Tomorrow I leave on vacation. Which, of course, means that today I am running to and fro trying to prepare to be gone. Does it seem strange to anyone else that going on vacation is so stressful? You have to get all your clothes cleaned, pack your bags, spend the day figuring out exactly what you have forgotten to pack, cleaning the house for the house/Maddie-sitter, and on and on. The payoff though is certainly worth the flurry of activity.
I am headed out to Hawaii – going to Oahu to be exact. Some of my really good friends invited me to come out and spend a week with their family who is vacationing this month out there. I have never been to the islands before, so this is very exciting for me. I am ready to truly shut down and simply relax. I am picturing myself as a small puddle on a perfect beach absorbing ridiculous amounts of sun. One of the things I have learned to be very good at these last four years is vacationing. I will turn my phone off, refuse to check email, and trust that I am not indispensable to the life of the church. I learned this from one of my early mentors, Rev. Frank Wolfe. Pastor Frank was my boss when I was doing youth ministry in Pflugerville. He taught me that our work is always life and death. There would always be something going on at the church that demanded our attention – whether we were there or not. When you are literally in a life-and-death business, there is no such thing as a good time to be gone. Yet, renewal is absolutely critical for longevity in ministry. The cost of sacrificing personal health for the immediate fires that ignite could well be burning yourself out long before your time.
This trip is a little gift to myself for having endured a decade of work in the Methodist Ordination process. I’ll come back to Texas just in time to pack a different bag and head down to Corpus Christi for Annual Conference where I am set to be ordained.
I will try to do some posts while I am gone – I know my folks will appreciate some pictures, but I can’t promise anything. Aloha, yall!
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
- Ryan Barnett
- I am the worship pastor at University United Methodist Church. God has given me work and a life that is beyond my ability to even appreciate most days. I am living my dreams every day. (Even the really hard ones.)
to the nations
Posts
3 comments:
have a fun and safe trip! we can't wait to see you in corpus! love, lacey
1. You literally preached the HELL out of that passage yesterday. (How many times can you really say that to your pastor?) I mean it. Satan's minions could not have possibly survived in that room. I was "amening" as loudly as I thought my neighbors on the row would abide, but if I'd have had my way I woulda stood up and clapped. Seriously.
2. You are right. You MUST give yourself time to recharge. When I was growing up my minister-dad was at the beck and call of the church, but there was no cell phone, so he could actually escape. Kudos to you for turning it off and giving yourself a well-deserved break.
3. Highlights? ;-)
Have a safe, restful trip. Thanks for your leadership and your ministry. We are so glad God brought us to UUMC!
hey man, congrats on ordination! i can remember hearing you preach at Parker Lane UMC on Youth Sunday in the summer of 1998. We've come a long way baby.
Post a Comment