Remember when you liked serving in church? It was new and exciting. Finally, you were able to take a talent and use it in the church! But week after week, month after month, and year after year goes by, and it loses some of it’s flavor. Why is that? How can we make serving Jesus less monotonous? Stick with us as I delve into some practical ways to get that flavor back.
Hannah, my wife and our worship leader at MD, and I were noticing that we are so busy setting up, serving, and tearing down on Sundays that we barely get a chance to enjoy the sermon! Part of this is circumstantial, but some of it falls on me and the way I choose to handle things.
Baby Steps
As the resident techie of our plant, I set all the tech up with the help of just one other person. I’d rather do things myself so I know they’re done right. It’s too much work to try to incorporate someone else into the process and risk mistakes when I myself can handle the tasks. Do you feel this way in your church? Let’s take a look at some practical steps we can take toward bringing the joy back to our service and get back to basics.
Ask for help- This might seem like a no-brainer, but so few of us techies actually do it. Bring someone else into the tech process. Take the time to teach them the equipment and what everything does. This will help you take breaks from service when you need them without worrying about if X, Y, and Z will be done right while you’re gone. Who knows? Maybe this discipleship thing could work out after all.
Avoid burnout- Have you ever heard of the 20/80 rule? It’s used to describe circumstances in organizations and groups where 20% of the people do 80% of the work. This carries over into our churches as well. As a leader of a church plant, we combat this all the time with our people. Being new and young, Missio Dei comes with a lot of manual labor, hard work, and cultural battles to be had with our congregants. The 20 will get burnt out very quickly. If this situation is a pattern in your church, I suggest communicating openly and honestly with your senior leadership. My hope is that there you will find care, concern, and a remedy to the scenario (ie- bringing on paid staff to assist, asking for more volunteers, etc.).
Schedule family time- I have a pastor friend in Texas who had a great system for the leadership in their plant. They would have a board with the daily schedules for all team members. They would have green blocks (for work) and red blocks (for rest). In a given week, you would have to have X amount of red blocks individually as well as consecutively or you were getting called out. That’s meant to encourage their leadership to slow down and enjoy time at home with their families. Maybe your team could adopt a similar attitude to rest and family?
- Subscribe to Level Up Newsletter– Yeah. I just told you to subscribe to our site. How pompous of me. Hear me out. Our team of contributors have been there and done that. Jeremy Smith is a huge promoter of “What’s your bandwidth? How much can you handle without messing up priorities and burning out?” We’re here to help you with our ministry experiences and professional advice. Why do it the hard way when you can learn the easy ways that will help you spend less time bogged down and more time serving Jesus?
These are simply a few ways that you can rekindle that love for the ministry that you once had.
What are some ways that you feel you’ve felt a loss of love for your ministry? Do you do any of these things listed above? How do you avoid burnout?
[…] Remember When It Was Fun? by Jesse Gruber, our Power Up stage article focus. […]