Time is Pressure In Youth Ministry, Alternate Spiritual Signals

Time is limited. Your calling isn't.

Camp season leaves most youth pastors physically exhausted, emotionally stretched, and mentally staring at an already-full fall calendar. In this episode of the Youth Ministry Booster Podcast, Zac and Chad  begin with some hilarious camp memories before asking a much more important question:

Why do we always feel like we're running out of time?

This conversation isn't another productivity episode. We can't help you get more hours in the day. It cannot be done.

Instead, it's an honest look beneath the calendar to examine the emotional, mental, and spiritual realities that shape how we lead.

We do have practical insights about identifying your biggest time wasters, setting healthy constraints, reusing ministry systems instead of constantly reinventing them, and why technology alone can't solve the deeper issues of procrastination or overwhelm. 

More importantly, Zac and Chad explore what happens when ministry pressure begins affecting your relationships, your emotions, and your walk with Christ. They discuss fight-flight-freeze responses, protecting your family during busy seasons, inviting trusted friends into your struggles, and recovering the sacred nature of ministry instead of reducing it to a checklist. 

The challenge at the end is simple:

Don't just organize your tasks. Order your day around prayer.

Episode Highlights

• Transitioning from summer ministry into fall
• Identifying obvious and hidden time wasters
• Escaping perfectionism and unnecessary busywork
• Setting constraints that actually create freedom
• Why AI doesn't solve internal overwhelm
• Understanding ministry stress through fight, flight, and freeze
• Protecting your family from ministry spillover
• The importance of trusted friendships in ministry
• Building a prayer-first rhythm for leadership

Questions

1. What consistently steals the most time in your ministry?
2. Where do you tend to respond with fight, flight, or freeze when ministry pressure increases?
3. What ministry resource could you stop recreating every year?
4. How could prayer become the organizing rhythm of your workday instead of simply opening meetings or events?

Subscribe to Youth Ministry Booster for practical conversations that help youth pastors lead healthier ministries and become healthier leaders themselves.

Transcript

Back In The Garage

Zac Workun 0:06

Hey, we're back with another episode of the Youth Ministry Booster Podcast. We're finally back in the garage! Chad Higgins. Hey, buddy.

Chad Higgins 0:14

It is good to be back.

Zac Workun 0:16

I feel like we just left you here. What if we just had everybody convinced that you were just waiting here the whole time? I've been here the entire time. Um if you know anything about Chad, he never wants to be late. So he has been here for the last seven weeks all summer. Zach has been traveling. Zach has been vacationing. But Chad, Chad has been ready.

Speaker 0:34

Yeah, I have not left your garage. Uh since May. The house has been safe.

Speaker 1 0:40

Um your house sitting for eight weeks. Lots of DoorDash orders.

Speaker 3 0:46

Sorry about the Amazon boxes. I didn't know where you wanted to put them. Oh my gosh. Oh, but well, hey, welcome back. It's good to be back uh here at the bitter end of a long hot summer. Why is it so hot this summer? Um, what did we do to deserve such a hot summer? The Europeans say it's our air conditioning, but if that's

Summer Heat And Camp Survival

Speaker 3 1:05

true, why is it still hot here? It's just like a little gentle warm hug. It is just a just a sweaty embrace at 9 a.m. every day. It yeah. It's it is that strange thing of getting up early, going to the gym, trying to feel better about yourself, getting a good sweat on, and then coming home and being like, why is it sticky inside?

Speaker 1:26

Like I I tried to leave that behind me. I and I feel, you know, we're in Oklahoma, and so I'm sure that there are guys in Louisiana right now just going, You don't, you don't even know.

Speaker 3 1:36

They're on their third t-shirt today. They're like, How dare you?

unknown 1:40

How dare you?

Speaker 3 1:41

What is the Creole version of how dare you?

Speaker 2 1:44

Uh you know, who won't y'all y'all? Yeah, something like that.

Speaker 3 1:49

Sorry, Louisiana friends, we love you so much. We do love you a lot. I just feel like there's probably a really good, like, yeah, New Orleans saying about the heat.

