Staying on the Job
I KNOW OF A MID-LIFE MINISTER who loves to fish. He not only enjoys fishing, he is a good fisherman, according to those who can evaluate the sport. He spends a significant amount of time reading about fishing and searching the Internet. He says he has finally learned, in middle age, to enjoy life, but several of his church leaders have said that he has finally learned how to avoid life. This pastor devotes so much time to his hobby that his ministry appears to be suffering. He, like others at mid-life, seems to have succumbed to the temptation of distraction—all in the name of "getting a life," or finding a hobby outside of the church.
After twenty-plus years in the local church, a pastor who finds the pace getting faster and the body growing more weary may wrestle with some tough questions: What do I do with the next half of my working life? Have the blessings outweighed the burdens? Do I still feel that inner fire that once drove me? If not, how do I recapture it?
It's tempting to try to escape the issues of mid-life rather than work through them. This temptation, of course, is by no means unique to the ministry; it is one of the crucial issues we face as we grow older. Although I have not done a scientific study, I am not sure career restlessness is any greater in the ministry than in other care-giving professions—or any profession, for that matter. All of us grow weary of the daily grind. There is a certain loss of energy and enthusiasm that comes at mid-life. Some pastors fight this loss by working harder, only to find that doing so does not relieve the pain; it only increases the misery, the desperation, and the loneliness.
Others leave the ministry completely, the most obvious way to escape, and find another way to make ...
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