God, who is liberal in all his other gifts, shows us, by the wise economy of his providence, how circumspect we ought to be in the management of our time, for he never gives us two moments together.
François Fenelon
Time is what we want most, but what, alas, we use worst.
William Penn
Ministers who want to make the most of their family time immediately bump into a complication: the skills required for being a loving parent and spouse — cheerful leadership, attentive listening, nourishing words, caring — are the same ones demanded by the pastorate. This can be an advantage if the nurturing skills developed in ministry can be applied to the family.
But it can be a decided disadvantage if the “people helper” finds his people-helping capacity given over to the church family during the day and depleted by the time he leaves the office. The family gets whatever happens to be left over.
Keith Meyer, who pastors in Maple Grove, Minnesota, said, “One day, half an hour after I’d walked in the door, my son came up to me and said, ‘Are you home yet, Dad?’ He knew it took me a while to reenter the family after a day at the church.”
Other pastors know the feeling of “not being all there” even when they’re there. No one is happy with a half-attentive zombie. Are there ways to improve the quality of our time with our families?
Strategies for Quality Control
The first strategy is to be sure that at the end of the day you bring something home: a healthy attitude. That can begin before you ever leave the church.
One pastor in Canada makes sure to work off some of his tension before he gets home. “Sitting at my desk all day is a sure way to guarantee I’ll be edgy when I come home,” he said. “So now I make sure I take a brisk walk sometime during the day. Even if I have a full day, I find that one of my conferences can become a walking conversation, and we’ll walk for an hour. That’s a great tension reliever.”
To remind herself that her day isn’t over when she leaves the church, the director of children’s ministries at a church in South Dakota has jotted a quote from Socrates (apparently the temptations in 450 b.c. weren’t too different from today): “If I could get to the highest place in Athens, I would lift up my voice and say, ‘What say ye, fellow citizens, that ye turn every stone to scrape wealth together, and take so little care of your children to whom ye must one day relinquish all.'” She’s reminded that the pursuit of wealth — whether material goods or spiritual treasure — is vain if we overlook our heirs.
A second strategy is to make a definite mental switch on the way home. Or, if that’s not possible, do something once you arrive that signals to yourself and your family that you’re home at last.
“We have a standing joke in our house: Dad isn’t home until his tie comes off,” says a minister in Indiana. “I usually shower, shave, and change my clothes when I get home. It refreshes me and helps me make the transition to family life.”
It’s hard to make that mental switch. Reliving the day is natural, but we can spend so much time thinking about the church and what we can do to improve its quality of life that there’s not enough think-time left for the people closest to us. And even though we may be preoccupied with church problems, or simply fatigued, our mental vacancy is interpreted by our family as disinterest. Maybe we are disinterested — after listening to people all day, it can be hard to be attentive to a 4-year-old’s chatter. Those times call for heroic action: putting aside lofty thoughts of ministry (and putting down the newspaper) to make eye contact and enjoy a few minutes of touching and talking with the other important people in our lives.
A third strategy is to let the family know you’ve been thinking about them in your absence. For some, this means recounting conversations during the day in which you were able to say a good word about some family member. Or perhaps it’s something you give them when you arrive — an interesting story from the day’s activity, or something more tangible.
A minister recalls, “When I was in seminary, my children were preschoolers. I stopped at the library every day on my way home and checked out one children’s book to read to them. They knew I was thinking about them while I was away, and I was compelled to sit down with them as soon as I came home.” This minister adds, “My temptation is to put my family on hold — at least until they ‘snatch me back,’ sometimes vigorously. But if I am too busy for my family right now, I will be too busy for them ten years from now. And they will learn that being too busy for one’s family is acceptable, for I will have taught them that lesson myself.”
A fourth strategy is to remember the family deserves at least the same care any other parishioner would get. Being away from the church doesn’t mean all responsibilities are over. When Gordon MacDonald was pastoring in Lexington, Massachusetts, he learned this the hard way: “It used to be my habit to ‘be comfortable’ on Monday mornings and come to the breakfast table unshaved, unwashed, and generally undressed. One day my wife asked me, ‘Why are you so carefully dressed and groomed for God and the congregation on Sunday?’
“I said, ‘I want to offer them my best.’
“‘Then what are you saying to the family by the way you dress — or don’t dress — on Monday?’ she asked. Pow! She had me. From then on, whenever we’re together as a couple or as a family, I’m careful to be as sharp and alert as possible in my mental attitude, dress, and common courtesies. Whatever I would offer to church members, I want to offer that and more, if possible, to my own family.”
A fifth strategy is to control the telephone, that invader of family privacy. While it’s not possible or desirable to eliminate people’s access to you via the phone, some pastoral families have found it beneficial to limit it at certain times.