Speaker 1:59

Lee, if you're out there, we do love you.

Speaker 3 2:01

Let us know. I will say this. Lee seems like a guy. Back us up. Um, you you know it's hot when you pack a like a sweat rag, a sweat towel, or whatever. That was my buddy Chris um back in the day going to youth camp. He's like, he's like, you know, you're a big man when you pack a sweat towel.

Speaker 4 2:17

Yeah.

Speaker 3 2:17

And just over the shoulder, just draped in the summer, just ready to go. That was uh that was Big Chris's thing. He just he just knew. He was like, he's like, We're about to play a lot of volleyball and basketball with these kids. Yeah. And I just, you know, you got a towel for showering and you got a towel for sweating, you just over the shoulder, ready to go. Just it's one more thing on the packing list. Uh put it on next camp's uh packing list.

Speaker 2:38

Have you ever have you ever been to camp with those guys that like, especially if there's like in the bunks that like over prepare for you know what I mean? Like they'll set up basically a wind tunnel in their like bunk bed, like fans on both sides.

Speaker 3 2:55

Hold on, hold on. Hold on, yeah. This this is we were with Jarvis and you experienced this. Explain, explain the wind tunnel because some folks may be like doing different like hotel dormitory, like give the full like wood bunk bed.

Speaker 3:08

You know you're an expert at like summer camp when you have perfected your like what are the required resources to achieve said wind tunnel in the bottom bunk? Dude, he set this thing up. So you know how most bunk beds are you've you know, you've got the above you, and then there's normally openings on either side of the a rickety metal or wooden frame with the half rail, yeah, yeah. Top and the bottom. And he, I mean, it was you know, he's got his egg crate set up on the bed. Yeah, we're we're layering for softness, and then we've got like blackout curtains on each other, enclosing for privacy, and then fans, front and bottom. Wait, front and back? Top and bottom? We're cross-current, yeah. It wasn't even like a wind tunnel because you know, you're normally like testing aerodynamics.

Speaker 3 4:01

All of the dynamics of dude, a sleeping youth master with the air breaking over like stomach and sternum.

Speaker 4:09

This this dude minister is not aerodynamic. Uh there's a lot of drag, right? Um, no, no.

Speaker 1 4:18

Just the Traeger diagram of how he cooks over meat. It's just this is the dispersion of the heat moving across the meat.

Speaker 3 4:26

The the solution, by the way, for more even cooked meat, if you're thinking about this for a late summer barbecue, is to put a pan of water because that carries the smoke and the steam. You're welcome. Okay.

Speaker 4:35

I don't know if he had a pan of water under the bed or not. It wouldn't surprise me though.

Speaker 3 4:40

It's just a cold, it's the cold ice cube tray.

Speaker 4:42

Yeah, no, man. It it was like basically, you know, that set up at the like science museum where the kids can hit the button and it's like, wow, there's a tornado. You know what I mean? Like, just yeah, perfect. Perfect. Kids could have been killing themselves out in the main lobby. You couldn't hear anything inside the wind tunnel.

Speaker 1 5:01

Oh, I don't even think about the noise too. Oh, yeah, dude. You're blocking everything out.

Speaker 5:05

You have no light because of the paneling. And then you've just got fans on top of you. So my gosh.

Speaker 3 5:12

It's like a little white noise chamber. He just goes in there and just retires, powers down. Yeah. Oh my gosh, dude. Okay.

Speaker 5:19

That's when you know you've perfected camp at that point. Like you're a student ministry veteran.

Speaker 2 5:25

Yeah.

Speaker 5:25

If you're showing up to camp with a sleeping setup, I don't even know. Yeah, setup's not even the right word.

Speaker 3 5:32

Like it's you've built something. You know what I mean? Like today's podcast episode brought to you by Bedjet. Bunk bedjet. As we're but jetting across the cold air in your system. Yeah. If you have a plug-in apparatus, oh yeah. If you have a plug-in cooling apparatus for your bunk bed.

