Practicing Spiritual Disciplines in Ministry

I came to ministry a little under two years ago after working for 25 years in a secular job, so I am still relatively new at being a full-time worship pastor. Most people (including me until about 20 months ago) might think that as a full-time minister, we have an abundance of time to pray, study, meditate, and journal about scripture. While that may be true for some in ministry, my guess is that it is not true for the vast majority of those in ministry.

“How can that possibly be?” you ask. “You are a minister. Isn’t that kind of your job?” you say. Maybe they will also ask (only half jokingly), “Wait, you only work on Sundays, right?”, as if to suggest that the other 6 days of the week are devoid of any other activities. I understand their confusion. You see, I used to be one of those who did not fully appreciate the day-to-day responsibilities and activities of those who work in ministry. I have to admit that there were days (in my prior “secular” life) when I would almost envy those who were on my church staff. Part of my envy was sort of noble: I thought it would be great to get to dedicate your career to serving God full time. However, part of my envy was not so noble: I would think about how nice it would be not to have “all the pressure” associated with a “real world” job and how relaxing it must be to have time to spend with your family, to not have to take your work home, and to be able to spend all kinds of time studying scripture.

After transitioning to full-time ministry, I quickly realized just how full a minister’s schedule can be. Let me say clearly for the record here that I absolutely love working in ministry. I have the privilege and blessing to be able to serve my home church, where I have attended for 25 years, as minister of music. And, while I do get to focus on the things of God while I am doing things like planning worship services, preparing for concerts or even listening to new music, that is a far cry from what I would call practicing spiritual discipline.

We recently touched on this subject during the 2018 Winter Term of Spiritual Formation. The general consensus, as I percieved it, was that practicing personal spiritual discipline is a challenge for those working in ministry. Why? The answers could be numerous, but there may be some general concepts we can identify:

1. We may, consciously or subconsciously think that doing ministry work is, in itself, a personal “devotional time.” In my own humble, and “new minister” opinion, this is not true. While doing ministry work definitely is God’s work and can provide joy and blessing, it is simply not the same as taking time to study scripture and really think about what God may be trying to teach you.
2. We may feel that we simply have too many things to do each day to “stop down” for a devotional. I confess that I have fallen into this trap and have told myself “I will say a quick prayer for guidance now so I can get this done” or “I will get this project done first and then have my quiet time.” More often that not, however, I never get to that quiet time because inevitably there is another “project” to do.

The truth is, while it is certainly important to take our ministry jobs seriously and to do them to the best of our abilities, we too can fall prey to getting our priorities out of order. Just as we encourage our church members to spend time in God’s word and in prayer each day, we as ministers must make that a non-negotiable part of our daily routine. I have determined to create a daily routine of taking time at the beginning of each day to use one or two devotional guides to help me move into a time of reading scripture, followed by a time of prayer.

My final thought on this is that, as ministers, it is absolutely critical to set aside time for personal devotion, scripture reading and prayer. I am “preaching” to myself here as much as anyone. Yes, we are doing God’s work, but isn’t that even more of an incentive to commit time each day to seek God’s perfect will for both our lives and our ministry work? I think of it like this: As a minister, my ultimate “boss” is God. So, shouldn’t I first seek His will and ask for His divine direction? I am not saying that God audibly speaks to me (although He certainly can if He chooses to), but I can say that when I do take time to study, medidate and pray I have seen God’s hand at work, not only in allowing me to complete my tasks, but to do them in a joyful, peaceful and confident way. So, I encourage you to join me in making a commitment to make time and take time each day to have communion with our Heavenly Father.