One of my observations regarding pastors across the years is that as a group they often don't take very good care of themselves. Too many pastors lack good self-care meaning physical, mental, social and spiritual health. I've talked to many who pride themselves in the fact they don't take all their vacation or their days off. As a result, many live in a perpetual state of mental, spiritual and physical fatigue.
Recently I read a blog by Dr. Alistair Brown, president of Northern Seminary, in which he wrote, "We owe it to those we are called to serve to do good self-care so we can do well the job to which we have been called." I must confess that the notion of doing good self-care as being for others and for the sake of our calling, was a new one for me. Like most I thought of self-care as something we do for ourselves. If you are wired like me, this notion takes the matter of self-care to a new level. It is not a selfish act but an act of stewardship of our lives and the ministry to which we have been called.
Brown shares the story of Robert Murray M'Cheyne, a noted Scottish preacher greatly used by God in a revival in the early 1840s. But he became exhausted and very sick. As he lay dying, he is quoted as saying God had given him a message to deliver and a horse with which to deliver it, but alas he had killed the horse (his own body) so he could no longer deliver the message. He was just 29.
We who know we have a calling from God so easily allow our lives to get out of balance by working too much, exercising too little, eating the wrong things, and in general allowing too little time for self and family. I have asked many pastors this question: "Are you living out your calling or your drivenness?" Work for God is more like a marathon than it is a sprint. We owe it to others to be fit for the work we have been called to do.
Randy Spence, Director of Ministries
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