Speaker 5:49

Oh, that was the other thing that he had, though. He did have a full like big power strip. Because he had multiple fans.

Speaker 3 5:57

C patrimonies. We gotta have a distro. He could be causing surges on the south end of dorm B.

Speaker 6:07

It's like that scene in uh what is it, uh Christmas Vacation where he like slams them together. Yeah.

The Summer To Fall Energy Gap

Speaker 6:17

Oh, so anyway, welcome back from camp. If you're planning for next year's camp, and it is not too soon.

Speaker 3 6:23

Yeah, that's www.bedjet.com. You can check it out. Brought to you. Use code YMD to save 10% on your bunk bed setup. Uh twins for wins. That's right. Yeah, twins for wins. Yeah, you and another youth pastor can win. Uh, totally kidding. But uh, yeah, it it is, yeah, there's a whole camp apparatus and then the whole post-camp feeling. Um, what's one of the things we want to talk about a little bit today? Is some of the feelings about looking down the long end of summer into fall. Like that, that is probably one of the hardest transitions in student ministry is moving from summer, undoubtedly a draining season, into fall, which is meant to be met with a high energy. Like, I think the the the differential between like how tired you feel by the end of July and how ready and excited you're supposed to feel by August 20 is is a lot.

Speaker 7:18

Sure.

Speaker 3 7:18

Uh, and a lot of that has to come to the terms of like when was I supposed to do all of it? And so I know for this season in Booster, we're talking a lot about time and just how there's this like a scarcity resource that is time. Like it's just no matter how big your church, how small your church, how many years in ministry, uh, how large your budget, how much staff you have, like we all have like a fixed amount of time. Like you can't hour hours to the day. I'll save that for the devotional content inside the network, but like you just can't add hours to the day. And so the way in which we feel about the things that need to get done, I think is a conversation that we got to have. And so we'll come back to this over the next few weeks of just kind of talking through it. But I wanted to pitch to you, Chad Higgins, like the feeling of not having enough time, I

Your Biggest Time Wasters

Speaker 3 8:05

think starts with identifying that like time could be spent, could have been spent better. So for our folks, what's your biggest time waster? I think let's let's let's go and enter the conversation honestly. Like, what's the thing that like when you look back at the end of the day, you're like, that's where that time went.

Speaker 8:22

Yeah, shoot, that's where it got spent. Um, so I'll I'll I'll give you two answers to that. One, the like one that we most of us have in just a true time waster. Yeah. Like, uh, I especially with just my phone, right? There are moments where you're just like you just get caught like scrolling on social media or those kind of things.

Speaker 3 8:45

What started as an email ended up five YouTube shorts deep.

Speaker 8:49

Whoa.

Speaker 3 8:49

And now you're watching now you're watching clips from SummerSlam 92. You're like, I don't know what happened. Here we are.

Speaker 8:58

I mean, just to watch Hogan turn heel again.

Speaker 3 9:01

I get like a listen bash of the beach, man.

Speaker 9:03

It's it it's American history. Um yeah, so like those kind of moments will always pop up, you know what I mean, and just time. Um and so if we're gonna be honest, like some days are worse than others, right? Like, and I think some of it too, like, and and I love this conversation because it's not just it it none of these are isolated in just like oh well, learn priority better or do this exercise because there really is this like mental aspect of this to where like if you're not in a good space, like mentally, or and I'll even talk about it on a spiritual sense as well. Like, you really can often find yourself wanting to go to like social media more often, right?

Speaker 3 9:55

When you're procrastinating from the work and you feel down about it, if you had a rough summer or a great summer, and you just like the high has you just feel crestfallen because it was like this was so good and being in this office stinks. Yeah, like the high of being the third night of camp and then expense reports Thursday in the office. Oh, dude, that's crushing to your morale, even if nothing's wrong, like nothing is wrong, it's just not as exciting as the other thing that you did two weeks ago.