“At times we turn the phone off when we’re home at night so we’re not prisoners in our own house.”
“We take the phone off the hook during supper or moments of family discussion or periods when study or meditation are extremely necessary. In twenty years I can hardly recall a moment when being instantly accessible was necessary. We have learned not to let the phone become our master.”
A sixth strategy is to include the family in certain aspects of the ministry. A number of pastoral families mentioned that some of their best times were participating in ministry together — church socials, camps, even visitation.
“Last December, a single parent in our congregation who was struggling financially was given a Christmas by an anonymous donor,” said one pastor. “I was asked to deliver the food and gifts. I took the kids along, and they still talk about the thrill of seeing the joy and gratitude of that mother and her girls.”
These strategies are possible avenues to quality time together.
Quality time, though important, is not sufficient. A certain quantity of time is prerequisite for quality. In the business world, if a company wants a better product, you don’t hear supervisors saying, “Don’t worry about how much time you put in as long as it’s quality time.” No, when it’s time to produce, most companies expect overtime.
And in relationships, too, amounts are important. As David Seamands once observed, “A young lover wouldn’t get by telling his fiancée, ‘Honey, it’s not the quantity; it’s the quality. You have my undivided attention for the fifteen minutes a week I give you.’ She wouldn’t fall for it, and our families don’t, either.”
What are some ways pastors ensure they give sufficient quantities of time to allow quality time to emerge?
Strategies for Quantity Control
Here’s how some pastors approach the quantity question.
Long-range plans. One of the false hopes of family life is that because next month’s calendar is currently fairly open, next month will actually be less hectic than this month. It’s tempting to say, “Things should lighten up if we can just get through the next two weeks.”
Unfortunately, by the time you get through the next two weeks, the two weeks after that have filled up, and you find yourself looking hopefully at the two weeks after that. It’s a deadly plague known as “creeping calendar commitments.”
This condition has driven many pastoral families to plan family times at least a month ahead.
“Six to eight weeks in advance, we write in major blocks of various sorts of private time,” says one pastor. “We get these on the calendar before the events of church life begin to appear.”
“Since I believe my family is the Lord’s work just as much as the church, I write my family members into my Day-Timer as I would for anyone else from the church,” adds Kent Hughes of College Church in Wheaton, Illinois.
How much family time realistically can be scheduled? This varies depending on family and church situations, but several pastors use the following rules of thumb:
• One night a week completely free of anything but family activities — a time for the family to be together.
• One night a month alone with spouse — either an overnight getaway or at least a leisurely dinner date.
• One event a month alone with each child — perhaps an outing to the zoo or a museum, or even something as simple as breakfast at McDonald’s.
Other families develop their own rhythms, but most affirm the value of planning the times they’ll be together. If left to “whenever the calendar is blank,” somehow those times mysteriously disappear.
One of the benefits of this kind of planning is enjoying the anticipation of special events. “We always try to have our next family vacation scheduled and written onto the calendar,” says one pastor’s wife. “In the words of Scripture, this gives us ‘a future and a hope.'”
The weekly routine. There was a lot of variety in the survey responses on the question, How do you balance family time with time spent on church work? Some typical entries:
“I try to be home on Monday and Friday evenings, for all meals, and to see the kids before they go to school in the mornings.”
“I’m always home from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. to share the meal with my family. Then I’m almost always home two of the five weekday evenings and on Saturday afternoon and evening. Once a week we go out to eat in a nearby city.”
“We have a rule of thumb for our congregation that we try to have no more than three nights a week for church events. And I try to model that for the rest of the congregation. So everything has to fit into Sunday night, Wednesday night, and one other night. That means we usually do some hospitality on Sunday night after the evening service. Wednesday is spent at church, and any committee meetings are the third night out. Of course, any social commitments would be a fourth night, but they don’t count as church business.”
While some pastors try to limit the nights of church activities, others work from the other direction; they schedule family time first. One pastor gets the family together once a week at breakfast to plan when they’re going to be together that week.
An Episcopal rector draws on his English roots for family time: “My wife and I have struggled throughout our marriage to have enough time to talk and pray about things that are important. We tried to have a date night, but between her schedule and mine, finding one regular night of the week was virtually impossible. So we’ve taken to ‘tea time’ late in the afternoon but before supper.”
Another key strategy is the use of the day or day and a half off to which most pastors are entitled.
Maximizing the Day Off
Virtually every pastor gets a day off — at least is supposed to take a day off. This is the church’s concession to “balancing” time at home and time at church. How do pastors go about making the most of that time when that’s all they have for personal rest, errands, household chores, and family time?
