Archive for the ‘Stress in Youth Ministry’ Category

Wow.

Mom decides that playing video games while sitting down just isn’t good enough. Her child deserves better.

So she takes the next logical step, installing a smokin’ awesome TV screen into the ceiling, right above the bed.

I’ll be the first to admit that this is the answer to many of my childhood dreams. But I’m glad my parents never spent this much money on me (rumor has it they had to reinforce the ceiling to make it happen) to try to make me happy. I probably would have never gotten out of bed.

From Engadet.com

My beautiful wife, Christa, read this to me the other day. I thought it was fascinating.

Public Performer’s Family Contract  (or “how wives and children see the husband that never has enough time for them”)

We understand that your public performance is more important than anyone else, or anything else in this family. We understand that you will be preoccupied with giving yourself to public performance. We understand that you need to hear our support, but not about our struggles. We understand that you cannot be there for us. We understand that we are essentially on our own. We understand that we are expected to totally deny all of our personal needs.

It’s far out, but this is the affect we can have on our families if we’re not careful. Are you a Public Performer?

Oh, and by the way, no wives were neglected in the making of this post ;)

(Paraphrased from Hurt People Hurt People by Sandra D. Wilson.)

I was surfing around reading about stress the other day and stumbled into a study from NASA–that’s right, the people that specialize in hurtling stuff into space and spend a whole lot of tax dollars doing it.

The study was interesting enough. It said that a daily routine is a primary source of stress in most people’s lives. Deadlines, traffic, last-minute sermon preperations (I added that last one)–they all take a toll on you, but because they are so common in life, you don’t notice their cumultive effect.

It’s like using a credit card but never paying it off. You use it to buy whatever you want and don’t think about the long-term effect. The same with stress–things happen every day that drain you, but you have to press through and just keep going. There’s never enough time to really deal with it, so you just move on.

Each month, you pay the minimum balance and don’t even think about all the interest building up. With stress, everybody has a way to cope or vent to get by–whether it’s sitting in front of the TV for hours on end or getting frustrated for no reason. This can go on for months and you can try to “managing” things, but when your account dries up, it all catches up with you and things can get much worse. This is burnout can happen and people ask, “Why do I even bother with all this youth ministry stuff?”

Being in youth ministry only intensifies the whole process, especially if you’re part time and hold down another job. With so many expectations from some many different people in the church, it’s unbelieveably easy to experience a little bit of stress every few minutes, every day. And it all builds up.

That’s why it’s so important to have a regular habit of slowing down to focus on the Lord. If He is truely our source of strength, like we always pray about and sing about, then we need to take that time to plug in and charge up. I like working out at the gym, but when I get out of the habit (which happens more often then I’d like), I can tell. The same happens in our relationship with God, but this time it affects every area of our lives.

“Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6-7, NLT).

Lord, I pray that we would all experience Your peace as we give You all our needs and stress and thank You for all the incredible things You have done. You’re worth everything we have to give, plus so much more. May Your name be lifted high in our lives and in our students. In Jesus name, amen.