Ministry Boundaries

A couple of weeks ago I started to feel strongly that I did not want to work over 60 hours a week for the ministry that Bethany and I are currently a part of, we both felt it was too much. Bethany and I began to pray and seek wise council about the situation. Part of this search was to send out a request for prayer, scripture, and advice from around a dozen people we respect and trust. The replies we recieved were wonderful! They were thoughtful, wise, gracious, contained scripture, and stories of how God had worked to teach them in the past. Our question was this: "In ministry what are some guidelines or principles that help you know when to say no? And how much is too much?"

Some of the wise advice we recieved contained the following lessons we are taking to heart:

1. Everytime you say "Yes" you are also saying "No" to something else. If you can name what that something else is, it may help make your decision more clear.

2. We want to be in a place to minister out of an overflow of God's love for us. It is possible for the life, energy, creativity, spirit, and passion to start to dry out of your ministry. When you feel this start to happen you need to go to God: His Spirit gives direction, He is the source of eternal life, His creativity is displayed in the magnificent world around us, and His passionate love led Jesus Christ to the cross. By making time for prayer, worship, reading God's word, and spending time with God's people we are able to accomplish this "filling up" or "feeding". Also the simple fact of working less allows Bethany and I to have more energy for the kids.

3. We are not responsible for or capable of saving every lost soul or feeding every hungry mouth because the task is too large for us finite beings. God has other instructions for His discipes besides preaching the gospel and caring for those in need. He desires for us to seek Him [Jeremiah 29:13], come before Him in prayer [Phil 4:6, Hebrews 5:7], love our spouses [Eph 5], have fellowship with others [1 Peter 2:17] and take Sabbath rest [Mark 6, Hebrews 4:9-10] to name a few. As we seek to maintain a healthy and well-rounded pursuit of God and His kingdom we can trust Christ to take care of His sheep. With this perspective Bethany and I can have the blessing of joining God in His work instead of the burden of accomplishing a task too large for us.

So now the moment you have been waiting for: Bethany and I have told GAP we will not work more than the 60 hours a week we originally agreed to at this point in time. This has been quite freeing and has already begun to breathe some new life into our ministry with GAP.

Since we made this decision another couple has left the ministry and it is becoming more clear that the ministry is understaffed. One of the staff discussions was about maintaining focus and Godly prespective when there is so much work to do. Bethany and I have recently been thinking of ways for the ministry to be more plugged into local churches and for couples to be invloved in small groups. One of our friends said, "Perhapes you are called to be a voice for boundaries, balance and health within GAP." God only knows what will happen here but I believe He is at work for the sake of this ministry.

Praises: God has been answering our prayers to show us how He is using us here in GAP! We have had two good respites in a row and two couples who said they wanted to keep us. Another praise is for our small group who has continued to be an amazing source of support, prayer, and fellowship. We have certainly felt the love of Christ through them!

Prayers: For spiritual health and vatality in the GAP staff. Also pray for Bethany and I as we begin to work at Splash 4 this week because it has been one of the most difficult houses for us to work in. We have had some miscommunications with the house parents and the kids have taken advantage of the situation to create disorder. Pray for good communication with the house parents and for structure to be established in the house.