Tag Archive: overwhelmed

Surviving the Unexpected Time Consumers

It’s happened to you. You had meetings planned, objectives to complete, and even a few “I hope to get to” projects in your head. You had scheduled them neatly on your calendar.

Then it happens.

Something outside your control enters your life, and messes with your best intentions. Your day is now subject to a sky-is-falling mentality.

There is hope when navigating around these sky falling occurrences

Whether it’s a root canal, a funeral you must preach, your kid getting expelled, or a staff member who makes a really bad choice, we’re all faced with sky-falling, day-killing, time-eating, occurrences.

But those who steward their time well can encounter these moments and still manage them because they’ve set sky-falling mitigations in place. Such as…

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Why Ministers Don't Pray Well

buckets

Photo courtesy of iStockphoto®

The church I attended in college had a 24/7 prayer ministry. Hourly, four volunteers crammed into a small room with four cubicles and were available by phone to pray with anyone who called in.

I felt I should be a part of this. The only consistent time on a weekly basis for my one-hour slot was Thursday at 7:00 a.m. While this doesn’t sound terribly early now, it was to a college student.

Many times, I remember flying out of my chair when the phone in my cubicle would ring. While I was supposed to be praying though a list of needs, I would doze off and the sound of a phone four inches from your ear is quite startling. I could sleep during “prayer time” without causing much suspicion, but I could never effectively cover springing out of my chair to my “prayer partners” in the room.

At that life-stage, I was overwhelmed by a need for sleep. Now as a minister, I’m overwhelmed with the amount of matters to pray for on a consistent basis.

This feeling isn’t exclusive to ministers. No one can pray for everything that deserves attention. But a minister’s role has some unique pressures to pray comprehensively and well (my working definition of well: in the moment; not haphazardly; pleasing to God).

When I’ve become overwhelmed with prayer needs, I sometimes don’t pray at all. Or if I do, it lacks focus. In my frustration of feeling inadequate, a worse thing happens. Not only am I not interceding for others, but I miss my time in conversation with God altogether.

Recently I came up with a way to order my prayer life so I’d avoid being overwhelmed. My prayer life changes in seasons of my life, but this is serving my prayer life well now. I pray in buckets.

For each day of the week, I’ve drawn a bucket in my journal. In pencil, I write in each bucket some areas of intercession. I spread out the major areas of intercession into one of the seven buckets:

•             My wife and each of my children have a day.

•             Each of the ministry departments I help to oversee have a day. For each department, I pray for the staff in that department and unique items they may be dealing with.

•             Each day has a different pastor that’s important to me.

•             Ultimately, each day’s bucket has 4-6 topics (aforementioned groups, extended family members, those with illness, job loss, specific people I know who need Christ).

My bucket-praying assumes a few things:

1.            I’m confessing and expressing gratefulness to God as a part of every day’s prayer time.

2.            I’m not limited by buckets. I must remain obedient to whatever the Spirit brings to my mind or crisis that are time specific and not listed in a bucket.

3.            I’m engaging “whisper” prayer moments throughout the day when prompted.

If you’re overwhelmed in prayer, whether bucket-praying or not, I encourage you to find some solution to effective and consistent prayer.

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