One question on which pastors differ is which day of the week to take off. Many take Monday, either because that’s the day they’re most tired or because that’s the day decreed by the church. Others, however, say that’s not the day to take because the natural letdown after Sunday means they’re not giving their families a day when they have normal energy. “If I’m going to be mildly depressive, I’m going to do it on company time,” joked one pastor who does paperwork and administration on Mondays.
Many others take Saturday off because that’s the day their kids are off from school. But that’s not satisfactory for some because so many weddings fall on Saturday, and even when nothing is scheduled, they find themselves preoccupied with the next day’s sermon and activities.
Others take another weekday off and try to take advantage of school holidays. One pastor reports taking occasional family outings even on school days. “Sometimes we’ll take the kids out of school for a special family excursion. Last week we took Monday off and went to see a special display at the museum. You can’t let school stand in the way of an education,” he says with a grin. Nor in the way of a memorable family event.
Veteran pastor Donald Bubna, while at Salem Alliance Church in Oregon, had a policy that staff members would work 5-12; days a week. “We recommended they work six days one week, and then take two days in a block the next week. They had to take them that month — they couldn’t be carried forward.” That approach allowed for more rest and the opportunity for two-day getaways.
Wise use of the day off is one of the easiest ways to acquire a quantity of time sufficient for quality moments. But another element of family life also deserves attention.
Vacations
I once asked a panel of pks who grew up to be pastors, “Did you ever resent the demands ministry placed on your parents? Were there times you felt other people had stolen your parents’ attention?” They all admitted the time pressures and the many evenings parents were away, but resentment? As one panelist put it, “No, but only for one reason. Vacations saved it for me. If we hadn’t taken our vacation as a family every year, I would have felt resentful, I think.
“My dad didn’t make a conscious effort to do something with me five days a week. He had meetings; he was gone a lot of evenings. But two things stand out in my memory that demonstrate to me that Dad did care for me and that I was important to him.
“Several times he took me to Yankee Stadium for the Memorial Day double header. Or on an occasional day off, when he didn’t go to the office, I’d say, ‘Dad, let’s go see the Yankees.’ And he’d take me.
“Then we also took the whole month of August for vacation, and we drove to Michigan, where my grandparents lived. And Dad and I would go fishing on the St. Joe River. We had a rowboat, and we’d row up the river and fly fish as we drifted down.
“I think those times saved me. For eleven months he belonged to other people, but in those ways, he said, ‘You are important to me.'”
Many pastors have found vacations an important time to build family unity. On the other hand, a vacation doesn’t necessarily mean restful togetherness. Doug Self, who pastors in Redstone, Colorado, describes an all-too-common occurrence:
Last summer we planned a family camping trip. My wife and I had visions of relaxing in the hammock, sitting romantically around the campfire, taking nature hikes with the children. Unbeknownst to us, the children were thinking, Let’s be entertained. Mom and dad will be doing neat stuff with us. We were on a collision course. I’d just stretched out in the warm sun, ready to devour an old copy of Reader’s Digest, when the first squabble broke out. Then a child’s voice moaned, “I’m bored; there’s nothing to do here.” Strange, I thought I’d just exploded that myth by my reasoned explanation. You know what happened next. When children are bored, they get into bickering with each other: “I had it first.” “No, it’s mine!”
Somehow children don’t seem sensitive to parental feelings or able to adjust their behavior accordingly. This bothers me as a dad. Sometimes, being a pastor, it bothers me even more. I sometimes feel I am regarded as an “emotional rock” by people in my congregation. I listen to problem after problem and help when I can. People, presuming my strength, say things that hurt. So when I come home, I’m sometimes looking for emotional support, understanding, and pampering. My wife is having problems of her own, drained by her daily round with the kids and house. I walk in the door to demands and complaints. “Hey, wait a minute,” I want to shout. “I don’t need this. Pastors and dads sometimes need to be cared for, too.” But it doesn’t often happen. Certainly not on vacations. It’s just a fact of life that again must be accepted and endured.
What are the keys to a good vacation? The favorite places to go and things to see will depend upon the family, but pastors have found some principles important in making vacations a building time for the family.
1. Remember that “working vacation” is a contradiction in terms. Yes, many pastors take families to conferences and speaking appointments, and these can be enjoyable for the family, but they’re not always the best time together.
“I have three weeks of vacation, and I decided a few years ago not to take any work with me,” says a Colorado Springs pastor. “On earlier vacations, I always felt vaguely guilty that I wasn’t getting to the books I’d brought along. I wasn’t really on vacation at all. Now I take no work along. I even tell the church, ‘Please don’t call me. Well, if the church burns down — maybe. Just get my books and illustration file out, then you can give me a call.'”
