- I felt like I was skimming my most important tasks as the senior pastor in an attempt to get to everything else that was screaming for my attention.
- I felt so tired when I got home that I wanted to go to bed at 8.30 every night. Sometimes I did.
- I easily began to do mind-numbing stuff like check Twitter every hour.
- When I went home all I seemed to talk about were the problems at church.
- What I’ve always enjoyed doing (looking and dreaming ahead about new ministry ventures) I now had little internal drive and motivation to do.
- My daily devotions suffered.
- I felt achy all the time.
- I felt anger floating just beneath the surface ready to quickly surface when faced with another stress.
If you hear that “great sucking sound” in your ministry, I suggest you take inventory as I did as a first step in gaining a healthy balance in ministry.
What have been indicators of that “great sucking sound” in your ministry?
This article on those things that suck the life out of us originally appeared here, and is used by permission.