Too often, church volunteers burn out while in the trenches of servanthood.
In churches where there is always a ministry to tend, a committee to lead, a class to teach or an event to chair, it is hard to find people willing to step up to the plate. When you find them, it is even harder on the church to lose them, especially if they are doing a good job.
“Brent,” who asked that he not be identified, has been a member of his church for more than 10 years. He has spent seven of those helping with the youth, ushering every Sunday, serving on the worship and finance committees, and pitching in with special programs and activities. Eventually, his church time took a toll on his work and family time.
“I looked up, and my work and family life had begun to suffer. I knew I had to let something go,” he said. Brent prayed long and hard about cutting back on his church obligations, especially working with youth.
“It was hard,” he said. “They had shared a lot with me on their mission trips and at other activities through the church.”
When I have a conflict of things I can/should be doing, I always ask myself if there is someone else who can do that and will I be missed if I don’t. Definitely in the family there is no one else going to step up and be the head of the family and, yes, he will be/is missed when he’s not there.
Part of the problem is our failure to take the pattern of sabbatical living that God gave us and apply it to ministry, especially lay ministry. God designed humans (and all creation) with rhythms built in. Crops must be rotated for best yields…every 7th year a field should lay fallow. Every 7th day, people need a rest. Man wasn’t made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath was made for man. It is the most holy of all the holy days (holidays)…and yet we often ignore it in the name of doing “God’s business”. (Note: I am not talking about a specific day of the week, but about taking “A” day of the week off.)
A few years ago, I was in OKC and visited a Vineyard Church. The pastor had just gotten back from a seminar about a week prior and he gave a message based on sabbatical living. It really stuck with me.
Too often, well meaning Christians (and more often than not, we do this to ourselves as well) will use the passage in Galatians 6:9 as a sledge hammer to tell people in an oh-so-Christian-nice-way to “suck it up and keep going”.
And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. Galatians 6:9
For an added kick-in-the-pants, they may even pull out the big guns with Luke 9:62:
Jesus replied, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”
Wow! Even now, I can feel the weight of the need to “press on in service” no matter what the cost to our family, our health, and our very souls.
But, do those verses mean what our tradition has turned them into?
I don’t think so.
The sabbatical pattern for living is there in the Scriptures. We are not supposed to elevate one element of Scripture at the expense of another. The Scriptures are to be read as complementary.
“And yet it is not lawful for the Church to ordain anything contrary to God’s Word written, neither may it so expound one place of Scripture, that it be repugnant to another.” Article XX
So yes, we should not “become weary in well doingâ€. The way to not become weary is to take a sabbatical break! No, we should never “put our hand to the plow and look backâ€. We should be committed to Christ and the Kingdom and not long for our old lives (like Lot’s wife looking back at Sodom), but that doesn’t mean we should work until we drop, either.
Take a break. Give yourself a break. Rest is part of the cycle of life that God ordained. It is HOLY. It isn’t sloth to take a sabbatical rest. It is wisdom to recharge yourself for sustained efforts. Continuous does not mean constant or ceaseless. Don’t burn out. Keep taking Sabbaths and put oil in your lamps.