Speaker 10:26

Um, my other one, though, that maybe this will be relatable with some is I can often waste time in overdoing things, you know what I mean? That like probably could have been done easier and more effective. Like to like really spend a lot of time on like formatting a document. You know what I mean? That like this PDF will be perfect, yeah, yeah. It's like, oh, I gotta get this header just right when it's really just like information that I'm trying to get to like my leaders, you know what I mean, and those kind of things that they're just looking for the information. They don't need like you know what I mean, all the little bells and whistles and those type of things. So I I could find myself doing those little things often that are just kind of time grabbers.

Speaker 4 11:20

Yeah.

Speaker 11:21

I I will say though that there it that feels like a little bit of a dance, yeah. Because I think in doing some of those type of things, you also begin to communicate like a level of like excellence or just professionalism in your ministry that communicates things. So I do think that there has to be some give and take in that.

Speaker 4 11:42

Yeah.

Speaker 11:43

Um, but I think knowing the season that you're in and those type of things, where you're at mentally, what all is on your plate to get done allows you to know like what's priority and what's not.

Constraints Beat Endless Tweaking

Speaker 3 11:55

Well, the line you used about you like you excuse yourself to give more time, like that's one of the things I see for a lot of folks is like I know this has to get done. So because it has to get done, I can give it as much time as I want and not feel bad. It's it's a little bit of the sermon problem where it's like, well, I know that like what I'm teaching matters. And so if I want to give it 25 hours of my week, is it should like it's the rationale of like, well, shouldn't it be? Because that would that'd be my answer. Is my my ministry time waster is always intellectual curiosity of like, well, I'm just gonna learn all these things about this thing because it's job related, probably, or it becomes this rationale of like, well, I'm learning about you know this for that, and so I'm justifying whatever, whatever, whatever I'm working on is justifiably important because I didn't give myself any constraints. Yes, and I think that is one of the things that like yes, make a nice PDF. You have 20 minutes, and like literally being like, oh, and so like I get teased. Uh uh, so our marketing team found out I have part of the season eight stuff came to pass because I have little timers on my desk and I give myself a certain amount of time for certain things. Like, yeah, I could put all day into editing something for a podcast, but what is the difference between two hours and four hours? What what what like and if you don't know, that's part of the learning curve of growing, but I think giving yourself constraints is a certain kind of self-discipline that is about the only good growth that we have when it comes to managing scarce resources.

Speaker 13:34

Well, it the saying is true, like um you're gonna take as much time as you're given for it, right? Yeah, um, and so I think that's a lot of times when the procrastination can really set in when it's just like, well, I've got all day to do this, and so then you wait until the very end to do it, yeah, and when you could have just knocked it out. Yeah.

Speaker 3 13:54

Um what is the line that procrastination is thinking about thinking about your work or whatever? And so like I knew I was gonna do it, so I thought about what I was gonna do when I started working on it.

Speaker 14:04

Here's another one that I just thought about that I waste time on. Okay. And and I've gotten better at this. Uh I, you know, over the last few years, you and I have been in new roles compared to where we were at the previous 15. Yeah. Um, but um I when when I'm really wasting time, I'm not creating elements that can be reused.

Speaker 3 14:30

Okay.

Speaker 14:31

Or I'm redoing something that I should have been. I've already done before. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what I mean?

Speaker 3 14:37

Especially when we're talking about every year's camp parent packet need to be brand new.

Speaker 14:42

Correct.

Speaker 3 14:42

Like, shouldn't most of it be? Should most of it be.

Speaker 14:46

It's pretty much the exact same, right? That welcome letter just needs to be revised, re-edited instead of creating a brand new one.

Speaker 3 14:53

If you're going to the same camp within the same couple weeks of each other every summer, it's it's probably the same, you know.

Speaker 14:58

Like, yeah. I think I think there's an element too of just and even just with technology that I I continue to see from my experience, even, I mean, and or even things like Google and search and those kind of things, but now AI to where when we have technology that we believe can save us time, I think what we're talking about in today's episode, actually those feelings don't go away.

Speaker 2 15:24

Okay.