2. Learn to enjoy strategic recreation. “I’ve learned to match my recreational pursuits with family needs,” one minister explains. “I saw early in my ministry that I could not pursue a recreational life with friends and still have time to pursue a second recreational life with my children. Therefore I chose early in life to do things for recreation that my children could join me in doing: canoeing, camping, hiking, and other activities where our exercise and togetherness could be maximized.
“I fear too many fathers spend time on tennis courts, golf courses, and in health spas and then wonder why they never have prime time with their children. I’ll admit, though, this has been an easy doctrine for me to embrace since I’m a terrible tennis player and I’ve never broken a hundred in golf, even for nine holes.”
3. Learn to enjoy the time you do have. Pastor’s wife Dreama Plybon Love tells about her rude awakening to the demands of ministry. She and her husband decided to get back early and spend their last day of vacation relaxing at home.
“It sounded like such a good idea — sleep late, enjoy breakfast out, go for a leisurely walk,” she wrote in Partnership magazine. “We were in bed asleep, having returned home at 4 a.m., when the doorbell woke us. My husband put on his robe and stumbled to the door. A member of our church was waiting. He looked quite somber.
“‘Sorry to bother you, but yesterday my wife had surgery for breast cancer. She would like to see you at the hospital.’
“At first I felt genuine compassion, but gradually concern turned to resentment at the intrusion. Couldn’t we have this one day just for ourselves? Our vacation had been hectic, crowded with friends and family. We needed this time together. Was I being selfish, even cruel, to want to extend our vacation in light of this man’s need?”
She and her husband had been married only six months at the time, and already she was struggling with the questions: Must we always make choices between marriage and ministry? Can I not love my husband and serve my God at the same time?
What eventually happened on that cherished and curtailed vacation day?
“It wasn’t so bad. We stopped at the florist and made a hospital call; but we were still able to take that long, leisurely walk. As we walked we planned next year’s vacation, and I think next time we’ll give ourselves a full week alone — before we come back home.”
Freedom to Choose
Do the demands of ministry force us to overactivity? Not according to one pastor, who reminds us of our ability to determine what path we will choose.
“I’ve heard so many times, ‘Because of the demands of ministry, I neglected my family,’ as if they were somehow compelled to. For solo pastors and senior pastors especially, I found that an invalid excuse. Ultimately we decide how much we’re going to give. The challenge is to fulfill both ministry and family roles, but we have the freedom to find creative ways to do that. Perhaps we’ll have to be out every night some weeks. But we can often grab lunch or spend even a full morning with our spouse. We may have to cut out something else, but we have that freedom.”
At times, however, this freedom has to be asserted with emotional resolve. William Tully, rector of St. Columba’s Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C., described one such painful incident in an article that appeared in the Washington Post:
Most afternoons I break off work and meet my sons’ school bus. This is my key family obligation, since I end up working most evenings and at least half of every weekend. (My wife’s job downtown doesn’t allow her the afternoon flexibility.)
One recent afternoon, while my son, Jonah, 8, took part in an afternoon choir rehearsal, his 12-year-old brother, Adam, and I found time for a long-postponed (by me) game of catch. I had impressed him — and assuaged my guilt — by having ball gloves all ready to go. Just as we got into our game on the church lawn, a regular parish visitor — a down-and-out street alcoholic — showed up and wanted a handout. Many times before and since, St. Columba’s has helped this man. But since the other clergy who assist me were away that day and the secretaries in no position to help him, he stood on the sidewalk and demanded I pay attention to him.
“I’m not working now. Can’t you see?”
The booze in him made him belligerent. “What kind of priest are you, man? You won’t even listen to my story.”
I ran up for a pop fly that Adam had expertly launched.
“That’s right. Besides I’ve heard it before. I’m sorry, you’ll have to try somewhere else or come back another time.”
He turned to go back to the parish office and unleashed a string of obscenities.
“Get out,” I shouted. “If you ever want my help again, you’ll just have to move on.”
It was then I realized that several passersby, probably fresh off the Metro at Tenleytown, had stopped to watch. A few choir mothers had come to the church steps to behold their rector having a tantrum.
I still haven’t sorted out the rush of conflicting feelings I experienced then. I did feel strongly that my family came before my vocation. I was also composing fantasy headlines in my head: busy northwest d.c. priest forgets samaritan, shuns poor man. I imagined parishioners listening skeptically when words like charity and sacrifice pop up in sermons. Still I shagged my last pop fly that day knowing that ethical choices are always messy, that my strong suit is not social justice, and that the words I treasured most that day were, “Thanks, Dad. Great game.”
Copyright ©1988 Christianity Today
