Over the course of 15 years, the tug of war on my heart and mind in student ministry became predictable.
Every year I felt torn between the desire to do more/be more in the lives of students VERSUS the desire to do less/be less, hoping that might translate into being healthier.
For the first five years in student ministry I worked on average 70 hours weekly. It was a season when I had more margin to spend my time that way. Is that an excuse though?
For 15 years in student ministry, I vacillated between feeling an intense need to diversify our ministry in order to reach more students faster AND at the same time longing to streamline (aka radically simplify) how we programmed our ministry.
It became fairly predictable when each of these temptations would surface. In the slow seasons when less students were involved (in late spring) I would feel this intense desire to dream of new ways to diversify, reaching even more kids. That usually translated into more busy-ness and more activity.
When the fall was kicking into high gear and I was out late several nights a week, out of town for so many outreach camps, discipleship retreats, staff retreats, speaking engagements and youth worker training conferences, I would then dream of streamlining my job with reduced programming, with a faint vision of being more rested and less frenetic in my work.
As the spring is rapidly merging into summer, how are you doing…really? Have you been able to take time to rest? When was the last time you took 2-3 days and left town with the expressed purpose of being still?
Last week (after an exhausting year of wrapping up four years of graduate study), I took my wife to Breckenridge, Colorado to spend four days at a marriage retreat hosted by my friends at The SoulCare Project. It was not what I expected it to be at all. Instead it was exactly what we both needed. Time together. Time with God alone. That time has done more for our marriage than anything we have ever done together. God was more than faithful to meet us in the stillness and quiet.
Next week my wife is taking me to the beach for four days. Granted, it is the Young Life Tennessee regional staff getaway, but is still going to be another wonderful time away. Many would say that it is an awfully large expense to take an entire regional staff away to the beach for four days to rest and relax together. The leadership sees that so many of the staff are like me and live in the dynamic tension of more versus less.
There is no prescription for what is the best rhythm of ministry. Henri Nouwen offers one that I think makes a lot of practical and theological sense. It is a slow progressive movement from solitude to community to ministry. When we have had our needs met in solitude by God and God alone, we will be less inclined to use others or ministry to satisfy what only God Himself can provide.
When I slow down and build in time to be still with God, then I am less inclined to turn to more programming or people to meet needs they were never called or capable of meeting.
One of our college professors, Dr. Mattie Hart, modeled a life of intention, rest and margin. Her ministry to us was not at all limited by her hiddenness. Instead her presence was even more potent. She routinely reminded us that "momentum is the thief of intimacy." In my marriage and in my ministry, I could not agree more. It has only been when I slowed down long enough to be still in the presence of another that I have been able to pay closest attention to how to love and pray for that person. Psalm 46:10 even declares, "Be still and know that I am God." Our momentum could be saying something about what we know about God.
I confess that my life has sadly preached a false gospel of, "Stay busy and know that Hayne is God."
How about you?