Speaker 15:25

Because we now have things like AI that can like speed up some of these like kind of tasks. I don't think, and here's what I'm learning from even talking to people, it's not alleviating this feeling of like procrastination or I don't have enough time because I think that we're just kicking things down the road more, relying on things like AI to like solve our problem.

Speaker 4 15:50

Yeah.

Speaker 15:51

And that doesn't do anything for us like internally, yeah, of like worth and value and those kind of things. We just like fast forward a solution and we still have all of these feelings.

Speaker 3 16:01

Yeah, yeah.

Overwhelm Stuck And Emotional Relief

Speaker 3 16:02

Well, and I think that is, and we'll pick it up in a couple weeks, but the characterization that we would want to start with is how are you feeling about the time that you have. Because I think more than just identifying the work that needs to be done, how you're feeling by when you're both trying to do what needs to be done, but just generally, like there is such a headspace, mental state, flow, like whatever your favorite like tutorial, tip, trick, or blog writer has given you, there's something about how you feel before you approach the work you do, most likely in youth ministry when much of it goes unseen. And I think that is something that this this season, this year, we want to address because the tools to resolve the task have gotten more uh efficient or proficient. Like it is it is pretty easy between Google, Canva, pick your favorite AI tool, and a few other websites to generate newsletters, emails, parent packets, PDFs. But if we don't address how we feel about the work, then it is going to be just mind out and we're gonna be living at this lower, like bummed out, slowed down, procrastinated pace that puts us off what we're actually trying to do.

Speaker 17:25

When when you feel overwhelmed, right? And and I don't even know if that's the word that I want to use because so one of the things that I would offer to this episode is that each of us are gonna have different feelings when there's a amount of work to be done. And like you said, we don't have any more time, right? And so maybe we feel behind on that work, and so some of us may feel overwhelmed.

Speaker 4 17:48

Yeah.

Speaker 17:49

I would I would offer that word because that's often I think how I feel. Okay. But for you, Zach, when you feel that crunch, what what are the emotions that often just come for you?

Speaker 3 18:02

Uh the usually how I feel, so I like the overwhelm word, I feel stuck. Okay. And it usually is identifying, again, not what needs to get done. I usually have a task list of what I need to get done. It's finding my way into it by something that makes me feel relief. Because I often feel like in this ministry work is never done. If you've been a longtime listener, you know we talk a lot that like there's always more you could do. That's not the game. The game is not imagining all that you could do, it's imagining what needs to be done that's worth the most of the time that you have to give, whether that's two, twenty, or forty hours in a week. And so the stuckness or the overwhelmedness is I'm just looking for a foothold or an emotional relief from the like stuff that doesn't seem important. This is why I think for so many folks, they feel better after getting outside or having a relational moment or coffee or call with somebody because it feels like it got them out of their own spiral. Sure. Like I think for a lot of us, the feelings that we feel about how much we have to do or how it can't be done, or how we don't feel good enough to get it done, or the stuff that we've done isn't very good, typically has to come outside of ourselves. And that would be the thing that I would give is either literally getting outside of where you were, or finding someone outside yourself to help yourself. And we talked about this even just the last few days. Um, some of our friends that have been the most stuck, the most beneficial thing has been a friend coming alongside.

Speaker 19:47

I this is this is an assumption, okay.

Fight Flight Freeze And Spiritual Habits

Speaker 19:52

I think that there's something to this feeling that evokes threat for us.

Speaker 2 19:59

Okay.

Speaker 19:59

Um, and like, oh, if I don't get this done, am I gonna get fired? Yeah, are there gonna be parents mad? Is the ministry, you know what I mean, not gonna function as well, those kind of things. I think when we're faced with threat, we have the three responses. Yeah. You have fight, fight, or freeze. Yeah. What you were talking about, this like stuck feeling is probably a freeze, yeah, threat response.

Speaker 3 20:24

I know what I need to do. I just don't know. You don't know where to start. Or anything that I feel like I'm doing isn't gonna make a difference. Right.

Speaker 20:29

Yeah, and so you don't do anything.

Speaker 3 20:31

It feels insignificant.

