1. Do you often feel the pressure to make it appear on the outside that you are doing a lot?
2. Do you find yourself losing track of time and getting lost on your computer?
3. Do you spend more time communicating with people via texting, email and social networks like facebook, than you do talking directly with them?
4. Do you plan your calendar more out of how it looks than by the impact you will make?
5. When people ask you what you have been up to lately, do you have a hard time explaining it?
Your answers to these questions might indicate falling into what I am calling the “New Busy”. It’s our being busy with minor things and not making sure we are really connecting with people at a depth level. It’s the kind of busy that doesn’t have time to sit down with someone and ask how they are doing. It’s a busy that robs you of silent prayer time, of going to spiritual direction and of fooling yourself that you are so busy that no one understands.
I have talked to a lot of youth leaders and pastors this summer and I have grown keenly aware of a trend or direction in ministry. At a youth conference last weekend after I had complimented his choice for youth minister, a pastor of a parish attending shared a concern that his youth minister was spending a lot of time with teens at camps and conferences this summer. The pastor went on to tell me how the youth minister needed to realize that he needed to be careful not to let things like email and administrative aspects fail or to let the perception of the other parish staff seem like he wasn’t working. It immediately made me aware that even though the youth minister was really doing a great job in relational ministry (what we pray every youth leader will be doing a great job with) he was still being primarily or at least equally evaluated for his administrative skills or worse yet how it appeared to other staffers? It made me think of how our system of ministry can fail or be at odds with the one of the primary ministry postures of spending time with teens, not to mention spending time in prayer. It made me wonder if there is a “New Busy” that is zapping all the energy out of well intentioned youth leaders?
So what do you think – has the instant communication treadmill, administrative avalanche and need to make it look like you are working a 9 to 5 ministry job put you in a “new busy”? Has the pressure to appear busy kept you from your primary outreach to teens. Have we as youth leaders allowed the “New Busy” to excuse our lack of Evangelization to new teens? What are the areas that you can eliminate from your daily to do list and replace them with the things that will truly impact the lives of those we serve? What other ways is the “New Busy” impacting you and your ministry?
New Blog Posted: The New Busy – Is it Impacting Your Ministry? http://bit.ly/co5sje
RT @lt_randyraus – New Blog Posted: The New Busy – Is it Impacting Your Ministry? http://bit.ly/co5sje
RT @lt_randyraus: New Blog Posted: The New Busy – Is it Impacting Your Ministry? http://bit.ly/co5sje
RT @lt_randyraus: New Blog Posted: The New Busy – Is it Impacting Your Ministry? http://bit.ly/co5sje
RT @LifeTeen_CYM: The New Busy – Is it Impacting Your Ministry? http://bit.ly/co5sje
RT @LifeTeen_CYM: The New Busy – Is it Impacting Your Ministry? http://bit.ly/co5sje
RT @LifeTeen_CYM: The New Busy – Is it Impacting Your Ministry? http://bit.ly/co5sje
The New Busy – Is it Impacting Your Ministry …: I have talked to a lot of youth leaders and pastors this summer … http://bit.ly/c9iHDO
I LOVE this article! I just finised my first year in full-time paid youth ministry, and I certainly felt the pressure of the “staffers opinions” looming overhead. There were many small remarks made about what my “actual” hours were from staff members and even some parishioners who said, “surely this isn’t a full time job!” Oh, if only they knew! And, these things made me sit behind my desk for a couple of months worried that if they didn’t see me here they would think they had hired a slacker…the wrong girl. Blessedly, I realized, after many hours in front of the Blessed Sacrament, that it doesn’t matter what others see in this mnistry. I KNOW with all of my heart, mind and soul that it all counts in the relational aspect of ministry. Yes, there are administrative tasks that need to be done, but they can’t supersede the reality of ministry…I have to meet the teens where they are. So, if this means sending out an e-mail to families one hour later because I wanted to hang out with my kikds at Christian Club during their lunch break, than so be it!
In a society that is so centered on what you can prove to others you are doing or have done by a piece of paper, I can deifnitely udnerstand the pressure mounting on youth ministers who spend “too much” time with the high schoolers and not so much time at his/her desk. But, there is a point where we have to get past this “new busy” and just be present with our youth. Look around you…the teens come to us because everyone else is “too busy” for them. How can we not accept the challenge to sit with them, be still and let God be God. Everything else will get done when it needs to get done!!
This of course is just my two cents…and as a youth minister that’s more than my bank account can say!
I LOVE this article! I just finised my first year in full-time paid youth ministry, and I certainly felt the pressure of the “staffers opinions” looming overhead. There were many small remarks made about what my “actual” hours were from staff members and even some parishioners who said, “surely this isn’t a full time job!” Oh, if only they knew! And, these things made me sit behind my desk for a couple of months worried that if they didn’t see me here they would think they had hired a slacker…the wrong girl. Blessedly, I realized, after many hours in front of the Blessed Sacrament, that it doesn’t matter what others see in this mnistry. I KNOW with all of my heart, mind and soul that it all counts in the relational aspect of ministry. Yes, there are administrative tasks that need to be done, but they can’t supersede the reality of ministry…I have to meet the teens where they are. So, if this means sending out an e-mail to families one hour later because I wanted to hang out with my kikds at Christian Club during their lunch break, than so be it!
In a society that is so centered on what you can prove to others you are doing or have done by a piece of paper, I can deifnitely udnerstand the pressure mounting on youth ministers who spend “too much” time with the high schoolers and not so much time at his/her desk. But, there is a point where we have to get past this “new busy” and just be present with our youth. Look around you…the teens come to us because everyone else is “too busy” for them. How can we not accept the challenge to sit with them, be still and let God be God. Everything else will get done when it needs to get done!!
This of course is just my two cents…and as a youth minister that’s more than my bank account can say!
Randy,You make some good points here and ask good questions. Thanks! God be with you in your ministry and with your family.
William – thanks for reading and God Bless!
I love this reflection as it touches my heart. Thanks for bringing up a challenging issue.
RT @LifeTeen_CYM: The New Busy – Is it Impacting Your Ministry? http://bit.ly/co5sje