Being in ministry

Being in part-time ministry has been both more and less than I expected this first month or so. It has been more, because it has frankly been more time and energy consuming than I thought it would be. Not that I thought it would be a walk in the park - I'm not sure what I actually expected it to be like. But so far, I feel like I spend at least the majority of 2-3 nights thinking or working on worship stuff, on top of any practices and staff meetings. It's not all-consuming, but I guess on top of working 4 days a week, it definitely can take it's toll. I'm not sure it will continue to be like this - I think I'm sort of trying to establish a foundation for myself - not necessarily for others or to assert some kind of presence with the ministry, but just for myself, to kind of get a grip on what I need to be doing and trying to tie up the loose ends around me.

The other way in which it has been more energy than I expected is just the feeling of being "responsible" for the ministry. Now, I know that obviously it's not me that drives it, but I guess just a lot of the stuff that comes along with leadership. For me, that mostly means thinking a lot about people, and kind of stressing over them. Wanting to put people in places to succeed, wanting to not burn people out, that sort of thing. I guess I should let people set their own boundaries instead of me trying to "protect" them or something, but I'm kind of a people pleaser, and that's one way it expresses itself.

Ministry has also been less than what I expected, in that my life doesn't feel that different. Like, I know it's at least a little bit different, but it feels relatively normal. I guess, in a way, I've been doing stuff like this my entire life, I'm just doing it a little bit more now, in line with kind of a natural progression of ministry. It's been a lot of fun, actually, and I still have a lot of energy for it. There are a lot of challenges ahead, that's for sure, but I don't feel too anxious about it.

Anyway, I'm really looking forward to the next few months (forget looking ahead for a year - there's so much that changes week-to-week, and so much that doesn't change at the same time. Who can plan far into the future?). I think that God is doing a lot in people at BayLight right now - how will we respond?