Speaker 20:32

I think we've all been in that spot where you're just like, there's so much to do, and then it's just like, well, where do I start? Yeah, and then I'll find myself starting like nine different things and not finishing any of them. Okay. Um I I there are times for me that I think the fight response comes in, and the people around me probably get the butt end of that, of just like I get testy. Okay. You know, you call and I'm like, Well, what are you doing today, Zach? Sounds like you have a pretty easy day ahead of you.

Speaker 2 21:05

And I'm like, oh my gosh.

Speaker 3 21:07

Like, yeah, I do, man. Yeah, I I got a lot done yesterday. I don't punished for it. Right. I I didn't I didn't plan your five meetings today. I I I have my two and then I'm I'm done by two. I don't have to yell. Right. Like it's not my fault because you have stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 21:24

Uh no, but that if I'm gonna be real, that's that's where it can come out for me.

Speaker 3 21:28

Oh, I've I've sat in staff meetings. Dude, you don't have to agree with me. I've sat in staff meetings watching people seethe because whoever was running the meeting probably felt pretty good about their day and they felt pretty behind.

Speaker 2 21:40

And you're like this over with you better this this meeting better finish by the time that you said, or I'm walking, and it's like, okay.

Speaker 21:48

Yeah. And man, and and listener, to if if you haven't been tracking with this episode, that's where I want to just pause because in all of More than the quick help of like, well, do this task and write all these things down, and now you won't procrastinate. Analog over digital. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But even for us that are going, go outside for a moment, right? These are these are steps to a solution. But I think we all have to get to this place of realizing and asking ourselves the hard question of how does this affect me mentally and spiritually?

Speaker 2 22:30

Yeah.

Speaker 22:31

Um, to where then we're able to begin to address it and find solutions for ourselves, to go, okay, where do my bad habits come out in in all of these types of things when we're feeling this way?

Speaker 4 22:47

Yeah.

Speaker 22:48

Uh, because until we're able to address those kind of things, we are just going to jump from quick fix to quick fix and not even dig into and allow God to speak into this place of going, hey, when you feel overwhelmed, yeah, this spirit of anger that is not of me comes out. Yeah. Um, or this feeling of, oh, I'm just gonna run from it and go to the movies this afternoon. Yeah. You know what I mean? And pretend like it isn't happening and not real.

Speaker 4 23:21

Yeah.

Speaker 23:22

And then we just continue to push down the field. And I don't think in any of that we grow mentally and spiritually until we're ready to really address it, allow God to begin to shape our hearts and minds, remind us one, our value and our worth isn't tied up into this. Yeah. We can begin to see work and the things that we need to do as worship and not just work. Yeah. And I think that there's some health in that, but that takes some reflectiveness and willing to ask ourselves the question of even after a long, hard summer, am I mentally and spiritually ready to move into fall?

Speaker 2 24:03

Yeah.

Speaker 24:04

To begin to address these things, knowing that there is going to be a lot of work.

Speaker 3 24:09

Yeah.

Speaker 24:09

There is.

Speaker 3 24:10

Yeah. Um this did not surprise us. It shouldn't. Yeah. Year five, seven, fifteen, this does not surprise us. We know that the the summer into fall is not only a tough season, but a key transition. Right.

Speaker 24:23

And our families shouldn't take the brunt of that. Right. You know what I mean? Like, I think that I think it comes back to that always for us of going, yes, our ministries are important, but are our families taking a hit because of that? And I think that's where a lot of this can like come out. Um, you know, you and I have been busy this summer. Um, and I think that that's why these conversations, yes, in front of microphones, but behind the scenes are important. And it's something that I would encourage all of us, you know, whether that's through booster or or just some great friends, that you have, that you surround yourself with people that understand your context, that are able to just say, hey, how are you? Because I think in some of this that we're talking about, we have to be willing to be vulnerable and open enough to say, hey, I got a lot of things going on, but even more than that, man, I'm continuing to get angry or I'm continuing to hide from things, or uh, you know, I'm continuing to beat myself up, and the enemies tell me lies that like you're not good at this, when in reality, it's probably some things that we can help grow in uh instead of giving up.

