refresh

I had the privilege of sitting down with 20 or so college ministers last week. It was SO sweet! This was right in the middle of my last week of class for the semester. I had so many papers, books, and finals to complete. I had been pullin’ all-nighters like they were going out of style! I wonder how many of the ministers were as sleep deprived as I was. My guess was that I was not alone. In fact, I think at one point we raised our hands to determine how many of us were seminary students and I think close to half of us were…maybe I’m wrong. I also know that a lot of them had families and some of us did not. Here is what I am getting at: we college ministers get busy!!! I mean REAL busy! Some of us are juggling seminary, another job to pay for seminary, family, AND college ministry (which is always full time, regardless of what your title or pay is). All of this can start to wear on a human! I mean, we are all totally super-heroes for ministering to college students (I’m a little biased), but we are STILL humans, and humans need rest. Our field is MUCH to important and there are WAY too few of us to be getting burned out! We NEED to be intentional about refreshing ourselves and pulling away from time to time.

Now, what I am about to recommend is just for us single (without families) college ministers. And this may not be for everybody, as we are all different, but this at least the minimum that I would recommend.

1. To start, I would suggest taking some time off during the day. Watch some Hulu, or go hit up some disc golf!

2. I would argue that we single college ministers should at least shoot for taking off one day out of the week. This seems like a given, but a lot of us don’t have Sundays off!

3. I would also argue that we should at least take a week off every semester, and maybe a few weeks in the summer (unless your campus in on the quarter system… then maybe take a week off every quarter). If you are a campus-based minister, your summers can be busy too, but if you have more opportunity for rest, then take it! Go backpacking or something!

4. For college ministry lifers (those that are called to devote their life to this), I would even recommend taking an entire year off. Go hit the Appalachian trail! (I like to backpack if you didn’t notice!) Now I know the sabbatical year seems a little wild, but don’t dismiss the idea. It could be critical someday!

As always, circumstances and seasons change. You may need to take off way more. And all of this is out the window with a family! I don’t think there is any hard and fast rule for this, but be a good student of YOURSELF! If you feel like you may need a break, then take it. If you feel your flame for college ministry start to waver a little from exhaustion, then by all means, rest! This whole subject deserves further study.

I’m writing all of this as a fairly young, single church-based college minister. I haven’t been in this for very long, so my outlook on all of this might change. But I know this much: sometimes the best thing we can do for our students and our ministry is to take a break. So be intentional about taking some time off. Be a good student of yourself! Allow God to fan your flame for college ministry higher, and don’t be afraid to take some time to refresh.

Any thoughts?

Tags: college minister, college minister necessities, college ministry

This entry was posted on December 17, 2009 at December 17, 2009 and is filed under college minister necessities. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.