I never cease to be amazed at the incredible paradox of seeing many unhappy people in a world that has so much to offer surprises me even more is the sight of so many Christians who have succumbed to busyness, unhappiness, tightness, and boredom. Many suffer from a nagging sense of guilt that no matter how much they do it is never quite enough.
Words like wonder, joy, rest, and freedom have become fake replicas of what Christ taught. Time becomes a tyrant instead of a friend . Joy becomes something we will do later. Play becomes something for children. … Wonder is just the name of a bread, and imagination doesn’t make enough money to be worthwhile.
Tim Hansel in When I Relax, I Feel God
With those words, Tim Hansel captures the tension felt by many of us who love the church and wish to serve faithfully, but who must balance church responsibilities with our responsibities to family and career. Maintaining the balance is a constant struggle. One active church member in two-career three-child family wrote that people say to her, “I don’t know how you do it!”
Her reply: “We’re not sure we are doing it.”
It’s not only a constant struggle, but a common one as well. When LAY LEADERSHIP was in the planning stages, active people were surveyed to see what subjects they would like covered in the magazine, and 94 percent said they want to see an article on balancing church, home, and work. Whether we’re single or married, whether one spouse or both work outside the home, the competing demands on our time and energy can be draining.
In our careers, we want to work hard, provide for our families, and advance as far as our abilities will take us. For many of us, there’s also a marriage relationship to be kept in good repair. With our children, we want to play, to nurture, to take in the ball games and science fairs that are so important to them. And in the church, we want to be actively using the spiritual gifts we’ve been given to meet the needs of others.
Recognizing When We’re Out of Balance
For one reason or another, we often find ourselves getting out of balance. And there are a number of ways we recognize it has happened.
Susan Wiggins, a mortgage broker active in the couples’ ministry of her church, said that in her case she begins sensing personal stress and depression. When she becomes aware that her anxiety level is above normal and her mood is below par, she can usually trace it back to allowing her life to become unbalanced.
In contrast, Mel Olberg, director of development for a Christian social agency and a Sunday school teacher, said that when he gets out of balance, he tends to work himself to the point of physical exhaustion. Normally a person who can go strong late into the evening and who functions well with less than eight hours of sleep a night, Mel said, “When I’ve living out of balance for a while, I’ll find myself falling asleep in an easy chair after dinner. I also develop a sense that I’ve become less productive at work and less satisfied with what I’ve accomplished.”
For Susan Campbell, a writer who has worked in her church’s food closet and Christian education programs, lack of balance shows up primarily in her family. “I find that the house falls apart, and I’m not just talking about the dust in the corners,” she said. Everyone in the family is affected. The kids bicker more than usual, as do she and her husband. They stop inviting guests over. Worse, “I’m no longer glad to see my kids come home from school. I wish they had stayed longer.”
When she notices her own temper getting shorter, “then I’ll look around and say: ‘Uh oh. Things are out of control!'”
All the lay people interviewed for this article indicated that another signal their lives have gotten out of balance is a decline in their devotional life. Several said their personal devotional experience is what suffers most in times of imbalance.
These symptoms of imbalance may come to our awareness gradually over a period of days or weeks. But the reality of the situation can also break through in a single dramatic incident.
One woman from Minnesota told of a time when she was self-absorbed with her schedule and responsibilities. Then one day a close friend from church called. She noticed her friend sounded a little strange, but she was too caught up in her own busyness to be sensitive to her friend’s signals. “Instead, I gave her a litany of my schedule,” the woman said. Then she went out of town on vacation.
When she returned, she met again with this friend. With a little more time to talk, the friend explained that her earlier call had been to say that she had suffered a miscarriage. “I couldn’t believe I had been that insensitive to a precious friend,” the woman said. “And if I had done that to her, I was sure I was shortchanging my family and my other church friends and responsibilities, too.”
The same kind of shock can hit those who have become over-committed in their working careers. A recent issue of Inc. magazine tells the story of public relations executive Bob Weiss, who had become totally absorbed in building his agency. One night he was at a friend’s house playing Fish with a little girl, and the thought suddenly struck him: A dog, a cat, the television was on. We were eating popcorn, and I was having a good time.
That simple thought made him realize it had been years since he had last relaxed and just enjoyed himself. “I’d lost my sense of smell, my sense of compassion,” he said. “I was drowning in a barrel of money.”
Maintaining the Balance
Recognizing when we’ve gotten out of balance in our commitments is a necessary first step in righting our lives. But how do we keep ourselves from getting in that position in the first place? The following suggestions have been keys to maintaining or resuming an even keel for many lay leaders.
Accept the pressure as a sign of vitality. One key is a matter of perspective: Rather than viewing the tension created by competing demands on our time as a problem, we can view it as a sign of vitality in our lives. The desire to be active and involved is healthy. It shows a zest for life, a desire to participate fully, to use the talents and gifts we’ve been given to enrich the lives of others and ourselves.
As one wag observed, the only people completely free from stress are the dead. Putting it less dramatically but more practically, an active layman in Illinois said, “If I ever get to a point of feeling comfortable, it would probably be an indication that I’m not stretching myself enough.”
What we want, then, is not to avoid all discomfort and pressure, but to keep everything in balance.