Discipleship Planning And Prayer Life

Speaker 3 25:42

So we had a really great interview in our summer seminary series with our friend uh Dr. Jason Engel, and we talked about Christian maturity. And we talked about it a lot for students, but I would want to refresh that episode. We'll link below. Um, what does that mean for you? Like that's like he's become a professor and a friend that has really challenged, I think, some of the what the work of youth ministry is is to see maturing as part of that process, most notably for us as much the students. And so that we aren't just presenting the faith that we've formed previously to students, but understanding the ways in which we're hoping that they would mature. And I think how we understand the relationship between the days, the times, the moments of our lives matters. Uh, and when that shows up in our work, shows up in our family, it shows up first in ourselves, not just what we need to get done, like to not see time just as task-oriented. This is again, we talk about it in the network this this year, and the kairos and the Kronos, like the Kronos of like, I've got eight hours to get this done, but the kairos of like the fulfillment of the present moment that we're in, like this, this is this is the sacred work. Like in a world that is managing minutes, that we would find fullness and to seek the fullness in in the in the who we are in the moment, not just like what needs to get done. Like, if ministry is just a task list, you've missed this sacred and sweet calling that we've been called to and purpose for um to speak, I think, truth against some of these lies.

Speaker 27:19

Um, here's a question. So our Lifeway research team asked me to write an article not too long ago. I don't even know if it's going to be out by the time this episode airs. Um, but one of the the the overall article was about how do we how do we know that our programs are supporting discipleship? And I had to really thinking about that question. And one of the things that I wrote in that article was this that I um I talked about the importance of prayer and even the planning of our programs. And the comment that I made in that article was that one of the questions that I wished more ministers would ask of themselves and each other is um how is our own personal prayer life affecting and shaping our ministry and our programs? And I think that question's really important here. Because as I think about like what does scripture teach us, right? I'm immediately I believe it's Matthew 6, right? Of um, no, it's I apologize, but the this concept of when we're met with anxiousness or worry, we're called to a place of prayer.

Speaker 2 28:40

Yeah.

Speaker 28:41

Um and so my question for you in in the light of this episode and thinking about being anxious, where do you see prayer affecting and helping us as ministers in this feeling? What would be your wisdom or or even your hopefully experience?

Ordering Your Day Around Prayer

Speaker 3 29:06

Uh when it's the rhythm of our day, I mean, this is um for my liturgical friends, I mean, this is the monastic work of ordering your day around prayer. Um, that the alarms that are set on your phone are not for work, work, but for moments to interrupt with prayer.

Speaker 29:30

Yeah.

Speaker 3 29:31

Um, I think about for some of our friends that have asked us to pray for them at certain times of the day and how those alarms feel a little different than just, oh shoot, I have a Zoom call or whatever. Um we need that disruption. We need that disruption. We need to invite that disruption in so much so that it would frame our day. Um if it really is worth what we say it's worth, then it's worth enough to frame our day around. Um I think for a lot of us, the prayer that fills our programs is the same prayer that fills our lives, the transition between instead of the the anchor for. Um so maybe, maybe that's where we start this season is um how do we order our days around prayer? Uh, and maybe that would cut to the heart of how we feel about what needs to get done.

Speaker 30:23

I think that's such a better spot to start from than just simply trying to find some like business solution that we just hijack hijack and put ministry words to. Um highly efficient ministers. Right. Um Our world doesn't need more efficient practitioners, right? Like if if we're gonna lead people in spiritual matters, like we have to be led by spiritual things. Um and and I think marking our day and surrounding our day in prayer, I think, begins to change us. Yeah. Because we can't, like you said, we can't give us more days or more hours. Right. Um, but I do believe that God is wanting to change us.

Speaker 2 31:15

That's good.

Closing And Next Week Preview

Speaker 3 31:16

All right, we'll see you back next week as we talk about more things. Uh so make the time to spend a little bit with us.

Speaker 4 31:22

Uh snap.