you can apply when new choices are placed in front of you to discern, quickly and efficiently, whether you should say yes or no
apply a process that is polite and clear when you need to turn down a request
be at peace with God’s choices for you—and the ones that aren’t
have a road map to continue to craft your calendar to your call
If you’d like to take your ministry off default mode and make intentional choices about your time, energy, and resources, sign up now.
Register by Feb. 14th to take advantage of the early bird discount.