Combine commitments when possible. By combining commitments, it’s possible that rather than competing against each other, our various responsibilities can actually complement one another.
One father who wants to spend time with his son and also have an outreach to the community for example, chose to help lead his child’s Cub Scout pack.
Another mom and dad asked to teach their daughter’s Sunday school class.
A mother volunteered to be a helper in her child’s public school classroom.
Numerous youth workers have brought their small children into the youth-group activities to the delight of all concerned, at the same time modeling healthy family life for the young people.
And many parents who operate some kind business from their homes have found ways to involve their kids, including doing light office work, cleaning up, helping to make a product or perform a service.
Get others involved. Many times, other people can help us meet our responsibilities. Delegation helps us keep our lives in balance, and it also gives who share the work an opportunity to develop their abilities.
One woman tells of an occasion when she was in charge of planning a seminar for her church, and the time and effort involved created a major imbalance in her life and a growing sense ‘of depression. She recruited members of her family to handle various parts of the job, and with their help, she was able to get the job done well and on time, while also bringing her life back into balance.
Many jobs in the church could be done better by cutting the job description in half and recruiting a second worker. I once served on a Christian education committee in which each member was given responsibility for one department in the Sunday school. That way, each of us had to be concerned about teachers and supplies for only a few classes, and no one person had to worry about staffing the entire Sunday school.
Be accountable to others. By being open and accountable, we can let others help us recognize when we’ve gotten out of balance. People who know us well and observe our lives on a regular basis can usually tell us when we’re getting out of balance better than we can for ourselves. This will often mean a spouse or other family members, or perhaps a close friend. Said one lay leader of his wife, “She’s willing to call me on some things when I’m out of line.”
For this to work, however, we need to give clear permission to those whose help we seek. In close relationships, where so much is at risk when friction develops, it’s easy for one person to say nothing rather than possibly provoke the wrath of the other.
To get around this problem, one husband and wife go out on a date each month specifically for the purpose of talking about likes, dislikes, and priorities. They give each other the freedom to be frank in discussing how well they’re keeping things in balance, both as individuals and as a family.
Place emphasis on the highest priorities. In times of high demand on our energy, emphasis is best placed on activities of the highest priority; lesser priorities may have to be allowed to slide.
For example, one man said that when he gets especially busy, he lets his exercise regimen suffer. Even though exercise is important, when time is at a premium, tough choices have to be made, and he feels time spent with his family is more important than a workout.
Likewise, another couple occasionally lets household chores go undone. The wife and mother said: “We are rather frequently tempted to put a sign in the front yard that reads: WILDERNESS AREA – NO REGULAR MAINTENANCE. Although we have often felt apologetic that our home is such a poor imitation of House Beautiful, we try to think of it as a studio for parenting, a place where healthy amounts of creative energy get expended.”
Another parent put it this way: “We tell people we’re raising children, not a lawn.” That was his way of reminding himself, and others, of what the priorities are.
Determine not to shortchange any one major commitment. Many lay leaders find it helpful to see their commitments in categories – church, family, career – and they determine not to shortchange any one commitment for the benefit of others. When scheduling their time for the week, they take care to provide opportunities for fulfilling obligations in each area of life. (See the accompanying article “Holding Something Back” by Robert Fry.)
One man divides each week into twenty-one blocks – morning, afternoon, evening – and apportions a certain number of blocks to work, ministry, and family. Since his temptation is to shortchange his family, this system shows him when he has used up his work and ministry blocks for the week and needs to spend more time with his wife and children.
Many leaders testify to the need to write time for family or devotional activities into their appointment books and then respect those times as they would any of ther appointments. One busy college professor even refuses to answer the phone at home during designated family times.
Another leader thinks of time as a pie that needs to be sliced up each week among his various responsibilities. Using that mental image helps him take care not to neglect any one area, whereas if he worked with priority lists, needs at the bottom of the list in a given week might easily be neglected altogether.
Give up perfectionism. The habit of perfectionism is time consuming and can be counterproductive. Mel Olberg quotes G. K. Chesterton: “Any job worth doing is worth doing poorly.” What that means to him, he said, is that “I’ll do the best I can in the time allotted.”
Rather than steal time from other commitments to cross every t and dot every i in a particular job, he works as hard as he can in the time available and then moves on – mentally as well as physically refusing to worry about how much better something might have been done if he had more time.
Conversely, other capable people will turn down church work and remain under-committed in the area of Christian service because of perfectionism. They’re convinced they should accept an assignment, such as teaching a Sunday school class, only if they have sufficient time each week in which to prepare the most fantastic lesson possible. Nothing less would suffice as far as they’re concerned, even though no one has the kind of time for preparation that they assume is essential.
The feelings may be genuine, and conscientious workers may feel that the only alternative to doing a job perfectly is not to do it at all. But perfectionism can become an excuse to avoid responsibilities that someone is going to have to take – overburdened or not.
A balanced view, however, recognizes that God calls us to tasks in each area of life, that no one area can command all our time, and that we probably can’t do the very best of which we’re capable in any one area because of the many demands we must meet.
Further, when God blesses our feeble efforts, we’re more easily able to recognize his grace and be thankful for it.
Larry Weeden is associate editor of Lay Leadership and has served his church as an elder, a member of the Christian education committee, and a teacher.
