Recently, I wrote a post called We Are All Pastors, and was discussing this topic with my co-worker and friend Rhett Smith. He brought up an interesting point in his response to the post, and something I think is worth evaluating (or re-evaluating). He said:

I wonder if the expectations that pastors have upon lay leadership, congregants, volunteers, etc. is actually quite skewed. We challenge people to commit and step up, not taking into consideration the demands of their daily life, when those of us in full-time ministry have the luxury to make that our job, have flexible schedules, etc.

Many of us in youth ministry are probably dealing with over-committed and over-stressed students who have over-committed and over-stressed parents. In thinking about our context in particular, we have kids who go to school all week, hours of homework every night, and have parents that drive all over the city to take them to their different teams and recitals. Then the weekend comes and Saturday is an excuse to schedule more “make up” time to catch up on the time lost during the week. Because they have no time during the week or are not available, we respond by scheduling stuff on Sunday at church because that is the best time for us to get things accomplished pertaining to church. The same pattern is followed with the volunteers working with students. The question becomes: Are we contributing to or relieving the stress placed on the people of the church? How would our ministries look if we “scaled back”? Do we, as leaders in the church, even have that luxury?

Dr. Archibald Hart at Fuller Theological Seminary has done some great work regarding stress and its affects on people today. In his book Adrenaline and Stress, he talks about the toll our body, mind, and soul takes in our “hurried” culture. He says that many people suffer from “Hurried Sickness” in which people live in a constant state of “internal state of emergency”. David Elkhind in his book The Hurried Child defines stress as:

Any unusual demand for adaptation that forces us to call upon our energy reserves over and above that which we ordinarily expend and replenish in the course of a twenty-four-hour period. (The Hurried Child, p. 166)

The stress is felt by everyone: Students, parents, volunteers, and even pastors. Pastors feel the stress of expectations placed on them to provide great programs for the people in their congregation. If the needs of the congregation are not met, then the people (and their wallets and calendars) leave with them. The response is to get help running these programs to meet the needs of the congregation. The help comes from people within the “stressed out” congregation leading to a vicious cycle in which the “good news” becomes the casualty. It seems that the culture of stress has created unrealistic expectations on both pastors and congregants alike. How did we get here? Better yet, how can we break this cycle?